Conceptual art is different from traditional aesthetic centralism, which is the essence of classical art and formalism art. Classical art thinks that art should express harmony, elegance and ideal beauty. Western modern art thinks that the core of artistic expression is ugliness and grotesque, and it seems that ugly images can be used to confront the reality of alienation. The attitude of contemporary conceptual art is neutral, and art is neither beautiful nor ugly. Beauty and ugliness have no natural fixed relationship with art. Conceptual art also does not pay attention to the expression of personal style. In terms of cultural form, conceptual art should belong to the post-modern category. It just forms an idea and expresses a feeling through the combination of different materials in life. Of course, thoughts should be presented in a way different from daily language, so entering the artistic language state reflects different endings and a process of "defamiliarization". Therefore, art is different from philosophy and other forms of cultural expression. In China, the influence of conceptual art since 1990s is not only reflected in painting, but also in installation, behavior, video and other comprehensive art forms. Conceptual art liberates art from traditional "easel" painting, rejects the modeling of traditional art, breaks the boundary between art and non-art, and expands the space of artistic expression. The installation should be said to be the third way, which is the same as the plane way of painting and the three-dimensional sculpture way. The difference is that the first two are that artists use various artistic materials to shape their bodies, while the installation mainly uses the assembly of ready-made products to express their ideas and reflect the artist's personal feelings. The artistic entity has completely disappeared and transferred to the "understanding" of art. Conceptual art not only cancels the image, color and structure of plastic arts, but also cancels painting and sculpture itself. It uses a variety of different media and forms to express, emphasizing the author's thoughts and concepts behind artistic works. Therefore, western scholars define conceptual art as "art after philosophy". Arthur Danto, an American scholar, believes that "with the arrival of philosophy in the art age, vision gradually dissipates" and "because the existence of art does not have to be the object of viewing". When art is invisible, art will inevitably come to an end, and art will end in ideas and philosophy. In addition, the concept art emphasizes the participation of the audience. Concept artists believe that the concept conveyed in their works is a successful art only when it reaches the hearts of the audience, and the concept formed only after the audience participates is a complete concept. In a sense, the creator is the organizer of the audience's participation.

Second, the critical function of conceptual art

The critical function of conceptual art first includes the criticism of real life, history and morality. The purpose of conceptual art creation is not only to deconstruct games and frolic, but also different from the western formalism that "art is always independent of life" and "art only shows itself", and the "heteronomy" of art is excluded through the "self-discipline" of art. Conceptual artists always adhere to the concept of "life is art", moving their works towards life and entering the audience. As far as the relationship between art and life is concerned, conceptual art and traditional art are compatible. However, conceptual art belongs to the category of post-modern art after all. It has experienced the baptism of deconstruction and post-modernism, and its critical methods and purposes have shown differences from traditional art. Conceptual art does not show the grand narrative and profound critical function of traditional art, but combines western pop art and installation art with popular cultural symbols that people are familiar with, resulting in a brand-new concept or visual impact. Wang Jinsong's photographic work "100 Demolition Map" expresses his feelings by shooting various characters left in the process of demolition in many cities. "Demolition" is accompanied by hope, and "demolition" is accompanied by destruction and even violence. In the artist's works, the circled word "demolition" is an unreasonable word. Wang Qingsong's digital concept photography "Can I cooperate with you?" Is to use the composition of China's ancient painting "Bujitu", the emperor was replaced by a foreigner, and the canopy in the hand of the lady next to it became a billboard for Coca-Cola and McDonald's. In the original picture in front of the team, there are several smaller people who are photographers. This work greatly criticizes the social atmosphere of western fashion today, and satirizes the dominant position in tradition. The critical way embodied in the works obviously has a satirical post-modern comedy mentality. This kind of criticism does not make people feel "painful", but relaxes after laughing. Is Wang Guangyi's "great criticism" of juxtaposing the image of the Cultural Revolution with the popular commodity image in contemporary society really criticizing the commodity hegemony of transnational capitalism? Or is this just a pure joke? Wang Guangyi seems to give the audience an ambiguous answer.

