Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.^[1] This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:

Tony Godfrey, author of Conceptual Art (Art & Ideas) (1998), asserts that conceptual art questions the nature of art,^[3] a notion that Joseph Kosuth elevated to a definition of art itself in his seminal, early manifesto of conceptual art, "Art after Philosophy" (1969). The notion that art should examine its own nature was already a potent aspect of (the influential art critic) Clement Greenberg's vision of Modern art during the 1950s. With the emergence of an exclusively language-based art in the 1960s, however, conceptual artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner and the English Art & Language group began a far more radical interrogation of art than was previously possible (see below). One of the first and most important things they questioned was the common assumption that the role of the artist was to create special kinds of material objects.^[4][5][6]

Through its association with the Young British Artists and the Turner Prize during the 1990s, in popular usage, particularly in the UK, "conceptual art" came to denote all contemporary art that does not practice the traditional skills of painting and sculpture.^[7] It could be said that one of the reasons why the term "conceptual art" has come to be associated with various contemporary practices far removed from its original aims and forms lies in the problem of defining the term itself. As the artist Mel Bochner suggested as early as 1970, in explaining why he does not like the epithet "conceptual", it is not always entirely clear what "concept" refers to, and it runs the risk of being confused with "intention." Thus, in describing or defining a work of art as conceptual it is important not to confuse what is referred to as "conceptual" with an artist's "intention."

History[link]

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph by Alfred Steiglitz

The French artist Marcel Duchamp paved the way for the conceptualists, providing them with examples of prototypically conceptual works — the readymades, for instance. The most famous of Duchamp's readymades was Fountain (1917), a standard urinal basin signed by the artist with the pseudonym "R.Mutt", and submitted for inclusion in the annual, un-juried exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York (it was rejected).^[8] In traditional terms, a commonplace object such as a urinal cannot be said to be art because it is not made by an artist or with any intention of being art, nor is it unique or hand-crafted. Duchamp's relevance and theoretical importance for future "conceptualists" was later acknowledged by US artist Joseph Kosuth in his 1969 essay, "Art after Philosophy," when he wrote: "All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually."

In 1956, recalling the infinitesimals of G.W. Leibniz, quantities which could not actually exist except conceptually, the founder of Lettrism, Isidore Isou, developed the notion of a work of art which, by its very nature, could never be created in reality, but which could nevertheless provide aesthetic rewards by being contemplated intellectually. Also called Art esthapériste ('infinite-aesthetics'). Related to this, and arising out of it, is excoördism, the current incarnation of the Isouian movement, defined as the art of the infinitely large and the infinitely small.

In 1961 the term "concept art," coined by the artist Henry Flynt in his article bearing the term as its title, appeared in a Fluxus publication.^[9] However it assumed a different meaning when employed by Joseph Kosuth and the English Art and Language group, who discarded the conventional art object in favour of a documented critical inquiry into the artist's social, philosophical and psychological status. By the mid-1970s they had produced publications, indices, performances, texts and paintings to this end. In 1970 Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects, the first dedicated conceptual art exhibition, was mounted at the New York Cultural Center.^[10]

The critique of formalism and the commodification of art[link]

Conceptual art emerged as a movement during the 1960s. In part, it was a reaction against formalism as it was then articulated by the influential New York art critic Clement Greenberg. According to Greenberg Modern art followed a process of progressive reduction and refinement toward the goal of defining the essential, formal nature of each medium. Those elements that ran counter to this nature were to be reduced. The task of painting, for example, was to define precisely what kind of object a painting truly is: what makes it a painting and nothing else? As it is of the nature of paintings to be flat objects with canvas surfaces onto which colored pigment is applied, such things as figuration, 3-D perspective illusion and references to external subject matter were all found to be extraneous to the essence of painting, and ought to be removed.^[11]

Some have argued that conceptual art continued this "dematerialization" of art by removing the need for objects altogether,^[12] while others, including many of the artists themselves, saw conceptual art as a radical break with Greenberg's kind of formalist Modernism. Later artists continued to share a preference for art to be self-critical, as well as a distaste for illusion. However, by the end of the 1960s it was certainly clear that Greenberg's stipulations for art to continue within the confines of each medium and to exclude external subject matter no longer held traction.^[13]

Conceptual art also reacted against the commodification of art; it attempted a subversion of the gallery or museum as the location and determiner of art, and the art market as the owner and distributor of art. Lawrence Weiner said: "Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it." Many conceptual artists' work can therefore only be known about through documentation which is manifested by it, e.g. photographs, written texts or displayed objects, which some might argue are not in themselves the art. It is sometimes (as in the work of Robert Barry, Yoko Ono, and Weiner himself) reduced to a set of written instructions describing a work, but stopping short of actually making it—emphasising that the idea is more important than the artifact.

Lawrence Weiner. Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005.

Language and/as art[link]

Language was a central concern for the first wave of conceptual artists of the 1960s and early 1970s. Although the appearance of text in art was by no means novel, it was not until the 1960s that the artists Lawrence Weiner, Edward Ruscha,^[14] Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry, and the English Art & Language group began to produce art by exclusively linguistic means. Where previously language was presented as one kind of visual element alongside others, and subordinate to an overarching composition (see for example Synthetic Cubism), the conceptual artists used language in place of brush and canvas, and allowed it to signify in its own right.^[15] Of Lawrence Weiner's works Anne Rorimer writes, "The thematic content of individual works derives solely from the import of the language employed, while presentational means and contextual placement play crucial, yet separate, roles."^[16]

The British philosopher and theorist of conceptual art Peter Osborne suggests that among the many factors that influenced the gravitation toward language-based art, of vital importance for conceptualism was the turn to linguistic theories of meaning in both Anglo-American analytic philosophy, and structuralist and post structuralist Continental philosophy during the middle of the twentieth century. This linguistic turn "reinforced and legitimized" the direction the conceptual artists took.^[17] Osborne also notes that the early conceptualists were the first generation of artists to complete degree-based university training in art.^[18]

Conceptual art and artistic skill[link]

"By adopting language as their exclusive medium, Weiner, Barry, Wilson, Kosuth and Art & Language were able to sweep aside the vestiges of authorial presence manifested by formal invention and the handling of materials."^[16]

An important difference between conceptual art and more "traditional" forms of art-making goes to the question of artistic skill. Although it is often the case that skill in the handling of traditional media plays little role in conceptual art, it is difficult to argue that no skill is required to make conceptual works, or that skill is always absent from them. John Baldessari, for instance, has presented realist pictures that he commissioned professional sign-writers to paint; and many conceptual performance artists (e.g. Stelarc, Marina Abramovic) are technically accomplished performers and skilled manipulators of their own bodies. It is thus not so much an absence of skill or hostility toward tradition that defines conceptual art as an evident disregard for conventional, modern notions of authorial presence and individual artistic expression (or genius).

