Conceptual Art Approach
- Lauramarie Pepsin
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
AI Overview
Art in that all the pictures are like almost exactly the same but the artist thinks they're uniquely different.
The phenomenon you are describing—where a series of paintings appears almost identical to the viewer, but the artist argues they are distinct, unique works—is a conceptual art approach often exploring themes of obsession, repetition, perception, and the "hand-made" versus the mass-produced. [1, 2, 3, 4]conceptual art, minimalism, or pop art exhibitions where repetition is used to explore themes of identity, production, and perception. While the viewer sees near-identical items, the artist often views them as distinct, whether through microscopic differences, the passage of time during creation, or the psychological intent behind them. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Based on artistic concepts, this likely refers to:
[Roni Horn's "You are the Weather" or similar series: Roni Horn is known for taking hundreds of photographs of the same subject (e.g., a person in a hot spring) with microscopic, nearly imperceptible changes in expression or light. While they look the same at a glance, the artistic intent is to focus on the passage of time and tiny, emotional, or environmental differences.
[Robert Rauschenberg's Factum I and Factum II (1957): Rauschenberg created two nearly identical abstract paintings to challenge the abstract expressionist idea that every artist's brushstroke is unique and emotional. He proved they were not, by replicating them.
[On Kawara's "Today" Series: He painted the date on a solid background, over and over, for decades. While they seem identical in format, he viewed each day as unique.
[Andy Warhol's Silk Screens: Though Warhol was highlighting mass production, he often viewed his varied reproductions of Marilyn Monroe or soup cans as distinct, exploring the "subtle differences" in the printing process rather than the subject matter. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Yayoi Kusama — Infinity Nets: These paintings often look identical at a quick glance, but as the artist has stated, each work is the result of a meditative, repetitive, and unique process of creation, with the slight variations of her hand defining them as individual artworks rather than identical copies. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Allan McCollum — The Surrogate Paintings (1970s–1980s): McCollum created thousands of small, identical-looking paintings. While they appeared to be mass-produced, he insisted on creating them individually, often using different materials to subtly distinguish them. This challenged the concepts of originality and value.
This kind of art often challenges the viewer to slow down and notice subtle differences in color, brushwork, or texture that make each piece unique to the creator, even if the overall impression is one of exact replication. [1, 2, 3]
Key Concepts in this Type of Display:
Repetition: Highlighting the monotony of production.
Perceptual Shift: Forcing the viewer to look closer to find differences.
Obsession: Demonstrating the artist's compulsion to capture the same subject repeatedly. [1, 2]
Why artists do this:
Experimentation: Exploring the same motif with subtle changes in technique or material.
Control/Devotion: Repetition represents a deep, almost obsessive engagement with a specific theme, rather than a lack of creativity.
Critique: Challenging the art world's valuation of "originality" and "uniqueness". [1, 2, 3, 4]
The phenomenon is a central topic in the 2022 National Gallery of Art exhibition The Double: Identity and Difference in Art Since 1900, which explored why artists use double or repeated forms to make viewers look closer. [1]