The critical function of conceptual art is also reflected in the reflection on the traditional way of thinking and thinking. Conceptual art holds that words, paintings, installations, images, behaviors and other media are meaningless. What really matters is the existence of thinking itself. The ideas and concepts at a moment in the brain are art in themselves, and they don't have to be expressed through the media. Saul Leuther, an American master of conceptual art, said in a short comment on conceptual art: "In conceptual art, concept or concept is the most important aspect of a work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all plans and decisions have been completed in advance, and its implementation is only a perfunctory work. The concept has become a machine for creating art. " This idea is somewhat similar to Croce's view of art, but the difference is that Croce believes that art exists in the mind, while conceptual artists believe that art exists in the mind. It doesn't matter whether it is necessary to express the images or concepts in your mind through the media. The artist Wang Qiang's work "Two Meaningless Blanks", he placed two quadrangles in the water, one is a fixed diagonal wooden frame, and the other is a diagonal shape with the same size, surrounded by ropes. The former is firm and the latter is soft. This seems to give people a hint that the existence of things we feel depends on the texture of their background. As Russell, a famous American art historian, said, "Art exists not only in the object we understand, but also in the way we know it". Look at Wang Luyan's installation work "Modified Bicycle". The author modified the transmission relationship between the chain and flywheel of ordinary bicycle. When a person rides on it and pushes forward, it goes backwards, giving every practitioner and audience an inspiration: "If you want to go forward, you should go backwards" or "run counter to it". Conceptual artists seem to teach us that tradition is to look at the world with a "poetic" eye, but now we look at the world with a "conceptual" eye. This world is not a manifestation of material form, and it has no meaning. It needs to be constantly explored and improved in the actual teaching and personnel training process. It is a manifestation of empathy, not an idea. Artists work through meaning, not shape, color or material. Conceptual art blurs the boundaries between art and life, art and philosophy, art and art, and deepens the trend of "de-differentiation" of art. Conceptual art pays attention to "meaning", but it also disappears the aesthetics and emotions in traditional art, leaving only the organization of cold conceptual materials.

Thirdly, conceptual art is an important medium for communication and dialogue between China contemporary art and the world contemporary art.

No matter in China or in the west, conceptual art is an important art form of contemporary art. China's concept art adopts the form of western pop and installation art, and combines with the cultural symbols familiar to the public in China to produce a new concept and feeling, thus strategically leading to the cultural identity of modern art in China. Conceptual art has become an important catalyst for the modernization and internationalization of avant-garde art in China. Some people think that the frequent appearance of China's contemporary conceptual art in international art exhibitions is just a "spring roll" on the international art platter. What the west is interested in is China's "political pop" and "ruffianism", not his sincere admiration for China's cultural implication and artistic spirit, but the pleasure of people of insight. I think this statement is not unreasonable. This is actually the confusion of contemporary conceptual artists in China: "We are facing an international political platter, and spring rolls are a cultural strategy and a kind of politics. So can we make use of this kind of politics? Actually, if what they need is spring rolls, then if you don't make them, I'll make them myself. You can choose or not. I can have a good time without internationalization. But if we want to go international, we must recognize one thing: he only wants spring rolls, which is helpless on the so-called international stage. " Contemporary international art exhibition is really a card game. More importantly, the rules of this game are from western Fang Rending. If you want to join this game, you must play the China card, which is correct. The key is, what kind of China card do we play? Should art really be a strategy rather than a "big soul" as Li Xianting said? Obviously, Li Xianting has opposed the strategy to the "big soul" here. Is it possible to realize a cultural strategy by sacrificing the "big soul" of art? The "big soul" can and should become a strategy and a "spring roll" in the international art platter. Is it a reflection of China's backward and ignorant cultural symbols in a certain historical stage (such as some political symbols in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution) to take "great soul" as the stuffing instead of boring "political pop" and "riffraff"? Is it criticism? Is it teasing? Or cater to the psychology of western colonialists? I'm afraid the mentality of avant-garde artists is complicated. Putting yourself in the position of "being looked at" is itself a manifestation of self-distrust of local culture. The cultural symbols in China's conceptual art should embody China's cultural implication and artistic spirit and China's "big soul", which is the cultural strategy for China's conceptual art to enter the international stage. There is still a long way to go for China's conceptual art to truly get rid of the "being seen" by westerners.

To sum up, conceptual art is not concerned with materials and forms, but with the ideas and meanings behind them. Conceptual art is an artistic exploration as well as an exploratory art. It opens up a new artistic field, broadens our artistic vision and enriches the language of artistic expression. Conceptual art is not a style, nor can it be confined to a narrow historical period. It is a tradition based on critical spirit, although the use of the word "tradition" is somewhat contradictory, because a large number of conceptual arts are opposite to traditional concepts. No matter the criticism of real life, history or traditional way of thinking, conceptual art shows a comedy mentality of post-modern ridicule. The emergence of a new type of art is inevitable. What kind of cultural strategy China's conceptual art chooses to truly enter the international art stage is worthy of our in-depth study.