Contemporary Influence[link]

The first wave of the "conceptual art" movement extended from approximately 1967 to 1978. Early "concept" artists like Henry Flynt, Robert Morris, and Ray Johnson influenced the later, widely accepted movement of conceptual art. Conceptual artists like Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, and Lawrence Weiner have proven very influential on subsequent artists, and well known contemporary artists such as Mike Kelley or Tracey Emin are sometimes labeled "second- or third-generation" conceptualists, or "post-conceptual" artists.

Many of the concerns of the conceptual art movement have been taken up by contemporary artists. While they may or may not term themselves "conceptual artists", ideas such as anti-commodification, social and/or political critique, and ideas/information as medium continue to be aspects of contemporary art, especially among artists working with installation art, performance art, net.art and electronic/digital art.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy in the UK[link]

Stuckist artists leave a coffin, marked "The death of conceptual art", outside the White Cube gallery in Shoreditch, July 25, 2002.

In Britain, the rise to prominence of the Young British Artists (YBAs) after the 1988 Freeze show, curated by Damien Hirst, and subsequent promotion of the group by the Saatchi Gallery during the 1990s, generated a media backlash, where the phrase "conceptual art" came to be a term of derision applied to much contemporary art. This was amplified by the Turner Prize whose more extreme nominees (most notably Hirst and Emin) caused a controversy annually.^[7]

The Stuckist group of artists, founded in 1999, proclaimed themselves "pro-contemporary figurative painting with ideas and anti-conceptual art, mainly because of its lack of concepts." They also called it pretentious, "unremarkable and boring" and on July 25, 2002 deposited a coffin outside the White Cube gallery, marked "The Death of Conceptual Art".^[19][20] They staged yearly demonstrations outside the Turner Prize.

In 2002, Ivan Massow, the Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts branded conceptual art "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and in "danger of disappearing up its own arse ... led by cultural tsars such as the Tate's Sir Nicholas Serota."^[21] Massow was consequently forced to resign. At the end of the year, the Culture Minister, Kim Howells (an art school graduate) denounced the Turner Prize as "cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit".^[22]

In October 2004 the Saatchi Gallery told the media that "painting continues to be the most relevant and vital way that artists choose to communicate."^[23]

Notable examples of conceptual art[link]

Jacek Tylicki, Stone sculpture, "Give If You Can - Take If You Have To". Palolem Island, India, 2008

Maurizio Bolognini, Programmed Machines, Nice, France, 1992-97: hundreds of computers are programmed to generate an inexhaustible flux of random images which nobody would see

• 1953 : Robert Rauschenberg exhibits Erased De Kooning Drawing, a drawing by Willem De Kooning which Rauschenberg erased. It raised many questions about the fundamental nature of art, challenging the viewer to consider whether erasing another artist's work could be a creative act, as well as whether the work was only "art" because the famous Rauschenberg had done it.

• 1956 : Isidore Isou introduces the concept of infinitesimal art in Introduction à une esthétique imaginaire (Introduction to Imaginary Aesthetics).

• 1957: Yves Klein, Aerostatic Sculpture (Paris). This was composed of 1001 blue balloons released into the sky from Galerie Iris Clert to promote his Proposition Monochrome; Blue Epoch exhibition. Klein also exhibited 'One Minute Fire Painting' which was a blue panel into which 16 firecrackers were set. For his next major exhibition, The Void in 1958, Klein declared that his paintings were now invisible and to prove it he exhibited an empty room.

• 1958: Wolf Vostell Das Theater ist auf der Straße/The theater is on the street. The first Happening in Europe.^[24]

• 1960: Yves Klein's action called A Leap Into The Void, in which he attempts to fly by leaping out of a window. He stated: "The painter has only to create one masterpiece, himself, constantly."

• 1960: The artist Stanley Brouwn declares that all the shoe shops in Amsterdam constitute an exhibition of his work.

• 1961: Wolf Vostell Cityrama, in Cologne was the first Happening in Germany.

• 1961: Robert Rauschenberg sent a telegram to the Galerie Iris Clert which said: 'This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so.' as his contribution to an exhibition of portraits.

• 1961: Piero Manzoni exhibited Artist's shit, tins purportedly containing his own feces (although since the work would be destroyed if opened, no-one has been able to say for sure). He put the tins on sale for their own weight in gold. He also sold his own breath (enclosed in balloons) as Bodies of Air, and signed people's bodies, thus declaring them to be living works of art either for all time or for specified periods. (This depended on how much they are prepared to pay). Marcel Broodthaers and Primo Levi are amongst the designated 'artworks'.

• 1962: Christo's Iron Curtain work. This consists of a barricade of oil barrels in a narrow Paris street which caused a large traffic jam. The artwork was not the barricade itself but the resulting traffic jam.

• 1962: Yves Klein presents Immaterial Pictorial Sensitivity in various ceremonies on the banks of the Seine. He offers to sell his own 'pictorial sensitivity' (whatever that was, he did not define it) in exchange for gold leaf. In these ceremonies the purchaser gave Klein the gold leaf in return for a certificate. Since Klein's sensitivity was immaterial, the purchaser was then required to burn the certificate whilst Klein threw half the gold leaf into the Seine. (There were seven purchasers.)

• 1962: Piero Manzoni created The Base of the World, thereby exhibiting the entire planet as his artwork.

• 1962: FLUXUS Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik in Wiesbaden with, George Maciunas, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik and others.

• 1963: George Brecht's collection of Event-Scores, Water Yam, is published as the first Fluxkit by George Maciunas.

