Contemporary Art
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
Conceptualism:
‘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)
‘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
‘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
‘All
art (after Duchamp) is conceptual in nature because art only exists
conceptually’ Joseph Kosuth, ‘Art
after Philosophy’, 1969
‘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
‘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
‘…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
The
Young British Artists
‘The
point was to generate hype from the combination of ‘cutting –edge’ art and the
traditional frame that would hold it……High art lite, then had- successfully and
spectacularly – broken with the autonomous concerns of the art world and had
intervened in ‘real life.’- Julian Stallabrass, High Art Lite: British Art in the 1990s, 1999
The
Turner Prize: ‘Matching the cool and alternate image of Channel 4, the emphasis
was placed on youth, and the first new shortlist dramatically reflected that
change: in 1989, the average age of the nominees had been fifty; in 1991, it
was thirty.’ Julian Stallabrass, High Art
Lite, 1999
Art
Now: Themes and Issues
‘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.’ Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics,
1998
‘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).
General
Bibliography:
Kent,
Sarah. Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi
Collection of British Art in the 90s, (London: Philip Wilson Publishers,
2003)
Stallabrass,
Julian. High Art Lite: British Art in the
1990s, (London: Verso, 1999)
Stallabrass,
Julian. A Very Short Introduction to
Contemporary Art, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Perry,
G. and Wood, P. (eds.), Themes in
Contemporary Art, (Yale: Yale University Press, 2004)
Wood,
Paul. Conceptual Art, (London: Tate
Publishing, 2002)
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