"The Death of the Object: The Move to Conceptualism"

This article was quite long and chock-full of information about several decades in art history, mentioning many many names and movements within conceptualism and the transition into this type of art.  Starting in the late 60s, the reading looks at art commenting on politics and radical artist groups, especially in Europe, such as CoBrA.  The use of Decollage (tearing advertisements or public posters to create new and interesting images) was involved with Lettrism.  Broodthaers was an important artist from this time period.  In the late 60s he commented on art museums in some of his works, creating collections of objects that looked like they could be in a museum and pairing them with signs like "This is not a work of art."  The Arte Povera movement in Italy was going on concurrently, as a response to the traditional art aesthetic there.  There was much friction between the north and the south at this time, in addition to student protesting.  

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970

 In the U.S., Robert Smithson helped shape the Land or Earth Art movement.  One of his most well-known works is Spiral Jetty, where he had workers move earth into the shape of a spiral, extending the jetty into the Great Salt Lake.  In the move into conceptual art, the main point of this movement was that thought was a significantly important part of art and a medium in itself.  Victor Burgin used photography and text to create commentary on advertisements and the mass media in one of his pieces, "Possession."  Bernd and Hilla Becher used photography to create a sort of faux-scientific study of industrial buildings like water towers and organized the photos into alike sections.  Feminism in art was emerging during this time and also body/performance art.