• 1963: Festum Fluxorum Fluxus in Düsseldorf with George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, Emmett Williams and others.

• 1963: Henry Flynts article Concept Art is published in "An Anthology of Chance Operations"; a collection of artworks and concepts by artists and musicians that was published by Jackson Mac Low and La Monte Young (ed.). "An Anthology of Chance Operations" documented the development of Dick Higgins vision of intermedia art in the context of the ideas of John Cage and became an early Fluxus masterpiece. Flynt's "concept art" devolved from his idea of "cognitive nihilism" and from his insights about the vulnerabilities of logic and mathematics.

• 1964: Yoko Ono publishes Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings. An example of Heuristic art, or a series of instructions for how to obtain an aesthetic experience.

• 1965: A complex conceptual art piece by John Latham called Still and Chew. He invites art students to protest against the values of Clement Greenberg's Art and Culture (much praised and taught in London's St. Martin's School of Art where Latham taught). Pages of Greenberg's book (borrowed from the college library) are chewed by the students, dissolved in acid and the resulting solution returned to the library bottled and labelled. Latham was then fired from his part-time position.

• 1965: with Show V, immaterial sculpture the Dutch artist Marinus Boezem introduced Conceptual Art in the Netherlands. In the show various air doors are placed where people can walk through them. People have the sensory experience of warmth, air.Three invisble air doors, which arise as currents of cold and warm are blown into the room, are indicated in the space with bundles of arrows and lines. The articulation of the space which arises is the result of invisible processes which influence the conduct of persons in that space, and who are included in the system as co-performers.

• Joseph Kosuth dates the concept of One and Three Chairs in the year 1965. The presentation of the work consists of a chair, its photo and a blow up of a definition of the word "chair". Kosuth has chosen the definition from a dictionary. Four versions with different definitions are known.

• 1966: N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. (Iain and Ingrid Baxter of Vancouver) exhibited Bagged Place the contents of a four room apartment wrapped in plastic bags. The same year they registered as a corporation and subsequently organized their practice along corporate models, one of the first international examples of the "aesthetic of administration."

• 1967: Sol LeWitt´s Paragraphs on Conceptual Art were published by the American art journal Artforum. The Paragraphs mark the progression from Minimal to Conceptual Art.

• 1968: Lawrence Weiner relenquishes the physical making of his work and formulates his "Declaration of Intent," one of the most important conceptual art statements following LeWitt's "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art." The declaration, which underscores his subsequent practice reads: "1. The artist may construct the piece. 2. The piece may be fabricated. 3. The piece need not be built. Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership."

• Friedrich Heubach launches the magazine Interfunktionen in Cologne, Germany, a publication that excelled in artists' projects. It originally showed a Fluxus influence, but later moved toward Conceptual art.

• 1969: Robert Barry's Telepathic Piece at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, of which he said 'During the exhibition I will try to communicate telepathically a work of art, the nature of which is a series of thoughts that are not applicable to language or image'.

• The first issue of "Art-Language" is published in May. It is subtitled as "The Journal of conceptual art" and edited by Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, Michael Baldwin and Harold Hurrell. The editors are English members of the artists group Art & Language.

• 1969: Vito Acconci creates "Following Piece," in which he follows randomly selected members of the public until they disappear into a private space. The piece is presented as photographs.

• The English journal "Studio International" published Joseph Kosuth´s article "Art after Philosophy" in three parts (October–December). It became the most discussed article on "Conceptual Art".

• 1970: Painter John Baldessari exhibits a film in which he sets a series of erudite statements by Sol LeWitt on the subject of conceptual art to popular tunes like 'Camptown Races' and 'Some Enchanted Evening'.

• 1970: Douglas Huebler exhibits a series of photographs which were taken every two minutes whilst driving along a road for 24 minutes.

• 1970: Douglas Huebler asks museum visitors to write down 'one authentic secret'. The resulting 1800 documents are compiled into a book which, by some accounts, makes for very repetitive reading as most secrets are similar.

• 1971: Hans Haacke's 'Real Time Social System'. This piece of systems art detailed the real estate holdings of the third largest landowners in New York City. The properties were mostly in Harlem and the Lower East Side, were decrepit and poorly maintained, and represented the largest concentration of real estate in those areas under the control of a single group. The captions gave various financial details about the buildings, including recent sales between companies owned or controlled by the same family. The Guggenheim museum cancelled the exhibition, stating that the overt political implications of the work constituted "an alien substance that had entered the art museum organism". There is no evidence to suggest that the trustees of the Guggenheim were linked financially to the family which was the subject of the work.

• 1972: Fred Forest buys an area of blank space in the newspaper Le Monde and invites readers to fill it with their own works of art.

• General Idea launch File magazine in Toronto. The magazine functioned as something of an extended, collaborative artwork.

• 1973: Jacek Tylicki lays out blank canvases or paper sheets in the natural environment for the nature to create art.

• 1974: Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas.

• 1975-76: Three issues of the journal "The Fox" were published in New York. The editor was Joseph Kosuth. "The Fox" became an important platform for the American members of Art & Language. Karl Beveridge, Ian Burn, Sarah Charlesworth, Michael Corris, Joseph Kosuth, Andrew Menard, Mel Ramsden and Terry Smith wrote articles which thematized the context of contemporary art. These articles exemplify the development of an institutional critique within the inner circle of Conceptual Art. The criticism of the art world integrates social, political and economic reasons.

• 1977: Walter De Maria's 'Vertical Earth Kilometer' in Kassel, Germany. This was a one kilometer brass rod which was sunk into the earth so that nothing remained visible except a few centimeters. Despite its size, therefore, this work exists mostly in the viewer's mind.

• 1977: John Fekner creates hundreds of environmental and conceptual outdoor works consisting of stenciled words, symbols, dates and icons spray painted in New York, Sweden, Canada, England and Germany.

• 1989: Christopher Williams' Angola to Vietnam is first exhibited. The work consists of a series of black-and-white photographs of glass botanical specimens from the Botanical Museum at Harvard University, chosen according to a list of the thirty-six countries in which political disappearances were known to have taken place during the year 1985.

