contemporary art
Post-modernists reject the idea that art can provide meaning. If life is meaningless, they say, fine – let’s not pretend that art can do better. Let’s just accept that it’s nonsense, like everything else, and get on with it. This new Post-Modernist philosophy thus triggered a whole new set of priorities, which were greatly facilitated by the coincident arrival of new technologies, like television, video, and computers. Contemporary art movements focused on “how” art was created and disseminated, rather that “what” was produced. They emphasized ideas and concepts rather than precious objects and the skills needed to make them. In their attempt to popularize and broaden access to visual art, they introduced (or refined) a series of new art forms, such as Conceptualism, Performance, Happenings, Installation, Earthworks, and in the process took full advantage of new media like video, computers and digital technology. It’s all a far cry from Claude Monet and his lifelong quest to capture the differing effects of sunlight.
What are the Main Contemporary Art Movements?
Here is a short list of selected schools/styles of contemporary art, arranged in rough chronological order. Dates listed are approximate.
- Conceptualism (1960s onwards) see also Conceptual Art.
- Performance (Early 1960s onwards) see Performance Art and Happenings.
- Installation (1960s onwards) see also Installation Art.
- Video Art (1960s onwards)
- Minimal Art (1960s onwards) see also Minimalism and Op-Art.
- Photo-Realist art, Superrealism, Hyperealism (1960s on) see Photorealism.
- Earthworks (Land or Environmental Art) (mid-1960s) see also Land Art.
- Supports-Surfaces (c.1966-72)
- Contemporary Realism
- Post-Minimalism (1971 onwards)
- New Subjectivity (1970s)
- London School (1970s)
- Graffiti Aerosol Spray Painting (1970s onwards) see also Graffiti Art.
- Transavanguardia (Trans-avant-garde) (1979 onwards)
- Neo-Expressionist Art (1980 onwards) see also
Neo-Expressionism.
- Britart (1980s) see also Young British Artists (YBAs) and Charles Saatchi
- Neo-Pop (late 1980s onwards) see also Pop-Art.
- Stuckism (1999 onwards)
- New Leipzig School (c.2000 onwards)
- Other Artist Groups
Other minor or splinter contemporary art groups, or styles, listed in rough chronological order, include:
- Copy Art, Eat Art, Neo-Geo, Fluxus, Mail Art, Equipo
- Cronica, Mec Art, Groupe Zebra, BMPT, Arte Povera, Body
- Art, Narrative Art, Cooperative des Malassis, Lowbrow,
- East Village, Panique Szafran, Appropriation Simulation,
- Bad Painting, Demoscene, Cynical Realism (China), Pittura
- Colta (Anacronismo), Massurrealism, Pluralism, Relational
- Art, Figuration Savante, OuPeinPo, Sound Art, Superflat,
- Videogame Art, Massurrealism, Artefactoria, Toyism,
- Lowbrow, Tiki Art, Bitterism, Thinkism, Funism.
- Who are the Top Contemporary Artists?
The period from the mid-1960s to the present day has witnessed a number of extraordinary and talented contemporary artists. Here is a short selection of the most celebrated individuals in various categories of visual arts. Some, like Francis Bacon or Andy Warhol could be classified as modernists, but are included here due to their essentially “post-modernist” approach.
Contemporary Painting
- The surrealist Francis Bacon (1909-92); RB Kitaj
- (b.1932); the Pop cartoon-style painter Roy Lichtenstein
- (1923-97); the silkscreen printmaker Andy Warhol
- (1928-87); the Pop draughtsman David Hockney (b.1937);
- the obese-figure painter/sculptor Fernando Botero
- (b.1932); the Neo-Expressionist Georg Baselitz (b.1938);
- the photorealist self-portraitist Chuck Close (b.1940);
- the hyperrealist urban scene painter Richard Estes
- (b.1932); the subject painter Jack Vettriano (b.1951);
- the Scottish artist Peter Doig (b.1959); and the graffiti
- artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88).
Contemporary Sculpture
- The conceptualist Sol LeWitt (b.1928); the large-scale
- public sculptor Richard Serra (b.1939); the ‘feminist’
- sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010); the monumentalist
- Anish Kapoor (b.1954); the Neo-Pop artist Jeff Koons
Credits to visual-arts-cork.com
Join the community of creative minds at http://www.artistnote.com
