Reframing conceptual art: The case of Vija Celmins and Anna Maria Maiolino

My thesis establishes an alternative history of the development of Conceptual art in both the United States and Brazil. The work of U.S. artist Vija Celmins (b. 1938) and Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino (b. 1942) serve as case studies to support my argument that post-war realism was an influential precedent for Conceptual art. Within the historiography of Conceptual art, scholars have maintained that nonrepresentational modes of expression serve as the movement's foundation and little consideration has been given to the influence of Pop-oriented strategies that employed recognizable, representational subject matter. As I demonstrate in the work of Celmins and Maiolino, post-war realism underpinned the political nature of Conceptual art.;My goal of expanding the art historical canon is approached through three models that propose non-evolutionary historical accounts which, when applied to art history, emphasize previously disregarded formal relationships between artists and shared social concerns. This methodology weaves a complex, expanded and interdependent history of art that proves Celmins and Maiolino were not outliers within the art historical moment of the 1960s and 70s, as some have argued. Separated geographically and working in two different social and political contexts, both artists partook in the radical reconfiguring of the art object, the artist and the art institution that defined this period.