• 1990: Ashley Bickerton and Ronald Jones included in "Mind Over Matter: Concept and Object" exhibition of ”third generation Conceptual artists” at the Whitney Museum of American Art.^[25]

• 1991: Ronald Jones exhibits objects and text, art, history and science rooted in grim political reality at Metro Pictures Gallery.^[26]

• 1991: Charles Saatchi funds Damien Hirst and the next year in the Saatchi Gallery exhibits his The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine.

• 1992: Maurizio Bolognini starts to "seal" his Programmed Machines: hundreds of computers are programmed and left to run ad infinitum to generate inexhaustible flows of random images which nobody would see.^[27]

• 1993: Matthieu Laurette established his artistic birth certificate by taking part in a French TV game called 'Tournez manège' (The Dating Game) where the female presenter asked him who he was, to which he replied: 'A multimedia artist'. Laurette had sent out invitations to an art audience to view the show on TV from their home, turning his staging of the artist into a performed reality.

• 1993: Vanessa Beecroft holds her first performance in Milan, Italy, using models to act as a second audience to the display of her diary of food.

• 1999: Tracey Emin is nominated for the Turner Prize. Part of her exhibit is My Bed, her dishevelled bed, surrounded by detritus such as condoms, blood-stained knickers, bottles and her bedroom slippers.

• 2001: Martin Creed wins the Turner Prize for The Lights Going On and Off, an empty room in which the lights go on and off.^[28]

• 2004: Andrea Fraser's video Untitled, a document of her sexual encounter in a hotel room with a collector (the collector having agreed to help finance the technical costs for enacting and filming the encounter) is exhibited at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery. It is accompanied by her 1993 work Don't Postpone Joy, or Collecting Can Be Fun, a 27-page transcript of an interview with a collector in which the majority of the text has been deleted.

• 2005: Simon Starling wins the Turner Prize for Shedboatshed, a wooden shed which he had turned into a boat, floated down the Rhine and turned back into a shed again.^[29]

Notable conceptual artists[link]

Further reading[link]

Books:

• Peter Osborne, Conceptual Art (Themes and Movements), Phaidon, 2002 (See also the external links for Robert Smithson)
• Klaus Honnef, Concept Art, Cologne: Phaidon, 1972
• Ermanno Migliorini, Conceptual Art, Florence: 1971
• Ursula Meyer, ed., Conceptual Art, New York: Dutton, 1972
• Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: the Dematerialization of the Art Object From 1966 to 1972. 1973. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
• Gregory Battcock, ed., Idea Art: A Critical Anthology, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973
• Juan Vicente Aliaga & José Miguel G. Cortés, ed., Arte Conceptual Revisado/Conceptual Art Revisited, Valencia: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 1990
• Thomas Dreher, Konzeptuelle Kunst in Amerika und England zwischen 1963 und 1976 (Thesis Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München), Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992
• Robert C. Morgan, Conceptual Art: An American Perspective, Jefferson, NC/London: McFarland, 1994
• Robert C. Morgan, Art into Ideas: Essays on Conceptual Art, Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1996
• Tony Godfrey, Conceptual Art, London: 1998
• Alexander Alberro & Blake Stimson, ed., Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 1999
• John Roberts, The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade, London and New York: Verso Books, 2007
• Michael Newman & Jon Bird, ed., Rewriting Conceptual Art, London: Reaktion, 1999
• Anne Rorimer, New Art in the 60s and 70s: Redefining Reality, London: Thames & Hudson, 2001
• Daniel Marzona, Conceptual Art, Cologne: Taschen, 2005
• Michael Corris, ed., Conceptual Art: Theory, Practice, Myth, Cambridge, Mass.,: Cambridge University Press, 2004
• Peter Goldie and Elisabeth Schellekens, Who's afraid of conceptual art?, Abingdon [etc.] : Routledge, 2010. - VIII, 152 p. : ill. ; 20 cm ISBN 0-415-42281-7 hbk : ISBN 978-0-415-42281-9 hbk : ISBN 0-415-42282-5 pbk : ISBN 978-0-415-42282-6 pbk

Exhibit catalogues:

• January 5–31, 1969, exh.cat., New York: Seth Siegelaub, 1969
• When Attitudes Become Form, exh.cat., Bern: Kunsthalle Bern, 1969
• 557,087, exh.cat., Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1969
• Konzeption/Conception, exh.cat., Leverkusen: Städt. Museum Leverkusen et al., 1969
• Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects, exh.cat., New York: New York Cultural Center, 1970
• Art in the Mind, exh.cat., Oberlin, Ohio: Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1970
• Information, exh.cat., New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1970
• Software, exh.cat., New York: Jewish Museum, 1970
• Situation Concepts, exh.cat., Innsbruck: Forum für aktuelle Kunst, 1971
• Art conceptuel I, exh.cat., Bordeaux: capcMusée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, 1988
• L'art conceptuel, exh.cat., Paris: ARC–Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1989
• Christian Schlatter, ed., Art Conceptuel Formes Conceptuelles/Conceptual Art Conceptual Forms, exh.cat., Paris: Galerie 1900–2000 and Galerie de Poche, 1990
• Reconsidering the Object of Art: 1965-1975, exh.cat., Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1995
• Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s, exh.cat., New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999
• Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. 1970, exh.cat., London: Tate Modern, 2005
• Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph 1964–1977, exh.cat., Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2011

See also[link]

Individual works[link]

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Conceptual art

• Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964–1977 at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Conceptual Art entry by Elisabet Shellekens in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art"
• Conceptualism
• pdf file of An Anthology of Chance Operations (1963) containing Henry Flynt's "Concept Art" essay at UbuWeb
• conceptual artists, books on conceptual art and links to further reading

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Jon Anderson
Jon playing in São Paulo in December 2011
Background information
Birth name	John Roy Anderson
Born	(1944-10-25) 25 October 1944 (age 67) Accrington, Lancashire, England
Genres	Progressive rock, symphonic rock, pop rock, New Age music
Occupations	Vocalist, lyricist, songwriter, painter, guitarist, harpist
Instruments	Vocals, keyboards, percussion, harp, guitar
Years active	1963–present
Labels	Atlantic, Polydor, Elektra, Columbia, Angel, Windham Hill, Higher Octave, Eagle, Cleopatra, Voiceprint, Wounded Bird
Associated acts	Yes, The Warriors, Jon & Vangelis, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, King Crimson
Website	www.jonanderson.com

Jon Anderson (born John Roy Anderson on 25 October 1944)^[1] is an English singer-songwriter and musician best known as the former lead vocalist in the progressive rock band Yes.^[1] He is also an accomplished solo artist and has collaborated with artists such as the Greek musician Vangelis, among others.

