Nam June Paik combined television and performance, distorting images and creating video art like TV-Buddha (1974).
Happenings, pioneered by Allan Kaprow, were improvised theatrical group meetings.
Performances, like Joseph Beuys' I like America and America likes me (1974), often centered on the artist.
Aktie Tomaat and Aktie Notenkraker were Dutch protests against elitist theater and music.
German avant-garde artists, like Karlheinz Stockhausen, pioneered serialism and electronic music.
Kraftwerk experimented with synthesizers and drum computers, creating "robotrock" like Autobahn (1975).
Pina Bausch's Tanztheater blended dance, drama, performance, and music, seen in Café Müller (1978).
The British Invasion saw British bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones dominating American charts.
Beat music mixed rock-'n-roll, rhythm-and-blues, and soul.
The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) was a concept album with diverse styles.
David Bowie played with alter egos, exemplified by Ziggy Stardust.
Minimal art reduced art to essential forms, focusing on simplicity and objectivity.
Donald Judd's stacks exemplified minimal art’s emphasis on rhythm and repetition, like in Untitled (1989).
Minimal music used repetitive rhythmic motifs; Terry Riley's In C (1964) is an early example.
Steve Reich experimented with shifting rhythms, notably in Drumming (1970-1971).
Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's opera Einstein on the Beach (1976) was a minimal opera with repetitive music and movements.
Bob Dylan revitalized folk music with socially conscious lyrics in songs like Blowin' in the Wind (1962).
The Woodstock festival in 1969 symbolized the hippie movement's ideals of love and peace.
Jimi Hendrix's performance at Woodstock was a sensation.
The film Easy Rider (1969) captured the hippie generation's desire for freedom.
Funk, pioneered by James Brown, focused on rhythm.
Disco gained popularity, exemplified by Saturday Night Fever (1977) and the Bee Gees.
Punk emerged as a reaction against mainstream pop with bands like The Ramones and The Sex Pistols.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism emerged in the late 1970s, marked by a shift in Western culture towards individualism and an excess of choices.
Postmodern art embraces irony, recycling, and mixing of high and low culture.
Jean-François Lyotard's Het postmoderne weten (1979) argued that the postmodern society is defined by information and the end of grand narratives.
Postmodern architecture rejected modernism's functional designs, embracing freer forms and historical styles.
Alessandro Mendini's Groninger Museum (1994) exemplifies postmodern architecture, mixing various styles.
Sjoerd Soeters' Inverdan in Zaanstad incorporates references to local and international architecture and popular culture.
Since pop art, the boundary between popular culture and art has been increasingly replaced.
Jeff Koons' Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988) combines pop, art, and kitsch.
Grace Jones embodies a postmodern artwork, playing with gender and musical styles.
Postmodern advertising adopts a cynical attitude, exaggerating cliches.
Oliviero Toscani's Benneton ads used shocking, socially conscious images, with the brand logo barely visible.
Hiphop emerged in the Bronx, New York, around 1976, as a grassroots movement with music, dance, and graffiti.
Public Enemy delivered hard-hitting activist messages.
De La Soul offered a positive alternative, incorporating positive messages.
ISH's MonteverdISH (2011) combined hiphop with classical music.
Many postmodern artists realize that innovating art is barely possible.
Cindy Sherman’s Untitled film stills (1977-1980) consists of self-portraits, where she plays with stereotypes and stylistic conventions.
Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill I&II (2003 and 2004) is a hurricane of quotes from pulp films.
Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is a 24-hour video composed of thousands of film fragments related to time.
Globalisation
1989, the Fall of the Berlin Wall marks a historical turning point.
Trade, migration and communication are taking place more and more on a global scale.
New art centers and festivals are flourishing in Asia, Africa and South America and artists from non-Western countries are making international careers.
Damien Hirst's work exemplifies art in a global, capitalistic world, focusing on market value and shock.
Peter Brook's Mahabharata (1985) sought universal themes through an international cast.
Magiciens de la terre (1989) challenged Western art norms by showcasing non-Western artists.
Akram Khan bridged cultural divides through dance, blending kathak and contemporary dance in Kaash (2002).
Following the relativism of postmodernism, the beginning of the new millennium saw a wave of new engagement.
Christoph Schlingensief's Bitte liebt Österreich (2000) parodied reality TV and immigration politics.
Brett Bailey's Exhibit B (2010) confronted colonial history with live tableaus, stirring controversy.
Ai Weiwei's S.A.C.R.E.D (2013) depicted his imprisonment, criticizing human rights abuses.
Dance emerged, focusing on deep basses and repetitive drumtracks.
House music originated in Chicago’s, the black homosexual scene.
Daft Punk mixed electronic sounds with pop elements, as shown on the album Homework (1997).
Klaus Obermaier's Vivisector I (2001-2002) blended dance and technology.
The Guerrilla Girls criticized the role of women in the art world through humorous posters (e.g. “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” (1989)).
Madonna symbolized a new type of independent woman at the end of the twentieth century.
The music of M.I.A. (1975) has a distinct intercultural character.
Networks
After 2005 is known as the network era.
Aram Bartholl Map (2009) highlights the virtual and real world.
Map questions a society that is increasingly mapped through digital technology.
The internet and digital networks can be regarded as a modern variant of the panopticon.
Morehshin Allahyari's Material speculation: ISIS (2015) reconstructs historical art treasures that have been destroyed by members of the terrorist movement Islamic State.
The Material speculation: ISIS (2015) sees the 3D printer as' tool that can change our lives in the future in a biological, political and social sense'.
Baudrillard argues that we live in a hyper-reality: a reality shaped by images we have created ourselves.
The Matrix (1999-2003) sketches a jet-black picture of a future in which virtual reality has replaced the real world.
In the opera The End (2012) Miku is a superstar with more than two and a half million online fans.
In the game industry, the current state of affairs regarding virtual reality is best visible.
There’s much debate about games and entertainment’s influence on real life.
Long-running TV series outdo feature films with ingenious plots, such as Game of Thrones (from 2011).
The increasing amount of TV series (etc. Game of Thrones) is linked to paid channels.
Marina Abramović's The Artist Is Present (2010) created a new art experience, showing her endurance and impact.
Jeremy Deller's The Battle of Orgreave (2001) explored the 1984 miner's strike.
Joost Conijn built his own aircraft and flew through Africa (OK-NUL 43), documenting special encounters.
Professional artists are increasingly moving to the neighbourhood.
The Berlin theatre collective Rimini Protokoll makes documentary theatre in which the ‘ordinary citizen’ plays the leading role.
In Solo São Paulo (2007), police officers from São Paulo exchange personal stories with their colleagues from Munich.
Street art Netherlands has a policy of removing graffiti.
British street artist Banksy often combines black humor with political or social commentary