What is contemporary art?
What is its history and context of production?
- Modernisms (Dada and Duchamp vs. Modernist painting)
- Conceptual Art
- Postmodernism
- YBAs- Art in the 1990s
- Art Now- Themes and Issues in Contemporary Art
*Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991
‘Art, when vital, is about setting the teeth on edge, of reminding us that we are alive for a span, and that the ugly and wholly unavoidable fact of death is never very far away. Art is about the beautiful. It is also about the nasty, the unpalatable.’ Michael Glover- Art Critic (Independent)
*Hirst is still in the press- critics debated recently whether he deserved to have a show in The Tate. Already a Millionaire- why does he need to raise his profile through a funded art venue?
*The shark looms at you in a gallery. The shark actually started to deteriorate which raised questions for the audience and the curator- replace the shark? Leave it to decay?
Actually decided to skin the shark and place the skin on a plastic model- so changed from original piece.
Raises questions about DEATH and DECAY.
*Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993
This caused controversy- critics said it was so expensive and in bad taste as it was made during a time when there was housing issues in the UK. The money could have been better spent.
*Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII, 1966
Minimalism- 1960's. The exhibit comprises one-hundred-and-twenty fire bricks, arranged in two layers, in a six-by-ten rectangle. All eight structures in the series have the same height, mass and volume, but different shapes. Thus they are all "equivalent".
The Tate bought it in 1972- resulting in controversy within the press because of the perception that taxpayers' money had been spent on paying an inflated price for a collection of bricks.
*Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917.
There is only one remaining photograph of the piece.
It was submitted to the American Society of Independent Artists in 1917 under pseudonym- R Mutt.
*An emergency meeting was held and it was decided to be removed form the exhibition.
MARCEL DUCHAMP,
“The Richard Mutt Case,” (Letter to The Blind Man, May 1917)
They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit.
Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. Without discussion this article disappeared and
never was exhibited.
What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt's fountain:
- 1 Some contended it was immoral, vulgar.
- 2 Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.
Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bathtub is
immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows. Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.
As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.
*Marcel Duchamp, Bottle Rack
Another example of an everyday object bought and turned into art.
*Duchamp, The Large Glass, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, 1915-1923
*Experimentation with contemporary art- identity, performance art and gender performance = Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy. 
‘A point which I want very much to establish is that the choice of these “readymades” was never dictated by esthetic delectation. This choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste….in fact a complete anesthesia.’ Marcel Duchamp, “Apropos of Readymades”, 1961
*Bruce Nauman, Self Portrait as a Fountain 1966-67
From Modernism to Post-Modernism.....What Happens Next?
*Modernism= roughly 1880-1960
*'High Modernist Art' aimed to 'hunt' art down to its medium.
*New forms of abstract art emerging in the 1940's- 1960's.
*Abstract Expressionism (action painting/colour filed painting) and post- painterly abstraction.
*Painters become interested in the characteristics of painting- such as flatness, colour..... art for arts sake.
Abstract Expressionism
*Jackson Pollock, No. 5, 1948 
*He was an American painter known for his contributions to the abstract expressionist movement. The painting was done on an 8' × 4' sheet of fibreboard, with thick amounts of brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of it, forming a nest-like appearance.
*Barnett Newman, Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?, 1966
*Mark Rothko, The Seagram Murals, 1958
The Tate's website said this about the exhibition they held of the work:
'In the Seagram Murals, Mark Rothko gives traditional oil painting technique a modern twist. The nine paintings chosen by Rothko to hang in a homogenous group at the Tate, reveal their painterly qualities slowly as our eyes grow accustomed to the dim light favoured by the artist for the display of his deep red black and maroon canvases.'
*‘A new kind of flatness, one that breathes and pulsates, is the product of the darkened, value muffling warmth of colour in the paintings of Newman, Rothko and Still. Broken by relatively few incidents of drawing or design, their surfaces exhale colour with an enveloping effect that is enhanced by size itself.’ Clement Greenberg, ‘American Type Painting’, 1955
*'Greenburgian Modernism'
- American art critic, promoted the work of the modernist painters. He can be associated with the concept of Formalism or New Criticism, which became the dominant idea and criteria for ascribing to modern art until the 1960's.
*At this point the limited values of high modernism were critiqued and challenged by the plurality of postmodernism.
*There was an active backlash within art practice, which sought to breakdown the relationship between high and low culture, art and life, and to experiment and innovate.
*This movement of resistance looked back to Duchamp.
From Modernism To Post-Modernism
*We can, therefore, identify two trajectories of approaches to modernist art making.
*Greenbergian Modernism- Formalism, high culture over low culture, self-referential and medium specific, abstract painting, ‘desire to hunt art down to its medium’, ‘art for art’s sake’- appraisal of values only to be found in art. *Duchampian- Readymade, performative, criticality- the questioning of authenticity, the role of the art and critic, a move away from the visual to the conceptual, art as idea.
