Contemporary art

The term contemporary art refers both to the visual arts being practiced in the present day and, more broadly, art made from the late 1960s into the 21st century. The term itself is controvesial and subject to debate, but is generally accepted. Some of the defining features include but are not limited to; a reaction to modernism and concern with postmodern theory, a diversity of forms and approaches, a resistance to categorization into movements with a clear theoretical focus, an interdisciplinary approach to art including a concern with social and political issues, and an interest in new media including site-specific art, installation art, the exploration of technology through art, and a renewed interest in painting. Contemporary art galleries are the driving force behind new art.

Concerning the term "contemporary art"

"Contemporary art" is a generally accepted term in the popular and art media. However there are many objections to its use. The first of these is that the term "contemporary" is a misnomer as, according to the definition of "contemporary," it should only refer to art being made in, or at least still immediately relevant to, the art being produced in the present day. This leads to a categorical confusion between the art of 2007 and all the art that falls under the aegis of "contemporary art." There is as of yet no generally-accepted solution to this issue, however this article, in keeping with general usage, favors the inclusive definition. The second objection is that the term "postmodern art" is a more accurate description of the art described as "contemporary art," however the consensus is that this is both a less and more inclusive term than contemporary art. Postmodernism is a theory of art that can refer both to a historical time frame and an approach to art making, and is therefore relevant to some art produced before the period of contemporary art, and irrelevant to some art produced in the contemporary period. The third objection is that even if we dismiss the arguement that contemporary must mean "present-day," the term is meaningless because the start dates of this period are not agreed-upon; given as anything from the early 60's to the late 70's to the mid-90's. However, the general consensus is that there is a meaningful difference between art produced during the modernist period and that produced recently, even if there is not a hard line drawn between them. As this article refers to current events, it can be assumed that this is very much a living term that will evolve as we gain historical distance.

The history of contemporary art

Perhaps the most defining aspect of 21st century art is its indefinability and resistance to categorization. Before the Postmodern era, most artwork could be categorized fairly easily into specific schools or movements. In fact, the modern period in art is often referred to as the "age of 'isms'" because of this tendency. While many critics and historians have attempted to draw a line between the ideologies of Modernism and Postmodernism, and thereby clearly map out their differences, these attempts are usually met with strong, and relevant, criticisms.

Recognizing contemporary art's historical roots in modernism is essential to understanding contemporary art practice. While a definitive historical account of current art practices has yet to be established, a growing consensus of contemporary art critics and historians have repeatedly recognized key artists and artistic projects as fundamental to the development of these practices. Many contemporary art historians trace the emergence of postmodern art practices to the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp. Although Duchamp's most famous works predate the postmodern era by about 50 years, his avant-garde criticality of traditional notions and methods for making art can be seen as closely connected to ideas surrounding contemporary art. One case in point, Duchamp created few paintings after 1912, apparently because he had decided that paint was no longer a viable or relevant artistic medium. Duchamp's denial of painting anticipated the 1970s theories of Conceptualists and other avant-garde artists. Robert Rauschenberg's and Jasper Johns's Neo-Dadaist refusals of modernist methods and materials in the mid-1950s may also be seen as evidence of the emergence of a postmodern consciousness. The adamant celebration of kitsch and popular culture made by Andy Warhol and other Pop Art practitioners in the 1960s was a direct and conscious attack on Clement Greenberg's well-known views on high art and its importance to refined culture. Philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto has asserted that Modernism (as well as art history itself) came to an end with the making of Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes, which functioned as art yet were largely indistinguishable from their real life counterparts. These sculptures therefore attempted to counter the established belief that art had some essential and objectively discernible trait that separated it from non-art objects.

Throughout the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, prevailing ideological movements in art have become increasingly difficult to discern. Though some argue that too little time has passed for art historians to identify the major schools, others claim the lack of organization into a coherent movement is one of the defining characteristics of contemporary art. Instead, contemporary art is discussed in terms of trends, or common ideas, approaches, and materials. However, many of the artists associated with particular trends often do not like to be seen as defined by them, and may be active in several different areas of concern. A few of these trends have been most active during a specific time, though many which originated in the 1960s are still being practiced today. Many of these trends remain controversial, with little agreement on the defining theory or criteria for inclusion by artists. Some of these trends are defined by a specific ideology, while others, such as installation art, are defined by the medium, and others are defined by social concerns.

Despite the rejection of the "isms" of Modernism, many trends have emerged in contemporary art practice that are defined by a similar style, philosophical or aesthetic stance, or time or location which can be explained as a chronologically organized and interrelated series of movements.

