Contemporary Art: What It Is, Characteristics, And Main Movements
Currently, we live in an era characterized by speed. Not only do fashions appear and disappear in an instant, but they also spread at the speed of light, thanks to the rise of technologies such as the Internet, mobile applications and social networks. Contemporary art, of course, cannot be understood apart from this reality.
Although from the second half of the 20th century we can no longer talk about artistic movements as such, we can There are a series of patterns that characterize contemporary art and which we are going to analyze in this article.
Contemporary art is considered to be those artistic manifestations that are included in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. The very word, “contemporary”, carries a continuous expiration and renewal, since, obviously, a hundred years from now we will not be able to continue calling current art “contemporary art.”
Contemporary art is based on the nonexistence of solid and representative movements, as were the “isms” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So, Contemporary art is a clear child of its time, since it represents absolute freedom of creation We can almost describe a specific current for each existing artist. It is the triumph of individuality over the community.
Even so, and perhaps paradoxically, we can distinguish a series of common characteristics, which we will discuss in the next section.
General characteristics of contemporary art
Broadly speaking, we can list 4 essential characteristics of the art we call contemporary. Let’s see them below.
1. The use of new technologies
Although in general every new artistic manifestation involves technical innovation, it is true that, in the case of contemporary art, innovation is a basic characteristic to base its own definition. For example, in the development of Flemish art in the 15th century, oil painting, which was invented at that time, was very important; but we cannot say that this new technique constituted something essential in the birth of this new style.
However, we can affirm that new technologies have a lot to do with the formation of contemporary art. On the one hand, photography and cinema, which were the basis of many of the creations of the first avant-garde of the 20th century; for another, digital techniques and networks, essential to understand current art
Thus, one of the most important elements that characterize contemporary art is the use and exploitation of new emerging technologies which, by the way, has given rise to the name of one of the most current (and also most heterogeneous) trends in art. from the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century: New media art or new media art.
2. Virality and mass consumption
Another of the characteristics that underpin contemporary art is virality and the rise of mass consumption. We cannot understand current art without linking it to the speed of communications and the access of the general public to artistic creations. This is a fact that began to be noticed at the beginning of the 20th century, with the spread of newspapers and magazines and the growth of the consumer society ; However, it is not until the second half of the century and, especially, at the beginning of the 21st century, when this phenomenon has increased thanks to the Internet, mobile devices and social networks.
This extraordinary virality, never seen before, allows an artist’s creation to travel around the world in just a few hours (sometimes minutes). Furthermore, the high rates of consumption experienced by humanity today cause there to be a greater “need” for art on the part of the general public, as well as greater access.
3. The development of “subcultures”
At the end of the 19th century, and for the first time in the history of art, different simultaneous artistic currents known as “isms” appeared. From then on, the proliferation of aesthetic currents advanced at greater and greater speed, to the point that, At the beginning of the 20th century, we find avant-garde movements that overlap with each other in time
This multiculturalism and simultaneity of artistic expressions reached its peak in the middle of the 20th century with the proliferation of the so-called “subcultures”, that is, social groups with their own cultural expressions that differ considerably from those accepted by the “officials”. This is the case, for example, of graffiti and urban art.
4. The progressive relativization of art
Last but not least, we find a relativization (if not trivialization) of art, which began at the beginning of the 20th century with the first avant-garde and has continued to the present day.
Throughout history, artistic movements have been guided by an idea of beauty. Obviously, this idea has varied over the centuries and has been very different depending on the culture that issues it. However, the phenomenon of artistic denial, that is, of the nonexistence of a guiding aesthetic is something absolutely recent
Perhaps the first to establish the denial of art and, therefore, of an aesthetic, were the Dadaists, a group of disenchanted intellectuals who emerged as a movement in 1916. The Dada movement was not, of course, the first avant-garde, but it was which was the first to violently and absolutely deny artistic creation.
A few years earlier, the futurists proposed an aesthetic, an ideal of beauty, in this case based on speed and progress. They were transgressive in terms of form, but in no case did they deny the existence of art. In fact, they talked about the “beauty of a racing car at full speed.” The Dadaists, however, broke with every ideal. Without knowing it, they were laying the foundations for future contemporary art.
The era of “postmodernity”
Contemporary art bases its discourse not on transgression (the avant-garde had already done this), but on the break with the very concept of creation and author Questions are raised about authorship, the validity of the artist’s point of view, originality and the value of the work of art itself. This is what has been called “postmodernity.”
This break with artistic formalities puts it into open contradiction, since, at the same time that they question the validity of art galleries, foundations, artists, etc., they use all of this to legitimize themselves. Legitimize, why? Because in the era of postmodernity, any object can be considered a work of art, so it needs an institution with sufficient authority and prestige to endorse it as such.
Some of the contemporary art movements
Below we are going to review some of the most important movements in contemporary art, from their appearance in the 60s to the present.
1. “Pop art”
Emerged in the 1960s by artists as important as Andy Warhol, “pop art” or popular art reinvented everyday consumer objects and turned them into art objects Thus, any everyday element could be a work of art and, furthermore, and thanks to the improvement of reproduction techniques, any home could afford access to them. It was the dawn of art as a consumer object.
2. The “op art”
The name is the abbreviation of optical art, that is, optical art. The term was coined by the magazine Time Magazine in 1964, and referred to the artists who played with optical illusions to energize their creations Although “op art” had its heyday in the 1960s, we can find its genesis in previous avant-garde movements, especially in surrealism. We just have to remember Dalí and his “paranoid-images,” as he himself called them, which made the eye see elements that, in principle, were not represented in the painting.
The creative wealth of the 60s of the 20th century is manifested in all these movements that gained great momentum during these years of demonstrations, the hippie movement and the birth of countercultures.
Specifically, the so-called “psychedelic” art has a lot to do with the rise in the consumption of hallucinogenic substances such as LSD (in fact, this trend is also called “lysergic” art in “honor” of this designer drug), and Its aesthetics capture the altered states of consciousness produced by its consumption Thus, “psychedelic” art presents fractals and bright, vivid colors, as well as optical and phosphenic effects (sensation of seeing spots of light when the retina is adequately stimulated).
4. “Body art”
It is about artistic creation that uses the human body as a support. Thus, aesthetic patterns are formed through painting, piercings or tattoos, and was particularly popular in the 1970s.
5. Graffiti
The decade par excellence of graffiti was the 1980s. It is a completely free (and, most of the time, illegal) art that uses public surfaces for expression Generally these are compositions of words with a message, but we also find high-quality figurative painting. Usually, these representations are made using the aerosol technique.
6. “Poor” art
At the end of 1960, a movement of Italian artists emerged who claimed the art made with “poor” materials, that is, for everyday use and at low or no cost The “povera” artist created his works with wood, clay, leaves, fabrics, rocks and other materials that, in general, could be found in nature or in the urban landscape.
7. Hyperrealism
Contrary to what many people believe, contemporary art is not based solely on absolutely new languages. For example, in recent years the so-called hyperrealism, an artistic expression that imitates reality with millimeter precision in an absolutely photographic way.
8. New media art
It is the art that makes use of the most cutting-edge technologies to develop and access the public. The preferred medium of these artists is, of course, the Internet. New media art or new media art interacts with the viewer, appropriates existing works and makes its creations in collaboration with other artists. Some examples are interactive art and the metaverse.
