Contemporary art
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Contemporary art is recently produced visual art. When recently produced visual art ages, it loses the status of being contemporary. When recently produced visual art ages it becomes, strictly speaking, historical. Ideally, the term is applied to art produced in the present.
[edit] Postmodern art, modern art
The term modern art, which had been used in a similar manner to the way contemporary art is now used, has been called into question by the ascendance of the concept of postmodernism, which posits the notion that a significant inflection point was reached in the history of art in about the 1970s. The concept of postmodernism implies that the period of modernism has come to a close. Not all accept the division between modernism and postmodernism, and that debate is ongoing. The categorization of art as modern or postmodern is irrelevant to whether or not it is contemporary. It is contemporary if it is produced in the present and if it is considered serious.
[edit] Definition
Contemporary art refers to serious art being produced at the present time. The term contemporary art is not usually applied to work such as outsider art, naïve art, or folk art. A postmodern point of view might argue for the inclusion of outsider art, naïve art, or folk art among serious art forms. Almost anything can be considered contemporary art. Two questions loom large in contemporary art -- is it art? and if it is art, is it good art? But it should quickly be added that the presence or absence of these two questions does not in any way define art as being serious.
[edit] Description
Contemporary art, by definition, is new. Commentary on contemporary art is of necessity primarily descriptive. Interpretation has to wait for a later time. Interpretation of contemporary art has to wait until it is no longer contemporary art.
Description will vary with the type of art being considered. Identifying the type of art being considered, may be a first step in describing it. Thus a photograph will be identified as a photograph, a painting will be identified as a painting, and a stone sculpture will be identified as a stone sculpture. Further description may involve notation of many qualities -- color, texture, and on and on. These are primarily formal concerns.
[edit] Description, terms to use, how to describe
Some art terms refer to movements, some are descriptive, and some are both. "Hard edge" and "lyrical abstraction" are examples. Hard edge can be considered a specific movement; it is said that from the late 1950s through the 1960s a group of painters in the United States constituted the hard-edge painting movement. The term, however, can just as well be used to describe any painting in which abrupt color transitions occur between unmodulated color areas. Lyrical abstraction is known as a movement, but the term is just as useful to describe abstraction in which painted forms are modulated. That is a descriptive use of the term "lyrical." Of course a painting could have both lyrical and hard edge marks in it. These are just examples. Obviously that which is not a painting requires appropriate descriptive terms probably different than the examples above.
[edit] Reference to past movements to describe contemporary art
The advantage of making reference to past art movements when describing a new artwork is that there is shorthand involved, saving the writer the necessity of explaining all that the movement is about. The disadvantage is that it is unlikely that the concerns of the new artwork shares as much in common with the previous artworks as one assumes it does. Thus, referring to an artwork as, for instance, neo-Dadaist, may be more incorrect than correct.
In general, reference to past "movements," is interpretive. As contemporary art is recently produced, it's relation to past movements is often unclear. Superficial comparisons are possible, where it can help with description. But such comparisons at this stage in an artwork's life are probably tentative at best.
[edit] Where contemporary art might be found
Contemporary art is seen in museums. Contemporary art is also seen in privately owned art galleries. Contemporary art is also commonly found in public spaces, sometimes referred to as public art, when found in this setting. Urban parks and other outdoor spaces in major cities sometimes host sculptures, installations, etc. (See plop art.) Such artworks may fall under such headings as environmental sculpture or site specific art.
Corporate headquarters commonly display art, some of it fairly recently produced.
Contemporary art surveys are the primary subject of over 200 biennials and triennial exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennale, São Paulo, the Asia-Pacific triennial, the Kwan Ju, the Havana, Echigo-Tsumari, Istanbul Biennial, and documenta in Kassel, Germany.
[edit] 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
[edit] Museums
See Contemporary art museums for a list of contemporary art museums around the world.
[edit] Contemporary art from the 1960s onwards, by decade
It should be noted that all of the following were contemporary, in their time. But of course none are contemporary anymore. They would now have to be considered, strictly speaking, to be historical art movements.
[edit] 1960s |
[edit] 1970s |
[edit] 1980s |
[edit] 1990s |
[edit] 2000s |
[edit] 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.
- 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.