Robert Smithson is largely considered the leader of the Land Art movement of the late 1960s and is also noted for his Postmodern approach and conceptualization of art. Smithson and other artists associated with the movement, such as Walter De Maria, Alice Aycock, Michael Heizer, and James Turrell were aesthetically influenced by Minimalism but sought to bring art out of the gallery system and into the outside environment. This radical break with conventional modes of display was vested in the desire to de-institutionalize art. Land artists perceived art critics like Clement Greenberg as heavy-handed and galleries as overbearing; therefore, they believed these institutions interfered with the creative process and prevented a more concept-driven discourse.

The foundation of thought begun in the Land Art movement is related to the Conceptual Art movement that flowered in the late 1960s and 1970s. Conceptual Art is based on the premise that the ideas or concepts behind an art work are more important than the physical manifestation of the work. Conceptualism, which was heavily influenced by the Fluxus movement, is characterized in the works of artists like Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Yoko Ono, and Douglas Huebler.

Postminimalism, which is difficult to define, is a large trend that is united by its concern with or reaction against the art objects and theories of Minimalism. These concerns not only include a focus on materials, on hand-made or process-oriented methods of production, or a formalist aesthetic, but also include art that is not concerned with or is opposed to these concerns. Early practitioners include Bruce Nauman and Eva Hesse, while more recent practitioners arguably include Anish Kapoor, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Gabriel Orozco, and artists associated with the Young British Artists group. Performance Art may also been seen as both a school of contemporary art and as a trend running throughout art history. It became an identifiable trend between the late 1950s and mid-1960s when "happenings" were an artistic and cultural phenomenon. Artists initially associated with this trend include Joseph Beuys and Vito Acconci.

Cindy Sherman's photographic series of Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) was among the first to be labeled Postmodern by critics, and are often but not universally seen as the beginning of contemporary art. This series of self-portraits asks questions about the role of women in society, references the medium of film, and experiments with how we play our roles in society. Also proclaimed as postmodern around this time were the photographs of photographs and collages of Richard Prince which pushed the boundaries of the photographic media, questioned the concept of originality, and challenged society's ideas about sex. It must be noted that neither of these artists have claimed that their art is postmodern, and critics have gone on to claim that art as early as Dada exhibits postmodern aspects.

Later trends in contemporary art include Neo-Expressionsim, Lowbrow Art, and others. Neo-Expressionism refers to art that reacted against the formalism of minimalism. Artists, primarily painters, created expressionistic paintings in bold colors to explore their emotions through the human figure and recognizable images. Artists include Guity Novin, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, and Francesco Clemente. Lowbrow, also known as "pop surrealism," received much attention in the early 2000's and refers to art that is influenced by underground comix, Graffiti, hot-rod culture, punk visual art, and other forms of popular illustration. It claims to be a kind of folk art, and, despite its anti-gallery stance, is shown in many contemporary art galleries. Artists include Mark Ryden and Gary Baseman.

Trends in contemporary art are often defined by social, cultural, and economic trends. Examples include the changes in views towards culture due to globalization and increasing internationalization of societies and the artists themselves; trends in technology that have created new media such as video, computer-generated images, Internet-art, and installation-art; the use of multi-media and the refusal of artists to restrict themselves to a particular medium; the increasing politicization of art; and changes in the way art is distributed through galleries, museums, art fairs, biennales, and artist-in-residency programs. While Postmodernist theories have influenced contemporary art criticism and have offered a persuasive explanation of the structures of and changes in contemporary art, they have not been adopted by contemporary artists as the agreed-upon ideological construct of the movement in the way that Modern artists adopted Modernist theory.

Contemporary art can be usefully categorized by the media the artists use, such as photography painting installation art etc. The artists in such groupings may have been working during completely different time periods, in different places, and with completely different sets of ideological concerns and the artists mentioned here may also be associated with other conceptually-defined trends in contemporary art.

Many trends in contemporary art, such as video art, and Internet art can be lumped together as New Media Art which is defined by the artists use of the new media from computers to cellphones to robotics that define our information age. This is one of the few trends that is seen as a defining characteristic of contemporary art, yet many modernists from Eadweard Muybridge to Russian Constructivism were concerned with new media, and many contemporary artists do not challenge the use of traditional media. But in the 21st century, a much greater number of artists are approaching media and technology is the spirit of artistic exploration, led by such institutions as MIT Media Labs.

Installation art uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way the viewer experiences a particular space, often one located outside the traditional gallery environment. One such artist is Ilya Kabakov. Video Art originated in the 1960s, when the technology became widely available. Artists include Peter Campus and Bill Viola.

