Contemporary Art and Art

¶ … Modern Art Contemporary and modern art has been characterized by increased focus on significant aesthetic and political work of artists across the globe. As a result, contemporary art is largely different from conventional work because of the shift in focus on elements of art. Actually, art has undergone significant changes throughout its history as a result of different influences across different time periods.

Some of the major influences of contemporary and modern art include material culture, technology, consumerism, rise of graffiti, protest and posters, land art, mass media, representation strategies, political self-awareness, and expanded cinema. These influences have played major in art production in the contemporary world and contributed to new practices in art. Contemporary art has shifted from medium specificity as the organizing principle for advanced production to the concept of sites and systems because of the numerous factors that have influenced art over the years.

The Shift from Medium Specificity Conventional art was based on the idea that art could be realized through recognizing the material and formal essence of the media committed to the practice of art such as sculpture and painting. The concept of medium specificity, which was introduced by Clement Greenberg in the beginning of the 1940s, dominated traditional art (Reyes-Garcia, Chatel-Innocenti & Zreik, p.17). In this case, awareness of the specificity of the aesthetic medium helped in changing the classical role of art as mere visual representation.

During this period, the centrality of the medium was utilized as the basis for exploring artistic potentials and avoiding any illusory and romantic ideals for art production. Medium specificity was utilized as a concept for advanced art production because it emphasized the centrality of the medium and enabled the pursuit of purity in modern art practices (Shanken, p.18). Based on the concept of medium specificity, the essence of art was understood as the use of medium as the only objective element in art.

However, in the past few decades, there has been a shift away from medium specificity as the basis for advanced art production to practices that are based on sites and systems because of various influences. One of the major influences was the pictorial technique, which was based on obtaining control of the medium to explore its artistic possibilities and limitations. For instance, John Pollock's work, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) of 1950 was a creation of new compositions that involved moving the canvas to the floor in order to control the medium.

Pollock's works evoked rhythm in action and moved from the centrality of the medium to exploring its artistic possibilities and limitations (Stiles & Selz, p.15). In the late 1950's the emergence of consumerism and mass culture i.e. film, television and advertising brought a shift from medium specificity to artistic practices based on site and system. Art borrowed images from popular culture as artists relocated these ideas to create their own idioms in various works (Hopkins, p.95).

Mass-produced imagery was used as the basis of advanced art production rather than the centrality of the medium in order to destabilize modernism. As the pop culture influenced art and resulted in pop art fluxus, artistic practices shifted from oil paintings to mass-distributed works such as films. The material culture brought by mass media, technology, and design techniques made artists to start incorporating everyday objects and images into their work such as William de Kooning's Study for Woman in 1949 (Stiles & Selz, p.326).

Urban debris were incorporated in art because of the growth of environments, happenings, and assemblage while the emergence of pop and Fluxus in the 1960s generated representation strategies that were based on everyday objects and commercial systems. Sites and systems-based practices became the basis of advanced art production in the 1970s following the explosion of print media, which resulted in photography having significant influence on conceptual art, painting, video, sculpture, and performance art.

The material culture during this period continued to influence art production through creating an interface between culture as the basis for excellence and descriptive category. The electronic age of the 1980s and 1990s contributed to the shift from medium specificity through generating versatile mediums and strategies of representation that enabled artists to transform their works. Demands Placed on the Viewer The influences in contemporary and modern art have not only shifted focus from medium specificity to practices based on sites and systems but also generated new demands on the viewer.

The development of several practices in art such as Video, Conceptual Art, Art & Technology, Pop Art, Performance Art and Expanded Cinema have forced viewers to look for new equipments for viewing and understanding art. Viewers have also been forced to embrace new strategies of representation of art and a modern approach to understanding artistic representations. This is largely because these developments have enabled artists to change communication.