Covering the entire 20th century, this text traces the roots of conceptual art to movements such as dada, explaining its importance in the 1960s and 1970s and showing that it is still alive today. In 1917 marcel duchamp signed the name r. Mutt on a urinal and placed it in a gallery.

Eevn the most strident modernists refused to accept this as a work of art, however, duchamp stuck to his guns, claiming that he had chosen the urinal as an art so it must be art. Such arguments over teh nature of art still continue today.

Tony godfrey sees the archetypal work of conceptual art as a question and a proposition joined together what is art? This could be art.