Lehigh University Lehigh Preserve Volume 16 - 2008 Lehigh Review 2008 Art is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War Michael King Follow this and additional works at: http://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-16 Recommended Citation King, Michael, "Art is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War" (2008). Volume 16 - 2008. Paper 7. http://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-16/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Lehigh Review at Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion in Volume 16 - 2008 by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Art is a Symbol: Conceptualism and the Vietnam War by Michael King 32 rt is a symbol. It serves as a visual man- ifestation of the ideas that shape an age, despite perceived distance and removal from that reality. Jackson Pollock, argu- Goodman Campus ably the most influential American The 500-acre site was given to A Lehigh during the 1960’s by artist, suggests, “The modern art- tation. It can be perceived from Bethlehem Steel in an agree- ist cannot express this age, the countless perspectives, based on ment that involved Lehigh airplane, the atom bomb, the ra- a viewer’s experience regarding giving up specific property to dio, in the old forms of the Renais- reality. Gleizes and Metzinger Moravian College. sance or of any other past culture.” present an essentially romantic Though Pollock was refering to view of creating art, one in which the 1940s and 1950s, his insight there are no rules.