Contemporary Art Terminology

Contemporary

-"Now" and "up to date"
-Often comment on contemporary issues of today
-Diversity of materials, ideologies, methods, concepts, and subjects
-Challenging boundaries
-A break with modernisms ideologies → a lack of uniform organization or clear timelines
that defined modernisms "ism's"
-Acceptance of a variety of intentions and styles happening at the same time

Contemporaneity

• about understanding the present, not just as a static point in time, but as a dynamic and evolving space where art is created and experienced.
• Interacts with the present moment and social issues relevant to the time in which the work is created

Conceptualism

Ideas over objects
Key Ideas:

• Reductivism
• Rejection of standard ideas of what art should be
• Democratizing art/de-acedemicising
• Art may not look traditional, or even take a physical form at all
• Duchamp's Fountain brought up the idea of readymade art and questions the role of art, artist, and viewer
• John Baldessari Cremation Project - Purged all of his past paintings "I will Not make any more boring art"

Post-Modernism

• born of scepticism and a suspicion of reason
• Popularized 1980s, 90s
• Distinctions between high and low art are collapsed
• Challenges boundaries of taste
  Eg. John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Damien Hirst

Pop Art

• Began in the 1960's
• Bold use of colour and imagery
• blurs the boundaries between high and low culture- elevation of everyday imagery
• embraces the post-WWII manufacturing and mediaboom. Eg. advertising.
• Strong interest in consumer culture
  eg. Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, and Ed Ruscha- Began in Commercial art

Semiotics

the study of signs and symbols

Post-Structuralism

Deconstruction of language and systems

"Post-structuralist thinkers believed that the onslaught ofinformation in our media saturated society has made itimpossible for any single worldview to dominate."

Performance Art

• Roots in Surrealism, Italian Futurists, Fluxus, and Dada movements
• Significant rise in performance art in the 1960's at the end of modernism.
• performance art of the 60's and 70's focused on body art. -> strong ties to the feminist movement.
• follows the pattern of conceptual art's "dematerialization of the art object," and the move away from traditional media like painting and sculpture.
• reflects social and political changes: eg. the rise of feminism, anti-war activism. The body becomes political.

Body Art

• used to explore broader issues about the construction of identity
• the role of the viewer changed with performance and body art. They are implicated or part of the performance and art.
• traditional forms of high art media are not enough to express the fragmentation of identity caused by mass productions and the rise of technology.
  Eg. Ana Mendietta, Rebecca Horn, Yoko Ono, Martha Rosler, Yves Klien

Earth Art

• Rejects the gallery as the only space for art to exist
• Site specific, and temporary- vulnerable to the elements
• Most artists use materials found on location
  Eg. Ana Mendietta, David Nash, Richard Long, Nancy Holt, Agnes Dean

Expanded Field

Rosalind Krauss wrote about it in 1979

• Classic definitions of sculpture were changing.
• Hugely influential essay for contextualizing sculpture in contemporary art
• Identified a redrawing of boundaries in sculpture

Minimalism

• Renouncing "academic art" and academic thinking ("deskilling" art)
• Industrial materials (steel and aluminum)
• Simple, repeated geometric forms
• Questioning boundaries between media - erased distinctions between painting and
  sculpture
  Eg. Sol Le Witt, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Beverly Pepper

Post-Minimalism

• Process art: emphasis on materials and process and the act of making, rather than the finished artwork
• Anti form: use of unprocessed materials that either sagged or drooped- Let the material do what it wanted
• Rejected the minimalists use of industrial materials and cold lifeless authoritarian forms
• Sculptures mimicked the expressive and organic qualities and often evoked connections to the human body and sexuality
  Eg. Eva Hesse, Roni Horn, Eva Le Witt, Rachel Whiteread

Un-Monumental

describing artworks that reject traditional monumentality, often featuring fragmented, modest, or makeshift materials to challenge grand, heroic representations in art.

Exploring the affect that technology has on materials and objects, sculpture becomes ephemeral, fragile, fragmented, and provisional.

→ Unpolished and evidence of the hand-made.

→ We see a rise in precarious sculpture, bricolage, assemblage, and even collage as artists test the proliferation of materials and objects in our consumer driven, digitally saturated culture.

Archival Impulse

A tendency in contemporary art to collect, document, and reassemble historical or found materials, often questioning memory, history, and institutional narratives.

Soundscape

A sound landscape:

• Can be site specific or space specific

• Sound collage - use existing sound recordings, can be subverted (very post modern)

• Could be live so part of performance art

An auditory environment created or explored in art, incorporating natural, urban, or manipulated sounds to evoke atmosphere, meaning, or emotion.

Cinematic Apparatus

• a constructed combination of moving images, front facing screen, seating, sound, and narrative to produce a pensive experience for the viewer.

Neo-Expressionism

• An art movement that emerged in the 1970s and that reflects the artists' interest in the expressive capability of art, seen earlier in German Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism.
• revived expressive, gestural painting with intense colors and emotional themes, often reacting against conceptual and minimalist art.

Hybridity

The mixing of two or more different disciplines

• painting that could be categorized as sculpture, installation, even photography, but falls into the category of painting as well.
• The blending of different cultural, artistic, or media forms to create new, mixed identities or meanings, often explored in postcolonial and contemporary art contexts.

Digital/ Technological Sublime

The awe and overwhelming sensation provoked by digital and technological advancements, mirroring the Romantic concept of the sublime but in the context of virtual and technological spaces.

Relational Aesthetics

• a set of artistic practices which emphasizes human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space - Artists are facilitators rather than makers

• A term describing contemporary art that focuses on social interaction and audience participation, emphasizing experiences and relationships over traditional art objects.

Zombie Formalism

A term criticizing formulaic, market-driven abstract paintings that mimic past formalist styles (like Color Field painting) without deeper conceptual engagement.

late 2000s-2010s

• Formalism: involves straightforward, reductive, essentialist method of making a painting
• Zombie: because it brings back to life the aesthetic espoused by Clement Greenber
• Simple and direct manufacture
• Simulacrum of originality - a flair for 'novelty'
• Dominated and driven by commercial gallery market

Photo Conceptualism

A branch of Conceptual Art that uses photography as a primary medium to explore ideas, often emphasizing the process, context, and meaning over traditional aesthetics. Artists like Jeff Wall and John Baldessari are key figures in this movement.

Cinematography

motion picture photography. Resembles a still from a motion picture. Both cinema and photography are used.

The art and technique of capturing moving images on film or digital media, including camera movement, lighting, framing, and composition to create visual storytelling.

Provisional painting

the new abstraction in the 21 st century that ischaracterized by 'open-ended' attitude towards painting, rejection ofpainterly and artistic 'dogmas'

• Casual approach
• Rejection of formal art "rules"
• Studied incompleteness