Theories of Contemporary Art

Contemporary art theory refers both to theories about art that is being produced currently, and to theories about all art produced since the putative end of modernism in the 1960s. This includes 50 years of the biggest changes in the art world, aesthetics, society and culture, and includes theories about current events for which we do not yet have the benefit of historical perpective. It is a large, sometimes highly academic, sometimes very controvesial and contentious topic upon which there is little consensus. This is compounded by the fact that contemporary art refers to many different art movements with many different ideologies, some of which are anti-academic and anti-theory. There have been many contemporary additions to the field of aesthetics, but as often as not contemporary art is involved with social theory.

The difficult to define theories of postmodernism claim that the period of modern art has ended, and analyzes contemporary art from this perspective.

Guy Debord's book "Society of the Spectacle" is a key text that criticizes modern society and the seductive nature of capitalism and relates to Marxist theory. He lead the Situationist movement which influenced the Paris uprising of May 1968. Jacques Derrida did not write primarily about the visual arts, but his theories have become central to postmodern theory (though he did not claim to be a postmodernist). He wrote about deconstruction which looks at how meaning relates to text (which can include visual art) and post-structuralism which, in part, claims that the viewer's interpretation of art may be more important than the artist's intended meaning. Jean Baudrillard's book "Simulacra and Simulation" looks at the nature of reality and how reality is mitigated by the media in postmodern society. His claim that the copy has become more important than the original is a concern of many contemporary artists.

Donald Kuspit has labelled contemporary practices that fail to demonstrate historically evidenced artistic qualities as post-art. He criticizes socially-oriented art, exemplified by the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija and Jeremy Deller, for replacing: high culture with mass appeal, autonomy with homogeneity, mystery with transparency, skill with chance creativity, dialectic with dialogue, and “refinement of the unconscious” with spectacle.

Other aesthetic theories include formalism (art). There are also links with Semiotics, Linguistics, Cognitive Science, etc.

Contemporary Art, Artists, and Theory of the Present Day (2006)

The practice of art has transformed along with the large-scale economic, global, political, and socio-cultural change. The growing speed of the transference of ideas, money, information and culture around the globe seems to be happening within art worlds as well. Contemporary art theory therefore adopts or absorbs social, cultural and political theories such as feminism, gender studies, LGBT social movements, civil rights and anti-racism, anti-globalism, Anti-imperialism, Marxism and other political theories. Contemporary art is often associated with leftist politics, but is often overtly apolitical.

One notable characteristic of Contemporary art is that it often engages matters and issues that presently affect the world. Cloning, politics, economics, issues of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, human rights, war or perhaps even the high price of bread being sold locally. This emphasis on politics, though not entirely new, does seem to have intensified. Historically, art was more closely aligned with aesthetic notions of beauty, purity and transcendence. It was identified with higher thoughts--not politics. Distinctions, however, may be made between politically-motivated art with activist purposes and socially-oriented art with political implications.

Contemporary art is often sponsored by non-profit groups such as the DIA Foundation etc., but is usually sold and displayed in commercial contemporary art galleries which tend to cluster together in specific locations such as the 798 district in Beijing or the Chelsea neighborhood in New York, which is often referred to as the capital of the contemporary art world. The average commercial gallery is free and open to the public and may have rotating group and solo exhibitions. The galleries may represent an artist exclusively, and they often take an active hand in producing or promoting the work. In the last two years a much greater percentage of art is sold at large art markets, such as the Armory Show, where commercial galleries rent space in a large exhibition hall and sell their work to collectors and museums over a period of a week or so. These shows are ostensibly open to the public for a fee, but are much more concerned with profit and reputation.

The future development of Contemporary art is often directed by massive biennials (The Whitney Biennial, The Venice, São Paulo, the Kwan Ju, the Havana...), triennials (Echigo-Tsumari), and most importantly the exhibition of documenta in Kassel, Germany.

Prizes

Some competitions, awards and prizes in contemporary art are

Emerging Artist Award awarded by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Guggenheim Museum
Turner Prize for British artists under 50
Jindrich Chalupecky prize for Czech artists under 35 [1]
Participation in the Whitney Biennial

References

Bourriaud, Nicolas (1998). "Esthétique relationnelle". Dijon: Presses du réel.
Gablik, Suzi (1995). "Connective Aesthetics: Art After Individualism" in Suzanne Lacy,

ed., "Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art". Seattle: Bay Press.

Grau, Oliver (2003). "Virtual Art". Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kester, Grant (2004). "Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art". Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kuspit, Donald (2004). “The End of Art”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links