(Amelia Jones: ‘Duchamp as the Father of Postmodernism’)
*All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual in nature because art only exists conceptually’ Joseph Kosuth, ‘Art after Philosophy’, 1969
*Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953
*Rauschenberg asked de Kooning if he could erase one of his drawings and De Kooning let him. Rauschenberg got this idea from drawings of his own that he had been erasing, and took it to the next level. The drawing that he was erasing had to be art to begin with. It had to be big. It took Rauschenberg a month to erase de Kooning’ drawing because of the mediums de Kooning had used. This piece stems from the idea which is how far can one push art and still get meaning out of it.
*John Latham, Art and Culture, 1966-69
The beginnings of a more expanded art work- suitcase format.
Conceptual Art: Art As Idea
‘…One will have to wait fifty or one hundred years to meet one’s real audience, but it is this audience alone that interests me.’ Marcel Duchamp, 1955
*Conceptual art-1960's/70's
*The emergence of Conceptualism represents a shift away from an emphasis on form and aesthetics to instead consider the ‘thinking process’ central to art making as the essence of art;
*Idea and concept was given priority over the visual or ‘retinal’;
*Idea and concept was also given priority over the materiality of art;
*‘Conceptual artists “have set critic and viewer thinking about what they see rather than simply weighing the formal or emotive impact”’ Lippard and Chandler
'Dematerialisation’
*Art critics Lucy Lippard and John Chandler published an article titled: ‘The Dematerialisation of Art’ in Art International, February 1968.
*Conceptual art thus represents a reaction to commercialism in art, as well as a critical exploration of the role of the artist, critic and audience.
*In 1973, Lucy Lippard published Six Years: The Dematerialisation of the Art Object from 1966-1972.
Approaches to Conceptualism
*1. A challenge to the ‘visual’ and the status of the art object
*2. Systems, series and structures as concepts for art
*3. Analytical art- language and statements
*4. Institutional critique and museum intervention
*5. Global conceptualism
1. A challenge to the ‘visual’ and the status of the art object:
*Piero Manzoni, Merda d'artista, 1961
*Michael Craig-Martin, An Oak Tree, 1973
*Both drawing on Duchamp- saying object is art- so that makes it art! Do we trust or believe the artist?
2. Systems, series and structures as concepts for art:
*‘In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work…..The idea becomes a machine that makes art.’ Sol LeWitt, ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, 1968
*Mark Kelly, Post Partum Document, 1971-79
*Documented in a systematic way the period after her birth; thinking how the child will develop and exploring the role of mother and women within the art world. Development of language.
3. Analytical Art- Language and Statements:
*Mary Kelly also fits here.
*Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965.
*Semiotic ideas. See him breaking down components that relate to meaning.
*‘Works of art are analytic propositions. That is, if viewed within their context-as-art, they provide no information what-so-ever about any matter of fact. A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist’s intention, that is, he is saying that that particular work of art is art, which means, is a definition of art.’ Joseph Kosuth: Art as Idea as Idea
*Lawrence Weiner, statements (october 12, 1969) Does an artwork need to be made or can we just read a statement and know what it is all about?
4. Institutional Critique and Museum Intervention
*Hans Haacke, Shapolsky et al, Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 (1971)
Exhibited in Guggenheim in New York but was closed as museum thought it was using political messages for a political end.
Art in The 1990's: The Young British Artists
Using his own body material (blood) as a material
*
Mat Collishaw Bullet Hole which was on display in the Freeze exhibition.
*Tracey Emin, I've Got it All, 2000
*Something different happening in art world- cult celebrity nature of artist. Huge value ascribed to art.
*1990's british art becomes more accessible
*Idea of 'High Art': Should it really be more accessible?
*Grouping such diverse artists together creates an 'aura' about them?
*Media loved commenting on them and their work- got people talking about their work, mainly through controversy.
*Saatchi gave them their notoriety- during the recession (Thatcherism and recession in 80's/90's) he lost a lot of high art and so took on the YBA's art.
YBA's:
•At Goldsmiths they were taught by conceptual artist Michael Craig Martin
•He is seen to be an influential factor in the development of new forms of creativity seen in their work.
•The label ‘YBA’ was a powerful brand and marketing tool.
•Artists are often associated with controversy, shock value and the rise of the artist-curator.
•The work of the ‘YBA’s is diverse and utilised a range of media.
Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection Royal Academy of Art, London, 18 September -28 December, 1997
*Shock Value!
*The show generated controversy in London and New York due to the inclusion of images of Myra Hindley and the Virgin Mary. The show consisted of work from the collection of Charles Saatchi. It was criticised by New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and others for attempting to boost the value of the work by showing it in institutions and public museums
*Myra painting by Marcus Harvey 1995
Art Now: Themes and Issues
Interdisciplinary approaches; post-medium specificity; Relational Aesthetics; interactive and participatory artwork; digital and virtual technologies; globalisation; changes in curatorial practice; art and activism…….
*Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, 1998
‘A set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.’
*Altermodern: Tate Britain, 2009
Conclusions:
•We now have: ‘a worldwide system for the production, distribution and consumption of art on a spectacular scale….the art it shows, sells and talks about is non-medium specific ‘conceptual’ postmodernism…..the work of art is, in short, entirely dependent on the institution of the museum for its continued existence.’
•Paul Wood, ‘Inside the whale: an introduction to postmodernist art’ in Gill Perry and Paul Wood, ed.
Themes in Contemporary Art, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004).
