A current exhibition at Zwirner & Wirth represents an eclectic sampling of conceptual photography from the 1960s and 1970s. Drawn from a private collection, the show represents a collector’s taste rather than a curator’s selection. So much the better.

Big names in performance art, such as Bruce Nauman and Carolee Schneemann, are represented, but so are artists whose work is lesser known, such as Valie Export and Birgit Jurgenssen. The lasting influence of conceptual photography on a subsequent generation of artists is suggested by the inclusion of two works by Laurie Simmons dating from the 1980s.

Conceptual photography arose in tandem with Conceptual Art, a 1960s movement based mainly in America and Europe. Adherents sought to confound rigidly defined artistic genres, often by performing “actions” rather than creating static works of painting and sculpture. Conceptual photography — unnamed as such, initially — was a handy tool for documenting these artists’ ephemeral, plotless solo performances in the studio or in the landscape. Taking another approach, artists such as Marcel Broodthaers and Barry Le Va brought photography’s own deadpan descriptive visual powers to bear upon experimental ideas about language and the realm of everyday, material things.

First-wave conceptual artists regarded photography as a modest vehicle of metaphysical richness. Bare-bones, no-nonsense photography was frequently enlisted to swing between art and live action, ideas whose forms wouldn’t last. It was the conceptual artist’s visual ventriloquist. Barry Le Va, in “Drop” (1969), made cut-out letters D, R, O, P, then tossed them over the rail of a bridge into the river below. He photographed the event and collaged the prints with some descriptive text.

Giuseppe Penone, in “Untitled” (1974), photographed his forearm at the very edge of the paper in four different prints. He framed these works in aluminum, and pressed his arm against the metal to leave an imprint.

Photography, in the real world, has a job to do. A great part of its utility involves identifying and categorizing things. Some forms of conceptual photography emerged from this simple-enough point. The German husband-and-wife team Bernd and Hilla Becher began to photograph industrial structures found in the landscape during the 1960s.

In many cases, the water towers, mine shafts, blast furnaces, and other constructions they depicted had by then outlived their usefulness and entered the realm of ruins. The Bechers’ long-term commitment to cataloging these relics of industrial culture uncovered curious aspects of this neglected field of architecture, along with poignant signs of wear and weathering. The differences between structures with similar functions were made particularly apparent by the photographers’ technique of placing prints in a matrix or array. Their influential work appears strikingly dry at first, but takes on a strangely poetic quality. The multipart format became a touchstone of conceptual photography, and may have been discovered independently by artists such as Sol LeWitt, Mel Bochner, and Vito Acconci.

Toward a lyrical effect, a matrix is the organizing principle of a 1974 work by the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, “La Soupe de Daguerre.” Twelve color images, plus a label with script, are mounted on paper. Framed, it is modest in size. Six small photographs of bright red, fresh tomatoes on a neutral graybluish background appear in the top rows of the matrix. The bottom two rows present a bunch of sturdy carrots, a languorous pile of scallions, photo montages of fish, and a wad of brown paper that may have been the artist’s own leftover packaging from the purchase of fresh fish. The label, mounted centrally in the lower margin of the work, is outlined in blue and features the French-language title in printed script. The name “Daguerre” no doubt refers to the 19th century French inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre. Broodthaers serves a soup of photographic images enriched by visual-linguistic puns that refer to still life paintings by Picasso as much as Chardin.

Until June 23 (32 E. 69th St., between Park and Madison avenues, 212-517-8677).