I will discuss the function of the illusion, the object and idea(concept) in Art and its relationship to the subject, subjectivity, consciousness and transcendence. I will investigate demotion of illusion and object and the rise of the concept as the primary driver . What are the implications of this?

. In conceptual art- The illusion that contains the concept merely projects itself on us the object. The de materialisation of art as artifact,( I argue transcendental object), re- materialises in us, as the object. If we are to describe a piece of art as an object imbued with a consciousness, an ambiguity of subject meets object, we will call it an transcendental object, it is more than its material parts. To have a consciousness work upon us in the same way

In this thesis I will chart the rise of the individual, and the individual subjectivity in the dominant movements of the History of Art; from early Christian Art from 13th century culminating in Contemporary Art today. I will argue that the rise of subjectivity and its internally free ontological construction and its material expression rose to its climax somewhere around the beginning of the twentieth century, plateaued and fractured during the war years, and took a path down after that. The predominant movement we witness today is, Socially engaged art, generated from conceptual art.

I argue, that the disappearance of the illusion, then the object left the concept nowhere to reside or be validated, but in the art gallery. This gave rise to the( maybe accidentally) overpriviliging of the Art institution to contain these concepts. However, the illusion and object did not disappear, there was a paradigmatic shift of perspective. The Gallery/artist now projects its illusion on us as the object.
I attempt to argue that the Marxist focus in the removal of the commodified object had implicit effects on subjectivity itself, and the whole experience and reason of Art. I argue that the progression of Art(in the art world) has been a failure in terms of the individual and subjectivity, as the institution has largely
By extension we find that in state funded Art Galleries, we become the object for the projections of state sanctioned concept/idea. In other words, Social conditioning.

I will restrict my focus of attention toward the “Art world”. My intention is to examine this area through a number of philosophers to gain some sort of ontological clarity in the nature of the individual artist and subjectivity and the art work as a phenomenon or idea.