Lesson 9

Lesson 9: Caught in
Between:
Caught Modern and Modern
in Between:
Contemporary Art
and Contemporary Art
 DEFFINING THE CONTEMPORARY

The term "contemporary" seems simple and straightforward

enough to define. There is this assumption that it need not be
asked; rather, that it must already be understood. But with an
attempt to do so, one finds it is a lot harder to grasp. The
complexity of defining the term is attributed to the fact that
people have dissenting views on the interpretation of th
e "present," of "today," or what the "now" means these are
often ideas that follow the word contemporary.
There are museums, for example, that include name of artists,
art forms, or artworks in their institution's name, but seem to
champion works that arguably fall under an earlier period. For
example, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London which was
founded in 1947 includes in its mandate "the promotion of art
that came to be from that year onwards." Clearly the timeline is
a bit skewed if the assumption is that contemporary art started
decades later. For the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New
York, its starting point is dated at 1977; while the TATE framed
contemporaneity in a ten-year rolling basis and was placed under
the bounds of their Museum of Contemporary Art.
Institute of Contemporary Art in London
Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago
 Another source of confusion is the fact that in the colloquial
, "modern" and "contemporary" are considered synonymous. This, however,
is not the case when these terms are used in the context of art. Therein,
they refer to two different (but consecutive) periods qualified by
different approaches to artmaking and the functions that art served. To
better make sense of contemporary art, perhaps it is best to dial back to
its predecessor, modern art.
 Modern art saw the digression of artists away from past conventions and traditions
and toward freedom. There is the famous adage of "anything goes." With the world becoming
increasingly complex, it required an art that could accommodate such range and breadth.
Roughly between the 1860s to late 1970s, creatives celebrated the novel opportunities in art,
from the materials to its manipulation and ways of seeing and thinking about art. The
devotion of artists to a strict narrative was often illustrated in their figurative works;
however, these artists gave their nod to abstraction. The tenets of this period were not only
reflected in its art, but it was also evident in the way people lived and conducted themselves,
the social issues that were relevant, fashion, music and the wide range of images and
activities they were engaged in. This period saw the heavy mass production of goods, along
with the encouraging environment made possible by industrialization, new technology,
urbanization, and rise of commercially driven culture.
 The period that ensued was touted contemporary art. In order to move forward,
it is necessary to underscore that this can be better understood after a starting point
has been established. Compared to the dense taxonomy of modern art, contemporary art
had fewer -isms under its wing. Perhaps, this was also due to the fact that it is still
unfolding. Effectively, this period can be traced from the 1970s to the present. There is
a reason behind this cutoff. The cutoff was hinged on two reasons:

1. The 1970s saw the emergence of "postmodernism." The affix was a clue that whatever
followed was segregated from it precursor.

2. The 1970s saw the decline of the clearer identified artistic movements.
Social Context: In Between Modern and Contemporary Art

Reaping the benefits and drawbacks of the dramatic changes that occurred at the
beginning of the twentieth century, the social, political, and cultural context continued
to provoke the artist to create. There is a potent source of reference for his works so
that he may continue to question the existing and emergent values of society. This
multiplicity of perspectives brought to light a more difficult terrain to map out in terms
of clear and distinct movements because what compelled artists' works were not
prevailing medium, technique, or style; rather, it was the themes and concerns they
addressed. And the conversation was no longer limited to geographic locales, but became
increasingly a global conversation.
"Art may be spoilt for choice. In a world where nothing is seasonal or regional
any more, there is no home base from which to operate. And so the arts today
can be seen as responding to a number of issues, some from within their own
structures of means and techniques, some more widely understood as issues
within society. Typically none is resolved." (Tamplin, 1991)