Biography[link]

Early life and childhood[link]

Jon Anderson was born John Roy Anderson in Accrington, Lancashire, England, to Albert and Kathleen Anderson. His father was from Scotland whilst his mother was of Irish ancestry.^[1] Anderson dropped the "h" from his first name in 1970.^[1]

Anderson attended St. John's Infants School in Baxenden, Accrington. There he made a tentative start to a musical career playing the washboard in "Little John's Skiffle Group", which played songs by Lonnie Donegan, among others. Anderson left school at the age of fifteen and went through a series of jobs including farm hand, lorry driver and milkman. Anderson tried to pursue a football career at Accrington Stanley F.C., but at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall,^[2] Anderson was turned down because of his frail constitution. He remains a fan of the club.^[1]

Early career[link]

In 1962 Anderson joined The Warriors (also known as The Electric Warriors),^[1] where he and his brother Tony shared the role of lead vocalist. He quit this band in 1967, released two solo singles in 1968 under the pseudonym Hans Christian,^[3] and then briefly sang for the bands The Gun and The Open Mind. One of Anderson's first producers at EMI was songwriter Paul Korda.

In March 1968 Anderson met bassist Chris Squire and joined him in a group called Mabel Greer's Toyshop, which had previously included guitarist Peter Banks. Anderson fronted this band but ended up leaving again before the summer was over. He remarks on his website that his time with the band consisted of "too many drugs, not enough fun!".^[1]

Yes[link]

Anderson, Squire and Banks went on to form Yes with drummer Bill Bruford and keyboardist Tony Kaye. Their debut album was released in 1969. Rick Wakeman joined in 1971, and Anderson stayed with the group until a 'bitter dispute' in 1980.^[4] This has been known as the 'classic' period of Yes. Jon was a major creative force and band leader throughout this period. He has described himself as the 'team captain' and was nicknamed by his bandmates "Napoleon" for his diminutive stature and leadership of the band. He is also recognized as the main instigator of a series of epic works produced by Yes at the time. He played an indispensable role in creating such complex pieces as "Close to the Edge", "Awaken" and especially "The Gates of Delirium".^{[citation needed]}

Anderson performing in concert with Yes in 1973.

He rejoined a reformed Yes in 1983 which produced their most commercially successful album 90125 with newcomer Trevor Rabin. He departed again in 1988 over creative differences relating to the band's continued pursuit of major commercial success and mainstream radio play. In 1989 Anderson and other former Yes members formed the group Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe (ABWH), augmented by bassist Tony Levin, who had played with drummer Bill Bruford in King Crimson. After the successful first ABWH album, a series of business deals caused ABWH to reunite with the then-current members of Yes, who had been out of the public eye while searching for a new lead singer. The resulting eight-man band assumed the name Yes, and the album Union (1991) was assembled from various pieces of an in-progress second ABWH album, as well as recordings that the "Yes proper" band had been working on without Anderson. A successful tour followed, but the eight-man line-up of Yes never recorded a complete album together before splintering in 1992. Many more personnel changes followed, but Anderson stayed in the band until 2008. He appears on all Yes albums except for their 1980 album Drama, and their 2011 album Fly From Here.

Anderson was fond of experimenting within the band and in so doing contributed to occasionally conflicted relationships within the band and with management. He originally wanted to record the album Tales from Topographic Oceans in the middle of the woods, and instead decided to put hay and animal cut-outs all over the recording studio.^[5] In another incident Anderson had tiles installed in the studio to simulate the echo effect of one's vocals in a bathroom.

Jon Anderson performing in 1977.

Anderson last performed with Yes in 2004. A tour planned for summer 2008 with Anderson was cancelled when he suffered acute respiratory failure. The band have since announced a tour without him and he has been replaced by Benoît David,^[6] the lead vocalist in Yes tribute act Close to the Edge.^[7]

As of mid-2011, Anderson is collaborating with Rabin and Wakeman on a new Anderson-Wakeman-Rabin album, and likely some concerts in 2012. They're writing music, and Wakeman said he hopes the album is completed by the end of 2011. On tour, the group plans to perform Yes songs and new music.^[8] The group has unsuccessfully attempted to recruit Bruford to drum on the album.^[9]

Vocal and lyrical style[link]

It is a commonly-held misconception^{[by whom?]} that Jon Anderson sings falsetto, a vocal technique which artificially produces high, airy notes by using only the ligamentous edges of the vocal cords; however, Jon Anderson does not sing falsetto. His normal singing (and speaking) voice is naturally above the tenor range. In a 2008 interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jon stated, "I'm an alto tenor and I can sing certain high notes, but I could never sing falsetto, so I go and hit them high."^[10] He is also noted for singing in his original Lancashire accent. Anderson is capable of hitting many high notes, such his E5s at the end of Heart of the Sunrise from the album Fragile (1971), and is able to get at least as low as G#2, which he displays once and briefly in the song The Ancient (Giants Under The Sun) from Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973).^[11]

Anderson is also responsible for most of the mystically-themed lyrics and concepts which are part of many Yes releases. These have occasionally alienated some members of the band (most notably Bruford and Rick Wakeman), contributing to their leaving the group. The lyrics are frequently inspired by various books Anderson has enjoyed, from Tolstoy's War and Peace to Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. A footnote in Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi inspired an entire double album Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973). Recurring themes include environmentalism, pacifism and sun-worship.

Beyond Yes[link]

1970s[link]

In 1970 Anderson appeared as a featured guest singer on King Crimson's Lizard album, on the track "Prince Rupert Awakes". The tune was outside the range of the group's then-vocalist, Gordon Haskell. He also co-wrote the song "Pearly Gates", which appears on Iron Butterfly's January 1975 album Scorching Beauty. In September 1975 he appeared on the Vangelis album Heaven and Hell and in the following year released his first solo album Olias of Sunhillow. In 1979 he composed the score for a ballet, Ursprung which was part of a grouping of three dance works, collectively entitled Underground Rumours, commissioned and performed by The Scottish Ballet. The choreographer was Royston Maldoom, the theatrical set and costume designer was Graham Bowers, and the lighting designer was David Hersey. The principal dancers were Andrea Durant and Paul Russell.

