Instead of making beautiful objects to be seen, I try to make the eye see beauty in everything that’s about
— Stephen Kaltenbach
Stephen Kaltenbach is recognized as a key figure in the development of American Conceptual Art. His practice engages questions of time, authorship, and artistic identity, often through strategies that deliberately destabilize the role of the artist and the visibility of the work itself.
After relocating from California to New York in 1967, Kaltenbach emerged within a dynamic conceptual milieu, developing a practice marked by restraint, anonymity, and conceptual rigor. His early works from this period include sealed Time Capsules, bronze plaques bearing single words intended for public sidewalks, and unsigned advertisements published in Artforum. These projects proposed actions or ideas—such as “Tell a Lie” or “Become a Legend”—that shifted the locus of the artwork toward language, intention, and the viewer’s mental participation.
Between 1967 and 1970, Kaltenbach’s work was presented in solo and group exhibitions at leading galleries and institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1970, he abruptly left New York and withdrew from the art world’s center, ultimately settling in California’s Central Valley. This decision has since been understood as a continuation of his conceptual inquiry, foregrounding issues of artistic mythology, careerism, and the passage of time.
Kaltenbach had his first exhibition with Konrad Fischer Galerie in 2005. His work is held in major international public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.