Contemporary art was heavily driven by ideas and theories, and the even the
blurring of notions of what is and can be considered as "art," with the
involvement of television, photography, cinema, digital technology, performance,
and even objects of the everyday. It was the idea that was more important
than its visual articulation.
There were several art movements that were caught in between the succession of
modern and contemporary art. These movements laid the groundwork for the
transition into contemporaneity. Reeling after the war, one of the early movements
was abstract expressionism (early 1940s to mid-1960s) which took the basic tenets of
abstraction and combined with it with gestural techniques, mark-making, and a
rugged spontaneity in its visual articulation. Often affiliated with New York painters
(hence being called the New York School), some of them include Clyfford Still, Jackson
Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, who were committed
to creating abstract works that had the ability to convey and elicit emotion, especially
those residing in the subconscious. Two major styles emerged from this: that of action
painting and color fields. Action painting underscored the process of creation in that
it showed the physicality, direction and most often, the spontaneity of the actions that
made the drips and strokes possible. On the other hand, color fields emphasized the
emotional power of colors. From the vivid demarcations to the more toned-down
transitions, these bands of color were akin to the effect of landscapes.
Creating energy was at the center of "op art" or optical art (early 1960s onward).
Much like what was discussed in the lesson on elements of art that dimension can be
implied even on a two-dimensional surface or plane, op art relied on creating an
illusion to inform the experience of the artwork using color, pattern, and other
perspective tricks that artists had on their sleeves. From making it seem like a section
was protruding out or receded in the background, to creating movement, works under
this movement showed a certain kind of dynamism. It inspired several artists in
different countries to create their own iteration of op art: Hungarian artist Victor
Vasarely, British artists Bridget Riley and Peter Sedgley, American Richard
Anuszkiewicz, and Israeli Yaacov Agam.
Other artists expanded their works to include other materials such as nails, plexiglass,
and metal rods, including Jesus Soto, Guenther Uecker, Enrico Castellani, and Carlos
Cruz-Diez.
The quest for actual movement in the works created were responded to by kinetic art
(early 1950s onward). Harnessing the current and direction of the wind, components
of the artwork which was predominantly sculptural, most were mobiles and even motor
-driven machines, was an example of how art and technology can be brought together.
Artists known for creating kinetic art were Naum Gabo, Alexander Calder, Jean
Tinguely, Bridget Riley, and Nicolas Schoffer. One of the most recent kinetic artist to
gain attention is Theo Jansen with his massive sculptures or beasts, as he likes to
refer to them. Using plastic tubes and PVC pipes, he has created several life forms
that took over the sea-side.
In Japan during the post-war, platforms that were grounded on movement and a
sense of dynamism were utilized to convey ideas attached to the new-found freedom,
individuality and openness to the international sphere. Termed gutai (1950s-1970s)
which means embodiment or concreteness, it preceded the later forms of
performance and conceptual art. The goal was not only to explore the materiality of
the implements used in the performance, but also to hold a deeper desire to make
sense of the relationship that is struck between the body, the movements, and the
spirit of their interaction during the process of creation. Gutai straddled between
multiple platforms from performance, theatrical events, installation, and even
painting. The founder of the Gutai Art Association or Gutai Group was Yoshihara Jiro in
1952. Other known gutai artists were Tanaka Atsuko, Saburo Murakami, Kanayma
Akira, Murakami Saburo, and Shozo Shimamoto. Entitled "Challenge to the Mud" (1955
), Kazuo Shiraga utilized his body, writhing in a pile of mud. The shapes formed, and the
state of the mud were left as is after his performance, and was kept as part of the
exhibition as a kind of action- painting. This is one the most important examples of
gutai.
Another movement was minimalism which cropped up in the early 1960s
in New York, and saw artists testing the boundaries of various media.
It was seen as an extreme type of abstraction that favored geometric
shapes, color fields, and the use of objects and materials that had a
n "industrial" the sparse.

"The new art favored the cool over the dramatic': their sculptures
were frequently fabricated from industrial materials and emphasized
anonymity over the expressive excess of Abstract Expressionism.
Painters and sculptors avoided overt symbolism and emotional content,
but instead called attention to the materiality of the works." (Wolf,
n.d.)
The other movement is pop art. It first emerged in the 1950s but found its
footing in the 1960s. It drew inspiration, sources, and even materials
from commercial culture, making it one of the most identifiable and
relatable movements in art history. Artists became increasingly critical
about how what was being exhibited in art spaces had no relationship with
real life. What could be more real than what you saw, used, ate, watched,
heard, and read! Hence, they turned to commodities designed and made
for the masses, particularly drawing inspiration and material from ads,
packaging, comic books, movies and movie posters, and pop music. The aim
was to also elevate popular culture as something at par with fine art. A
defining feature was the discussions on the hierarchy (and divide
between) of "high culture" and "low culture"; "fine art" and "low art.
Perhaps, one of the most critical statements against pop art was its use of
very banal and "low" objects and subject matters, lacking the elevated
aura that other believed art required. It was also seen as an absence of
criticality in that objects appeared as it is, seemingly no different from how
they were used in the daily life. If at all, it ironically seemed too "cool" as
well that it also became somewhat detached to the life it purportedly talked
about. Some of the artists that are most identified with pop art is Andy
Warhol, James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Hamilton, Tom
Wesselman, Ed Ruscha and Roy Lichtenstein, with a number of them coming
from careers in the commercial art as illustrators, graphic designers, and
even billboard painters. It is because of this that their works had a seamless
quality about it.
But perhaps the most pertinent movement that solidified the move to
contemporary art was postmodernism. By the very name, it was a nudge to
formalize the critique toward modernism and its claim over art for the better
of the twentieth century. More than anything, it was grounded on the shifts in
the belief systems that were in place in the 1960s. First used in 1970, the term
was difficult to affix to any style or theory and perhaps that was the point.
Postmodernism encroaches on other smaller movements that included
conceptual art, neo-expressionism, feminist art, and the Young British Artists
of the 1990s, among others.