1980s[link]

In early 1980, when Anderson and Wakeman left Yes, Anderson started recording again with Vangelis and by summer 1980 Jon & Vangelis had released Short Stories, followed in November by Jon's solo album Song of Seven and a major British tour with The New Life Band. In 1981 he appeared on Rick Wakeman's concept album 1984. He also released another album with Vangelis in July 1981 called "The Friends of Mr. Cairo". The album produced two singles: "I'll Find My Way Home" and "The State of Independence", although the latter was a bigger hit for Donna Summer than for Jon and Vangelis getting to #14 in the British Charts. The album was also notable for the title track which was an ode to classic Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s and 40s, with voice impressions of Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre and Jimmy Stewart which paid homage to the classic film noir "The Maltese Falcon". In 1982, he released Animation and in 1983 he appeared on Mike Oldfield's "In High Places" from the album Crises as well as another song called "Shine". In the same year he also appeared with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. During this year, he tried to form a trio with Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson, but it did not come to fruition.

In 1984 Anderson appeared on the song "Cage Of Freedom" from the 1984 soundtrack for a re-release of the Fritz Lang silent film Metropolis. In 1985 his song "This Time it Was Really Right" was featured on the soundtrack for the movie St. Elmo's Fire. He also sang "Silver Train" and "Christie" on the film soundtrack Scream for Help. Along with Tangerine Dream, he appeared on the song "Loved by the Sun" for the 1985 film Legend directed by Ridley Scott. The 1986 film Biggles: Adventures in Time features a song sung by Anderson. During this year, he recorded some demo tracks that would later be reworked. He and Vangelis also started writing and demo'ing new songs for another album. Though the album was not made, they performed live together on 6 November 1986.

The last three years of the eighties saw him singing (and briefly appearing in the music video) on "Moonlight Desires" on Gowan's album Great Dirty World in 1987. He recorded the album In the City of Angels and also sang on "Stop Loving You" on the Toto album The Seventh One in 1988, and in 1989 he recorded an album that would later be released as The Lost Tapes of Opio. He also sang on the songs "Within The Lost World" and "Far Far Cry" for the Jonathan Elias album Requiem for the Americas.

1990s[link]

Jon Anderson in 2003

After Big Generator in 1987, Jon Anderson teamed up with ex-Yes members Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman and Bill Bruford. The result was Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, released in 1989 and supported by a successful tour. Because of the separate existence of Yes (part of the band's name still being owned by Anderson), this alternate incarnation were forced to use their surnames as the band's name (after Chris Squire threatened legal action). Meanwhile, Yes began composing and recording material for their follow-up, while Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe did the same, beginning production at Miraval Studios in the South of France in April 1990. Bowing to record company pressure to resurrect the Yes banner, Squire and Anderson came up with the idea of merging both projects, which resulted in the 1991 album Union.

Although the supporting world tour was a commercial and critical success, praised by fans and band as one of Yes' best ever, the album was not as well-received, resulting in sales figures equivalent to those of the ABWH album (750,000 copies worldwide). Union would turn out to be Yes' last studio album to have significant sales, though it didn't match the popularity of 1987's Big Generator. One of Union's singles, "Lift Me Up", became Yes' biggest hit on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart, reaching the top spot and remaining there for six weeks in early 1991.

In 1992 Anderson appeared on Kitaro's album Dream, adding both lyrics and vocals to three songs: "Lady of Dreams", "Island of Life" and "Agreement". He planned to release an Ancient America-influenced solo album called The Power of Silence in 1993, but it was not released due to issues with Geffen Records. He also toured South America with a band that included his daughters, Deborah and Jade. He appeared on the song "Along The Amazon" which he co-wrote for guitarist Charlie Bisharat's album of the same name. He also recorded an orchestral solo album called Change We Must in 1993; it was released the following year.

In 1994 Anderson released a solo album of Latino-influenced music called Deseo. There were plans to release a live album called The Best of South America, but it was not released due to management issues though some copies were already released by Yes Magazine. Anderson sang on the 7th Level children's video game Tuneland. Also, his son Damion released a single called Close 2 the Hype, which featured him and Jon on vocals. The next year he released a solo album called Angels Embrace and spoke of a plan to tour and record in China, but this idea was soon abandoned in favour of focusing on work with Yes. In 1996 The Power of Silence was released under the title Toltec. This release included sound effects that were not on the original recording. Jon also played a Mother's Day concert in San Luis Obispo.

The year 1997 saw Anderson recording and releasing a Celtic-influenced solo album called The Promise Ring, around the time he married Jane Luttenberger. During their honeymoon, Earthmotherearth was recorded and later released, followed in 1998 by an album called The More You Know that Jon and Jane recorded in Paris, France, with Francis Jocky. Anderson appeared on the song "The Only Thing I Need" by act 4Him in 1999; it was recorded for a multi-group album called "Streams". Steve Howe's tribute album Portraits of Bob Dylan also featured a cover of the Bob Dylan song, "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands", with Jon's vocals. He also recorded with a band called The Fellowship.

Anderson in Vicenza, Italy, 29 November 2007

2000s[link]

In 2000, Anderson and then Yes keyboardist Igor Khoroshev worked on an album called True You, True Me. A tour was to commence in 2001, but due to Khoroshev's sexual assault charges during Yes's 2000 Masterworks Tour, the project was shelved. In 2002, Anderson started recording songs for a project called The Big If, which has not been released (as of 2010). In 2004 he appeared with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra of Cleveland. The concert was recorded but only released to the orchestra members. He also recorded live on XM Satellite Radio in Washington D.C. on 1 April. This show was released on a DVD called Tour of the Universe in 2005, which incorporated visual effects. This release coincided with the release of Jon Anderson's single, "State of Independence".

