What is Contemporary Art?

Information about Contemporary Art

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Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since World War II.

The institutions of contemporary art

Contemporary art is exhibited by commercial contemporary art galleries, private collectors, corporations, publicly funded arts organizations, contemporary art museums or by artists themselves in artist-run spaces. Contemporary artists are supported by grants, awards and prizes as well as by direct sales of their work.

There are close relationships between publicly funded contemporary art organisations and the commercial sector. For instance, in Britain a handful of dealers represent the artists featured in leading publicly funded contemporary art museums.[1]

Individual collectors can wield considerable influence. Charles Saatchi has dominated the contemporary art market in Britain since the 1980s; the subtitle of the 1999 book Young British Artists: The Saatchi Decade uses of the name of the private collector to define an entire decade of contemporary art production.[2]

Corporations have attempted to integrate themselves into the contemporary art world: exhibiting contemporary art within their premises, organising and sponsoring contemporary art awards and building up extensive collections.[3]

The institutions of art have been criticised for regulating what is designated as contemporary art. Outsider art, for instance, is literally contemporary art, in that it is produced in the present day. However, it is not considered so because the artists are self-taught and are assumed to be working outside of an art historical context.[4] Craft activities, such as textile design, are also excluded from the realm of contemporary art, despite large audiences for exhibitions.[5] Attention is drawn to the way that craft objects must subscribe to particular values in order to be admitted. "A ceramic object that is intended as a subversive comment on the nature of beauty is more likely to fit the definition of contemporary art than one that is simply beautiful."[6]

At any one time a particular place or group of artists can have a strong influence on globally produced contemporary art; for instance New York artists in the 1980s.[7]

Public attitudes

Contemporary art can sometimes seem at odds with a public that does not feel that art and its institutions share its values.[8] In Britain in the 1990s contemporary art became a part of popular culture, with artists becoming stars, but this did not lead to a hoped for "cultural utopia".[9]

Concerns

A common concern since the early part of the 20th century is the question of what constitutes art. This concern can be seen running through the "modern" and "postmodern" periods. The concept of avant-garde may come into play in determining what art is taken notice of by galleries, museums, and collectors. Serious art is ultimately exceedingly difficult to distinguish definitively from art that falls short of that designation.

Contemporary art prizes

Some competitions, awards and prizes in contemporary art are

History

This table lists art movements by decade. It should not be assumed to be conclusive.

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

See also

References

1. ^ Derrick Chong in Iain Robertson, Understanding International Art Markets And Management, Routledge, 2005, p95. ISBN 0415339561
2. ^ Chin-Tao Wu, Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the 1980s, Verso, 2002, p300. ISBN 1859844723
3. ^ Chin-Tao Wu, Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the 1980s, Verso, 2002, p14. ISBN 1859844723
4. ^ Gary Alan Fine, Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity, University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp42-43. ISBN 0226249506
5. ^ Peter Dormer, The Culture of Craft: Status and Future, Manchester University Press, 1996, p175. ISBN 0719046181
6. ^ Peter Timms, What's Wrong with Contemporary Art?, UNSW Press, 2004, p17. ISBN 0868404071
7. ^ George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology, University of California Press, 1995, p257. ISBN 0520088476
8. ^ Mary Jane Jacob and Michael Brenson, Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art, MIT Press, 1998, p30. ISBN 026210072X
9. ^ Julian Stallabrass, High Art Lite: British Art in the 1990s, Verso, 1999, pp1-2. ISBN 1859847218
10. ^ [1]

External links

history of art usually refers to the history of the visual arts, such as painting, sculpture and architecture. The term also encompasses theory of the visual arts. It is not usually taken or intended to refer to the performing arts or literary arts.
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prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history.

Paleolithic

The earliest possible artwork yet discovered, the Venus of Tan-Tan comes from between 500,000 and 300,000 BCE, during the Middle
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Middle East
Ancient Egypt
Mesopotamia

Asia
India
China
Japan
Scythia

Etruscan
Celtic

Norse
Visigothic

Ancient Greece
Hellenistic
Rome
Arts of the ancient world
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Western art is the art of Europe, and those parts of the world that have come to follow predominantly European cultural traditions such as North America.

Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient
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Eastern art history, devoted to the arts of the Far East includes a vast range of influences from various cultures and religions.
Art history
series
Prehistoric art
Ancient art history
Western art history
Eastern art history
Islamic art history
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Islamic art encompasses the arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people (not necessarily Muslim) who lived within the territory that was inhabited by culturally Islamic populations.
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Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational and Classical motifs, after which time more purely abstract and conceptual modes gained favor.
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The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, and spans all cultures.

Also see articles: Painting, Western painting, History of art, Eastern art history, Outline of painting history.
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Allied powers:
 Soviet Union
 United States
 United Kingdom
 China
 France
...et al. Axis powers:
 Germany
 Japan
 Italy
...et al.
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contemporary art gallery is a location where Contemporary art is shown and sold. "Art gallery" also is commonly used to mean art museum (especially in British English), the rooms used to display art in any museum, or in the original sense of any large or long room.
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Contemporary art museums around the world specialize in collecting and exhibiting contemporary art. The following is an alphabetical listing of major contemporary art museums, divided by country. A number of such museums are called the Museum of Contemporary Art.
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An artist-run space is a gallery space run by artists, thus circumventing the structures of public and private galleries. With its roots in the alternative salons of the early modern era, the phenomenon came to be important in the do-it-yourself era of post-Freeze British art.
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Charles Saatchi (born June 9, 1943) was the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, which became the world's biggest before the brothers were forced out of their own company in 1995.
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Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut (which literally translates as "Raw Art" or "Rough Art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture;
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twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
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Modern art is a general term used for most of the artistic work from the late 19th century until approximately the 1970s. (Recent art production is more often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art).
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Postmodern art is a term used to describe art which is thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general movements such as Intermedia, Installation art, Conceptual Art and Multimedia, particularly involving
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Avant-garde (pronounced /ɑvɑ̃ gɑʁd/) in French means "front guard", "advance guard", or "vanguard".
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The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA. The Aldrich has no permanent collection. It is one of the United State's leading contemporary art galleries and special exhibition spaces. The Museum is an international leader in museum education.
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The Hugo Boss Prize is awarded every other year to an artist (or group of artists) working in any medium, anywhere in the world. The prize is administered by the Guggenheim Museum and sponsored by the Hugo Boss clothing company.
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The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, founded in 1937, is a modern art museum located on the Upper East Side in New York City. It is the best-known of several museums owned and/or operated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and is often called simply The Guggenheim.
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Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of recent American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1918.
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The Vincent Award (or The Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in Europe) is awarded every two years to a European artist that judges believe "will have significant, enduring impact on contemporary art.
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Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Established 1895
Location Museumplein
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Type Modern art
Visitor figures 197,900 (in 2005)
Director Gijs van Tuyl
Website www.stedelijk.nl , www.smba.
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The Marcel Duchamp Prize (in French : Prix Marcel Duchamp) is an annual award given to a young artist. The winner receives 35 000 euros personally and up to 30 000 euros in order to produce an exhibition of their work in the Modern Art museum (Centre Georges
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Centre Georges Pompidou

Building

Type Museum & Library
Architectural Style Post Modern
Structural System Concrete frame & precast concrete ribbed roof
Location Paris, France

Construction

Completed 1977
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The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery (CCGG) is a public art gallery located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The CCGG is a national gallery exhibiting Canadian silica artwork, including ceramic, glass and enamel work.
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The Ricard Prize (or Prix Ricard S.A.) was founded in 1999 and in 2006 its name changed to Prix Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard. The prize is awarded each year during the Parisian art fair FIAC by a committee of French collectors (friends of the Centre Pompidou,
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Dakis Joannou is a Greek Cypriot industrialist based in Greece. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of European contemporary art (the earliest work in his collection is from 1985).
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Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s
1960 1961 1962 1963 1964
1965 1966 1967 1968 1969

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Their 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive.
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