Grounded on skepticism about ideals and grand narratives, it was rooted in

analytic philosophy during the mid- to late twentieth century, which highlighted
the importance of individual experience and was often steeped in complexity
and contradiction. As an upshot, formerly established rules, barriers, and
distinctions were abolished.
Their awareness of styles was not for them to copy or be governed by them, but to
borrow, critique, and even to turn on their heads. During this time, some of the guiding
principles were the multiplicity of narratives, relativity, and even interdisciplinary. It
is important to note that there were attempts to overturn the notion that all progress
was positive, the hierarchy of races, and that art has a definitive goal. In relation to
the last one, one emergent aspect was also underscored in the experience and
engagement with art and that was the importance of the viewer. Here, the idea of the
sole authorship of the artist is put to the test, that it is the intention of the artist
during the time of creation-the end-all and be-all of the appreciation of work
because it is where the sole meaning lie-is disputed. Some of the sub-movements
under this broad umbrella were minimalism, conceptual art, video art, performance
art, installation art, and even feminist art. Although they were widely accepted and
recognized to be formal movements during the 1970s, they were in fact already in
existence as early as the 1920s.
Contemporary Art

We can observe that there were overlaps with the acceptance and practice of these
movements. They were not only overlapping with each other, but they were embedded in
a social order that was in fact somewhat "disordered."

One of the main developments during this time was the turn from the traditional notions
of what art is: from paintings and sculptures to the more experimental formats. These
included film, photography, video, performance, installations and site-specific works,
and earth works. Even these formats tended to overlap, leading to interesting and
dynamic, and otherwise "unheard of combinations of concepts, subjects, materials,
techniques, and methods of creation, experience, and even analysis. Compared to other
periods, it can be argued that contemporary art is the most socially aware and involved
form of art. The subject matter of its works was one of the most pressing, heated, and
even controversial issues of contemporary society.
 Other Contemporary Art Movements
Neo-Pop Art

Neo-Pop is most often recognizable because of its bright colors, high contrast, clean
lines, and use of popular media. It is uncommon to see visible brushstrokes, shading, or the
use of natural or muted colors in Neo-Pop art. Whether it is intentionally designed to
appeal to viewers or it is a byproduct of its reference material, Neo-Pop art is appealing
to many viewers. Its designs are described as ‘fun’ and ‘youthful’, but can also be ‘garish’
or ‘childish.’
In addition to Pop-Art, Neo-Pop draws distinctly from Dada’s use of ‘ready mades’ and
‘found objects.’ This genre of art uses pre-fabricated objects ‒ sometimes altered,
sometimes not ‒ to communicate a message.
This type of art is quite controversial and invites many questions about the limitations of
what can be defined as ‘art’; however, it is generally accepted by the artistic community,
and examples can now be found in museums around the globe.
 Dada artists are known for their use
of ready mades - everyday objects
that could be bought and presented as
art with little manipulation by the
artist. The use of the readymade
forced questions about artistic
creativity and the very definition of
art and its purpose in society.
Jeff Koons Guggenheim Bilbao
Museum, Spain
“Puppy”
In Koon's "Puppy," he uses computer modeling to create a
behemoth of a sculptural work-a giant topiary-that
refers back to saccharine ideas of sentimentality,
security and banality: flowers, a puppy (West Highland
terrier), Hallmark greeting cards, and Chia pets. This
work articulates his exploration of the limits that exist
between the mass or popular and the elite culture.
 Other Contemporary Art Movements