Anderson's earlier albums Olias of Sunhillow and Song of Seven were re-issued in 2006. Animation was tardily released on CD to complaints about the professionalism of the sound.^{[citation needed]} To some ears,^[who?] a later pressing used a better master, although the label Voiceprint denies any differences between the pressings. In Elven Lands, an album containing Jon's recordings with The Fellowship, was also released as were the first seven volumes of a box set called The Lost Tapes. Also in 2006, Anderson appeared with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (East Coast Troupe) during two 16 December shows in Philadelphia, PA to play "Roundabout".

In 2007, Anderson contributed vocals to an album Culture of Ascent by American progressive rock group Glass Hammer; and appeared as part of a vocal ensemble on the track "Repentance" from the Dream Theater album Systematic Chaos. During that year, Anderson also toured both the USA and England with The Paul Green School of Rock Music. Anderson's 1985 Christmas album 3 Ships was also released on CD with bonus tracks.

Anderson of Yes performed at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, Mass. on 15 March 2012.

The year 2008 saw an ambient album using Anderson's voice and bird song called From Me to You added to The Lost Tapes. Anderson appeared on the song "Sadness of Flowing" which he co-wrote for Peter Machajdik's album Namah and he made similar contributions to a re-mastering of Tommy Zvoncheck's album "ZKG".

In 2009 Anderson played on a European tour called "Have Guitar, Will Travel". Later that year, his 1997 album EarthMotherEarth was re-released with bonus tracks. Rather than just have Jon Anderson's name, it was released under "Jon and Jane Anderson". In The City of Angels and Change We Must were also reprinted during this year.

2010 to present[link]

Anderson played a series of shows in Canada and the United States in 2010. He and Rick Wakeman began an autumn tour of the UK at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, on 9 October. A sample of Anderson's vocals from Mike Oldfield's "In High Places" is prominently featured in Kanye West's 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in the opening track "Dark Fantasy".

In 2011, Anderson played a rendition of "Owner of a Lonely Heart" with the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio (YOSA) Philharmonic of San Antonio. That same year, Anderson released a single-track album entitled Open, featuring orchestration by Stefan Podell.^[12]

Family[link]

Jon Anderson married Jennifer Baker in 1970, and they divorced in 1995. They have three children: daughter Deborah Anderson (b. 1970), son Damion Anderson (b. 1972), and daughter Jade Anderson (b. 1980).^[13] He married Jane Luttenberger in 1997.^[14]

Deborah Anderson sang on her father's solo album Song of Seven, and more recently has sung for the French electronica band Télépopmusik on the album Angel Milk (released 2005); she also works as a photographer.^[15][16] Damion Anderson spoke the final lines in the Yes song "Circus of Heaven" which appeared on Tormato, and is also a musician; he released the EP Close To The Hype ("C2T Hype") in 1994 with his father (remixes). Jade Anderson's birth is celebrated in her father's song "Animation" on the album of the same name, and she sang back-up vocals on many of his later albums. She has released a solo album in Japan.^[17]

In March 2009, after 25 years of living in the United States, Jon announced in a statement via his Facebook page that he had become an American citizen. The statement made no mention as to whether he had retained or renounced his UK citizenship.

Health and spirituality[link]

Anderson was a smoker in the 1960s and 70s, but now prides himself on a much healthier lifestyle. In the mid 70s, Anderson became a vegetarian, as did most members of Yes; however in an interview he stated, "I was a veggie for a while, but again I grew out of that. But I do eat very healthy."^[18] In an 16 August 2006 interview on The Howard Stern Show Anderson said he eats meat, mostly fish, on occasion. In the interview, he also stated he had a spiritual adviser that "helped him see into the fourth dimension". Before live performances he often meditates in a tent with crystals and dreamcatchers, a practice he started in the 1980s. Anderson's religious beliefs are syncretic and varied,^[19] including respect for the Divine Mother Audrey Kitagawa.^[20] He has worked with the Contemporary Christian music band 4HIM: in 1999, his vocal was featured on the song "The Only Thing I Need", which appeared on a 'various artists' CD entitled Streams.

One of Anderson's passions is painting, and he uses his art as another channel for his creativity and self-expression. His artwork is available to view on his official website. He lived in France with Jennifer Baker at a farm in Saint-Paul de Vence for over five years from the very late 1970s, becoming friend of painters Marc Chagall and André Verdet, nearest neighbours (inspiring some of his songs and musical themes). In 1990 he returned in France to record demos between Le Domaine de Miraval still in Provence at Le Val and Paris, this time with ABWH for the perspective of an hypothetical second album.

On 13 May 2008, Anderson suffered a severe asthma attack which required a stay in hospital. According to Yes' website, he was later "at home and resting comfortably."^[21] Yes' planned summer 2008 tour was subsequently cancelled, with the press release saying, "Jon Anderson was admitted to the hospital last month after suffering a severe asthma attack. He was diagnosed with acute respiratory failure and was told by doctors to rest and not work for a period of at least six months or suffer further health complications."^[22] In September 2008 Jon wrote that he's "so much better...so grateful and so blessed...I look forward to 2009 for the "Great Work" to come."^[20] In 2009 he returned to touring (solo) and continued touring in 2010 and the autumn of 2011, with Rick Wakeman for a UK tour (2010) and the eastern US (2011).^[20]

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Olias of Sunhillow (1976) [studio album #1]
• Song of Seven (1980) [studio album #2]
• Animation (1982) [studio album #3 (re-released on CD in 2006)]
• 3 Ships (1985) [studio album #4 (re-released on CD in 2007, packed with additional bonus tracks)]
• In the City of Angels (1988) [studio album #5]
• Deseo (1994) [studio album #6]
• Change We Must (1994) [studio album #7]
• Angels Embrace (1995) [studio album #8]
• Toltec (1996) [studio album #9]
• Lost Tapes of Opio (1996) [studio album #10 (album recorded in 1989/90, first issued in 1996 through Jon Anderson's Opio Foundation and re-released on CD as part of The Lost Tapes 20 CD Box-Set)]
• The Promise Ring (1997) [studio album #11]
• Earth Mother Earth (1997) [studio album #12]
• The More You Know (1998) [studio album #13]
• Survival & Other Stories (2010)^[23] [studio album #14]

Collection[link]

