Lesson 9

Caught in Between: Modern and Contemporary Art

Learning Outcomes

a. differentiate modern and contemporary art,

b. shows the interrelation of modern and contemporary art;
c. discusses significant historical events that informed and inspired the different movements
under contemporary art and,
d. classifies specific artworks into the different movements under contemporary art.

The History of arts is one of the most difficult task to pin down. As what previous chapter have
shown, significant ideas, canons and traditions, preference and dominance of style, media and
mode of production where the definitive characteristics that segment art history into identifiable
periods and movement; Identifiable, but not necessarily precise.

Defining the Contemporary

The term "contemporary" seem simple and straightforward enough to define. Things that are
contemporary are either happening at the same time or happening now. Contemporary art is recent art.
Contemporaries are people and things from the same time period. Contemporary can also describe
things happening now or recently. It's common to speak of contemporary music or contemporary
furniture, for example. Those things are new, not old. Anything characteristic of the present day can be
called contemporary.

There are museums, for example that include names of artists, art forms or artworks in their institution's
name, but seem to champion works that arguably fail under an earlier period. For example the Institute
of Contemporary Art in London.

In between Modern and Contemporary Arts

The modern art movement began in the 1860’s during the period of the Industrial Revolution. With
the advent of photography, artists no longer saw the necessity to make art for the sake of portraying
reality exclusively. Many artists therefore began experimenting with color, form, shape, abstraction,
different mediums, and different techniques. Modern art was a major diversion from techniques of the
past, as described below by Melissa Ho, an assistant curator at the Hirshorn Museum:
“[Traditional academic painting of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries] was about perfect, seamless
technique and using that perfect, seamless technique to execute very well-established subject matter
[…] With modern art, there is this new emphasis put on the value of being original and doing something
innovative.”

Modern art came before contemporary art. Most art historians and critics put the beginning of modern
art in the West at around the 1860s, continuing up to the 1960s. Whereas, contemporary art means art
made in the present day. But it can be hard to define what the ‘present day’ really means. Is that art
made by living artists? Art made in our lifetimes? Or is it artists making work that references or engages
with the culture of the present day? Perhaps even artwork made in a way that defines what the
‘present day’ is? So, the start date of contemporary art is, perhaps paradoxically, most often set back
in the 1960s and 70s.

But as well as time difference, there are also other differences—in method, medium, and approach. And
when we talk about modern and contemporary art, we’re also talking about lots of different
movements and forms, from Post-Impressionism, to Dada, to Pop Art, to Installation Art.

Contemporary Art

Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st
century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically
advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that
continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century. Diverse and
eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform, organising principle,
ideology, or "-ism". Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual
frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.

Other Contemporary Art Movement

Neo-pop Art

Neo-pop is a postmodern art movement of the 1980s. The term refers to artists influenced by pop art
and pop culture imagery, such as Jeff Koons, but also artists working in graffiti and cartoon art, such as
Keith Haring. Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is described as the first of the Japanese neo-pop artists
to "break the ice in terms of recycling Japanese pop culture".[4] Japanese neo-pop is associated with the
otaku subculture and the obsessive interests in anime, manga and other forms of pop culture. Artists
such as Kenji Yanobe exemplify this approach to art and fandom.[5]

Photorealism
Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an
artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in
another medium. Although the term can be used broadly to describe artworks in many different media,
it is also used to refer specifically to a group of paintings and painters of the American art movement
that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Conceptualism

In metaphysics, conceptualism is a theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized

frameworks situated within the thinking mind.[2] Intermediate between nominalism and realism, the
conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical concept of universals from a perspective that denies
their presence in particulars outside the mind's perception of them.[3] Conceptualism is anti-realist
about abstract objects, just like immanent realism is (their difference being that immanent realism
accepts there are mind-independent facts about whether universals are instantiated).[4]

Performance art

Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other
participants. It may be live, through documentation, spontaneously or written, presented to a public in a
Fine Arts context, traditionally interdisciplinary.[1] Performance art, also known as artistic action, has
been developed through the years as a genre of its own in which art is presented live. It had an
important and fundamental role in XX century avant garde art.[2][3]

It involves four basic elements: time, space, body and presence of the artist, and the relation between
the creator and the public. The actions, generally developed in art galleries and museums, can take place
in the street, any kind of setting or space and during any time period.[4] It's goal is to generate a
reaction, sometimes with the suppport of improvisation and a sense of aesthetics. The themes are
commonly linked to life experiences of the artist themselves, or the need of denunciation or social
criticism and with a spirit of transformation.[5]

Installation art

Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to
transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior
interventions are often called public art, land art or intervention art; however, the boundaries between
these terms overlap.

Earth Art

Earth art, also referred to as Land art or Earthworks, is largely an American movement that uses the
natural landscape to create site-specific structures, art forms, and sculptures. The movement was an
outgrowth of Conceptualism and Minimalism: the beginnings of the environmental movement and the
rampant commoditization of American art in the late 1960s influenced ideas and works that were, to
varying degrees, divorced from the art market. In addition to the monumentality and simplicity of
Minimalist objects, the artists were drawn to the humble everyday materials of Arte Povera and the
participatory "social sculptures" of Joseph Beuys that stressed performance and creativity in any
environment.

Street Art

Street art is unofficial and independent visual art created in public locations for public visibility. Street
art is associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti", and guerrilla art.[1]

Member:

Gaco, Renna Mae G.

Diozo, Viame R.

Adolfo, Princess Romarie B.

Velez, Daisy