Photorealism

The resurgence of figurative art, where realistic depictions is a choice, is a proof how
varied and fragmented postmodernism is. In photorealism, a painstaking attention to
detail is aimed, without asserting an artist's personal style. These drawings and
paintings are so immaculate in their precision that it starts to look like it is a photo
without a direct reference to the artist who created it. Two of the known photorealist
artists are Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter. 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.
BY: CHUCK CLOSE

BY: GERHARD RICHTER

 Other Contemporary Art Movements
Conceptualism

Other movements were informed and shaped by pop art, such as conceptualism.
As opposed to celebrating commodities as references to real life,
conceptualism fought against the idea that art is a commodity. This movement
also brought to the fore issues brought about by art institutions such as
museums and galleries where works are peddled and circulated. Some of the
major conceptual artists are Jenny Holzer, Damien Hirst, and Ai Wei Wei. "In
conceptual art, the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.
When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning
and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair."
(LeWitt, 1967)
Other Contemporary Art Movements
 Other Contemporary Art Movements

Performance Art

Performance art is related to conceptual art, whose rosters of well-known artists

include the likes of Marina Abramović, Yoko Ono, and Joseph Beuys. As a movement, it
began in the 1960s and instead of being concerned with entertaining its audience, the
heart of the artwork is its idea or message. Here, the audience may even be an
accomplice to the realization of the work. Performance art may be planned or
spontaneous and done live or recorded. Since it is also durational in nature, it is also
considered as ephemeral works of art. An interesting proposition is that performance is
not about the medium or the format; rather, it is how a specific context is made in which
through engagement or interaction, questions, concerns, and conditions will be fleshed
out.
Installation Art

Compared to traditional art formats, installation art is a kind of an immersive work where the
environment or the space in which the viewer steps into or interacts with (going around
installative art) is transformed or altered. Usually large-scale, installation art makes use of a
host of objects, materials, conditions, and even light and aural components. These works may
also be considered site-specific and may be temporary or ephemeral in nature. Well-known
installation artists are Allan Kaprow,Yayoi Kusama, and Dale Chihuly. An example of a public
installation art is the "Cadillac Ranch," comprised of 10 Cadillacs of different models ranging
from 1949 to 1964. Buried nose-first into the ground, each car is seemingly equidistant from
each other and forming a straight line. From its original site along Interstate 40, it was moved
in 1997 to its new spot two miles westward along the interstate. The cars underwent several
changes, from the first time they were installed as they were located in a public space. It didn't
take long before graffiti found its way onto the surfaces of the cars, and was painted
different colors such as gray. It also had a pink phase in the 1990s, wherein all cars were
painted pink.
Earth Art

Sometimes considered as a kind or a spin-off of installation art, earth art (or land art) is when
the natural environment or a specific site or space is transformed by artists. It is a kind of
human intervention into a specific landscape or terrain. Earth art is different from
environmental art in a sense that it does not focus on the subject (environmental issues or
concerns) but rather on landscape manipulation and the materials used, taken directly from
the ground or vegetation (rocks or twigs). Artists known for Earth Art are Robert Smithson,
Christo, Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy, and Jeanne-Claude.
Robert Smithson

Richard Long
 Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Andy Goldsworthy
Street Art
This art movement is related to graffiti art as it is a by-product of the rise of graffiti in the
1980s. Artworks created are not traditional in format but are informed by the illustrative,
painterly and print techniques and even a variety of media (even video projections). Some of
the examples of this include murals, stenciled images, stickers, and installations or
installative/sculptural objects usually out of common objects and techniques. Since these works
are most commonly found in the public sphere, various people who have access to them have
formed the impression and perception of the artworks themselves. These works operate under
interesting circumstances since they are unsanctioned and do not enjoy the invigilated
environments of museums and galleries. However, these works also end up in them, as street
artists also hold more traditional exhibitionary formats in the white cube. If it is in the open
space, there are no governing rules in its production and sometimes, in the interaction. Known
street artists include Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, and Banksy. Banksy's
popularity is evidenced by the creation of a film documentary that spoke about him and his
works. Gordon Matta-Clark, Jenny Holzer, and Barbara Kruger are some of the known street
artists.
 Jenny Holzer

Gordon Matta-Clark

Barbara Kruger