• The Lost Tapes (20 CD Box-Set) (2006–2007) (live performances, unreleased demo albums...)
  • Interview (2006) (JAVPBX01CD)
  • The Mother's Day Concert (2006) (demos) (JAVPBX02CD)
  • Searching For Songs (2006) (demos) (JAVPBX03CD)
  • Live In Sheffield 1980 (2006) (JAVPBX04CD)
  • Watching The Flags That Fly (2006) (JAVPBX05CD) (Jon Anderson's personal demos, worked on in the south of France in 1990, for the never-officially released second ABWH studio album whose working title was Dialogue)
  • The Lost Tapes Of Opio (2007) (JAVPBX06CD)
  • From Me To You (2008) (with birds songs) (JAVPBX07CD)

Singles[link]

• Flight of the Moorglade / To the Runner (1976)
• Some Are Born / Days (1980)
• Take Your Time / Heart Of The Matter (1980)
• Surrender / Spider (1982)
• All In A Matter Of Time / Spider (1982)
• Cage Of Freedom (1984)
• Easier Said Than Done / Save All Your Love (Reprise) (1985)
• Easier Said Than Done / Day of Days (1985)
• Easier Said Than Done / Three Ships (1985)
• Easier Said Than Done / Three Ships / Oh Holy Night (1985)
• How it Hits You / Day of Days (1985)
• Hold On To Love / Sundancing (1988)
• Hold On To Love / In a Lifetime / Sundancing (1988)
• Is it Me / Top of the World / For You (1988)
• Island of Life / Lady of Dreams (1992)
• Change We Must / State of Independence (1994)
• State of Independence (CD-Single)(2007)
• Unbroken Spirit (Digital Single) (2010)
• Give Hope (Digital Single) (2011)
• Open (Digital Single) (2011)

With Yes[link]

• Yes (1969)
• Time and a Word (1970)
• The Yes Album (1971)
• Fragile (1971)
• Close to the Edge (1972)
• Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973)
• Relayer (1974)
• Going for the One (1977)
• Tormato (1978)
• 90125 (1983)
• Big Generator (1987)
• Union (1991)
• Talk (1994)
• Keys to Ascension (1996) (studio & live double album)
• Keys to Ascension 2 (1997) (studio & live double album)
• Open Your Eyes (1997)
• The Ladder (1999)
• Magnification (2001)

As Anderson/Wakeman[link]

• The Living Tree (2010)

As Jon and Vangelis[link]

• Heaven and Hell (1975) (vocals, on the only song So Long Ago, So Clear)
• Short Stories (1980)
• The Friends of Mr. Cairo (1981)
• Private Collection (1983)
• The Best of Jon & Vangelis (1984)
• Page of Life (1991)
• Chronicles (1994)
• Page Of Life (1998) – alternate version not approved by Vangelis

As Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe[link]

• Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (1989)
• An Evening of Yes Music Plus (1993) (double live album)

Collaborations[link]

With The Warriors:

• "You Came Along" b/w "Don't Make Me Blue" (1964)
• "Bolton Club 65" (1965)

With Johnny Harris:

• "All To Bring You Morning" (1969; 1973 + Howe et White)

With King Crimson:

• Lizard (1970)

With Iron Butterfly:

• Scorching Beauty (1974) on track: "Pearly Gates"

With Vangelis:

• Heaven and Hell (1975) – Vangelis album with Anderson vocals on "So Long Ago, So Clear"
• Opéra Sauvage (1979) – Vangelis album with Anderson playing harp on "Flamants Roses"
• See You Later (1980) on "Suffocation" and "See You Later"

With Alan White:

• on the Album "Ramshackled" (1976) on track: "Spring Song Of Innocence"

With Mike Oldfield:

• "In High Places" on the album Crises (1983)
• "Shine" (1986), as well as different and extended Remix of "Shine"

With Rick Wakeman Album "1984" (released 1981):

• on track "The Hymn"

On Movies:

• Soundtrack – Metropolis (1984 – with Giorgio Moroder):
  • "Cage Of Freedom"
• Soundtrack – Scream For Help (1985 – with John Paul Jones):
  • "Silver Train"
  • "Christie"
• Soundtrack – St. Elmo’s Fire (1985):
  • "This Time It Was Really Right"
• Soundtrack – Biggles (1986):
  • "Do You Want To Be A Hero"
  • "Chocks Away"

With Tangerine Dream:

• Loved By The Sun Legend movie (1986)

With Lawrence Gowan:

• Moonlight Desires (1987)

With Toto:

• Backing vocals on the single version of Stop Loving You (1988) – This was the same year Toto members contributed to Anderson's City of Angels.

With Anderson, Harley & Batt:

• Whatever You Believe (1988)

With Jonathan Elias:

• Requiem for the Americas: Songs from the Lost World (1990) (first song Within The Lost World (lead vocals), and Far Far Cry (10th and 12th (single) songs)

With Kitaro:

• on the album: "Dreams" on the tracks: "Lady Of Dreams", "Agreement", "Dream Of Chant", "Island Of Life" (1992)

With London Philharmonic Orchestra:

• Symphonic Music of Yes (1993)

With Charlie Bisharat:

• Along the Amazon (1993)

With Ayman:

• Dancing with My Soul (1994)

With 7th Level:

• Tuneland (1994)

With Milton Nascimento:

• Angelus (1994)

With Cielo y Tierra:

• Heaven And Earth (1996)

With Steve Howe:

• Album: "Portraits Of Bob Dylan", on the track "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands" (1999)

With Béla Fleck and the Flecktones:

• "A Moment So Close" and "Aimun", on Outbound (2000)

With 4 Him:

• sing the chorus of the song "The Only Thing I Need", on the "Streams" various artists album first released on Word Records "Dove Awards Album" (2002)

With The Fellowship:

• In Elven Lands (2006)

With Dream Theater:

• Systematic Chaos (2007)

With Tommy Zvoncheck:

• ZKG (2008)

With Peter Machajdik:

• Namah (2008)

Solo recordings chart positions[link]

US album chart (Billboard) UK album chart

US singles chart (Billboard)

Music videos[link]

DVD[link]

• Tour Of The Universe, 2005 (83')

References[link]