Thoughts on “Contemporary Art”
To speak for myself, I am a lover of “Contemporary Art” and I believe that it’s one of the best art movements in the history of art have ever seen. However, it is better to read many books about the topic you are interested so, I have decided to make some reading on “Modern Art” & “Contemporary Art”. Sometimes, I had difficult time trying to maintain my readings on such books that are given in a highly metaphoric and artfull language. Though, the more you read the more you become better at understanding. There is one book I am highly interested in and a few times clashed with the author’s ideas but making researches and reading from different perspectives and trying to understand their way of looking to specific subjects in art made me question my own loyal trust on “Contemporary Art”.
The ideas I will comment and discuss on are belongs to “El fraude del arte contemporáneo” by Avelina Lésper.
The thing that creates art is not the works but the ideas; everyone is an artist; everything that the artist deems as art is art, and of course the curator is superior to the artist.
Lésper belives that in any sense the curator cannot overcome the power of the artist. The creator of the art always have the last word to tell, she denies the idea of “a curator is also an artist, they gather the artworks and illustrate a new form of display to viewers.” Also she finds incredibly wrong that everyone can consider themselves as an artist. It’s similar to Bob Rosscalling out everyone showing how to paint those beautiful mountain landscape in such an easy way so, you believe him and convinced that you can do that when you have the brush on one hand and the canvas on the other, you realize you are not even close to achieving that impressive mountain-lake view. Basically, it is a clear representation of not everyone can be artist. Also the later pages in the book she mentions that being an artist is not about having an idea and providing a visual statement to viewers. Being an artist, a creator, requires experience & devotion which I believe is highly true.
Museums that accommodate true art create through works that can be defined as art even outside the walls of collections, while so-called contemporary art needs these walls, these institutions, these contexts to be considered as art in the eyes of people. Contemporary art works do not possess extraordinary qualities and they need to establish these qualities through the context in which they exist.
Here, in this quote we see that she has a direct dislike toward the contemporary art. It is true that, the modern art established on something already existed even though they have rejected the prior norms and understandings of the art. The denial of having a blind confidence on aesthetics was an act of resistance. Even though nowadays, in order to continue its maintaining the modern art requires a context to be attached to…
If contemporary art emerged from the rejection of academicism, if proponents of conservative art are seen as symbols of backwardness, and if they do not aim to interact with the audience, why then is there a need to establish a relationship with the works of Goya or Velázquez?
Well, when I first encountered this line; I was shell-shocked. I have nothing to say, I believe this is such a correct statement that I cannot argue. Although every work of art regardless classic or modern, need to displayed throughout the centuries most of the art have been displayed without the doubt of interaction. Maybe that’s the lack of modern art, the contemporary art needs it’s audience and have faith on the audience. Since the artworks that criticizes the established order or formed in order to illustrate any kind of reaction requires its an audience to hear out the voice of the artist and the message tried to conveyed through the art.
The pursuit of transience, the reappropriation of everyday objects, and the changing use of museums are observed in the midst of contradictions: They fear being short-lived, they do not want to be seen as everyday objects; just like real art, they want to be extraordinary, they do not want museums to change their usage, they want these uses to serve their own needs and cover their absurdities.
In 1917, when Duchamp decided to use a “ready-made” object to provoke the established aesthetic forms, the art has shifted. This act payed the way of many modern artists to express their thoughts in a different perspective. Decades later, in our existing world the art became a branch of consumerism and the artworks produced nowadays have shorter lifetimes due to fast consumerism and lack of patience the viewer has. We encounter tons of different examples of modern art these days, although most of the time we do not even remember the affect of that particular exhibition or artwork on us. Today’s creation of art is like a dairy milk soon to be expired rather than a canned corn that lasts for 20 years.
Behind the dependency of contemporary artists on museums lies this: It is impossible for my works to be evaluated and exhibited outside the boundaries of museums.
If we consider all the modern artworks that we have seen so far, I think the author has a point. I never thought it like that before but it is true that without the contexts of space most of the modern-approached artworks cannot be considered as art perhaps, the most clear example of this is “duct-taped banana” by Maurizio Catellan. I recall the reactions on the duct-taped banana like yesterday and if we eliminate the museum from the equation there wouldn’t be anything considered as art.
It is a door that aims to destroy the artist, aiming to erase the existence of the artist as an individual and a creator. Because if the creator of art is the artist and art no longer requires creation, then the artist is also deemed unnecessary.
The existence of curator is to support the artist not to destroy the artist. In the “art-artist-viewer triangle”, there is no direct call out of the name “curator”. The curator is in the indirect relationship between all three main element. As you can see down below, the curator is the arrows that creates the relation & balance within the triangle.
Performance cannot be serious about any subject; it relies on the crumbs of other disciplines, examines things that are already present, and does not go beyond presenting insignificant representations of phenomena it does not understand.
There are many distinct forms of Contemporary Art, one of them is called Performance art. Any performative act created on behalf of art is a real-life form representation of an idea, response or emotion. Likewise, the performance art also relies on existing problems and thoughts, it is just better to observe and create an emotion sensation on viewer. I am avoiding to name the “Performance art” as not an art. It is another way of expressing oneself, similar to cinema or theatre although based on different backgrounds.
Conclusion:
I highly enjoyed reading “El fraude del arte contemporáneo” by Avelina Lésper. She is really passionate about what she thinks and highly successful at conveying to readers. I found her writing style highly clear and pinpoint. The sharp and distinct ideas of author is worth to known, it was a joyful and engrossing to clash with the ideas and sometimes agree with them.
