The definition of fine art has become somewhat confused since the turn of the twentieth century and the beginnings of the infamous Marcel Duchamp and his anti retinal artworks. Prior to this, art was regarded as painting and sculpture that was executed with skill. Compare this to the works that come under the umbrella of fine art today, and it is understandable that the general public feel somewhat bemused at what constitutes art.

Last century saw the progress of the post modernist movement, and consequently has left people wondering what happens in a post-post modernist art world. Whatever movement is next on the agenda, logic states that it cannot be anything other than post-post modernist; but the world of art is anything but logical. Out of the many movements that happened during the course of the 1900s, only a few have retained movement status beyond being a timely fad or experimentation, and each has shunned painting and sculpture in the traditional sense.

The conceptual art movement has to be the most notably controversial movement of last century. In reality, the movement itself was over by the time the media published the term some 8 years after its beginning. This movement officially lasted about 10 years, but the complexity of the definition of the term conceptual art leads to many other movements essentially being put under the same umbrella.

Conceptualism requires that it is the idea of the artwork that is the art. The medium in which it is rendered is of secondary importance, if of any importance at all. Negating the aesthetic visual element associated with art, Conceptualism found its roots formed best in written statements and banal documentary photography. Many conceptual works were happenings and performances, and so had no physical properties whatsoever. The only physical and accidentally aesthetic things that came from them were pieces of text or photographic evidence.

One of the primary objectives of the Conceptual movement was to remove the object and in doing so, removing the monetary value of a saleable item. Artists wanted to exercise their creativity, and that creativity was able to be demonstrated in ways that did not require paints and clay. The irony of the situation was that the documentary evidence of the ephemeral works presented were regarded by object hungry galleries and art collectors as work itself.

This led to the idea of authenticity and ownership to be placed under discussion, and people began to ask the question - what is art? For the first time the debates began about what constitutes fine art and if the artist had any say at all in whether the documentation of a performance was art or not. It seemed that the control that artists hoped to gain over their own practice and creativity was destined to be quashed. The conceptual movement tripped up on its own concept, and art began moving back toward the tangible art object albeit in an entirely new way; a way where the audience demanded context and content, not just a pretty picture.

In the current fine art climate, preference for the evidence of skill and the presence of a physical object is increasingly obvious. Galleries and exhibitions are displaying works that are closer in nature to older works that are widely accepted as art, and less like the transient performances during the 1960s. Art collectors and audiences alike are once again hankering for something to display that has an aesthetic presence as well as a conceptual nature; a trend that looks to continue until an answer is found to post-post modernism.