Chapter 21—Contemporary Art

Introduction: How can one chapter present the diversity and prolific impact of contemporary art? Often, courses such as yours barely touch on the realm of contemporary art, leaving that to future exploration for each student, who will be armed with a foundation of art history.

As you can see, the text has risen to the challenge by including many artists and their unique art forms and approaches to the present world. In the Making Connections section, a lengthy Compare and Contrast takes you through an examination of four different artists' works all based on a theme of revolution, war, or revolt, and A Closer Look™ brings you up to the present with a look at the Guerrilla Girls' approach to informing people about the art world and trends of feminism in light of a male-dominated art scene.

Many artists are quoted in this chapter, including Joseph Kosuth, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Agnes Martin, Jean Tinguely, Daniel Libeskind, Ken Feingold, Sarah Lucas, and Kara Walker, so you can easily get a sense of the joys and agonies of being an artist in our own time. This chapter will most likely be a large part of the final exam for your course, but if you've found yourself interested in aspects of art during the last few weeks, for you this is only the beginning of an adventure.

Chapter 21 – Why Read It? During the course of your study of art, you have now glimpsed at the art from prehistory through contemporary times. You have looked in on art from important cultures other than European and American cultures, as well as studied some of the media, methods, and techniques used by artists to create photographs, paintings, sculpture, prints, architecture, crafts, graphic designs, and drawings.

So what does all this knowledge and information have to do with your life? You may never again be asked to evaluate or “critique” a work of art. You might never again be required to visit an art museum, gallery, sculpture site, or work of architecture. You may not need to use art media to create a project in your chosen profession, nor feel that your life is affected much by an art theft that makes the news, the emergence of a new art movement, or the death of a well-known artist. But then again, you might. You may now feel a personal desire to travel to see some of the works you learned about. Even if you can go to a full turn-page website for the famous Book of Kells in Dublin, Ireland, and learn all about it on the Internet, there’s no substitute for actually going there and seeing it in person— just as the Irish vow that hard cider or Guinness ale are superior served in an Irish pub, rather than from an imported can or bottle! Even the computerized reconstruction of the Roman Colosseum magnificently underplaying the plot in the movie Gladiator, with Russell Crowe, cannot substitute for a trip to Rome to see it and other amazing feats of architecture, engineering, and sculpture such as the Pantheon.

You might end up on a committee for your town, voting on whether a public sculpture should or should not be purchased for a nearby park. Listening to this proposal, you may be able to discern if you believe the work to be suitable aesthetically and financially. You might even be asked to vote on whether children should receive an education in the arts along with science, maths, and language. Will it be important to the future? Perhaps one of your own children will be interested in pursuing art as a life passion. Will you be prepared to encourage and support this endeavor, or will you try to discourage them?

Perhaps you yourself have felt an impulse to sculpt, weld, or draw. Keeping a journal sketchbook handy is a great way to get down your own creative ideas, even if you’ve no intention of pursuing art as a career.

Knowing about art history and keeping in touch with contemporary trends can serve as powerful, reflective tools for discerning your own feelings, attitudes, and thoughts—even if you don’t wish to share those feelings or thoughts with others.

As you read through Chapter 21, take time to reflect on what kinds or styles of art in this chapter and the previous chapters appeal to you, make you think, repel you, or make you feel a certain set of emotions. You have been forever changed by your journey into the world of art. How will you use that change in your life?

Understanding Concepts: Because contemporary art is so much a part of the present, many people are still trying to decide what it means to them and how it reflects our times. Much in the way of criticism is currently available in art journals and books.

1. Investigate the following artistic trends and movements:

• Conceptual art—how can an idea, or a written form of that idea, become art?

• Installation art—how does the artist create an environment in which the viewer is a participant?

• Hard-edge vs. Color-field painting—what are the formal goals of these two groups?

• Minimalism—is less more?

• Combine painting—how can a sculptural element become part of a two-dimensional work?

• Pattern painting—what is pattern and how does it become the entire compositional key?

• Neo-expressionism—what’s new about this form of expressionism?

2. Why has it become necessary to examine the issues of diverse ethnicities and women in the arts? Why have women artists felt it vital to deal with feminist and ethnic issues in their artworks?

Making Connections: Several people, including artists, are quoted in this chapter. It’s always worthwhile to find out more about people who are quoted about the arts because it helps form a well-rounded idea of what people involved with the arts are thinking about what they, or others, are doing.

1. Investigate two or three people listed here and see what they have to say about the relationship of art to the contemporary world: Adolph Gottlieb, Lee Krasner, Deborah Butterfield, Jean Tinguely, Romare Bearden, William Pope.L:

A.

B.

C.

2. Compare and Contrast – Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, Kollwitz’s Outbreak, Catlett’s Harriet, and Goya’s And They Are Like Wild Beasts takes you into an examination of women actively participating in fights for freedom and for their very lives. How does this compare to previous presentations of women as “odalisques” and nymphs? (See Chapters 17, 19, and 20.)

• Find examples showing how artists have portrayed women. Can you make a statement regarding some of the changes in portrayal that you observe?

• Put yourself in the role of each of these women portrayed in their respective artworks. What is the mood and general sensibility you perceive coming from each portrayal?

3. A Closer Look – Guerilla Girl Warfare gives a brief example of the extensive campaign of a group of women artists whose goal is to expose centuries of injustice towards women artists and the marginalization of women in general.

• What are some of the most effective tools that can be used in order to protest injustice and begin the process of change?

• Do you feel the Guerilla Girls are using effective strategies and tactics?

• Read the poster printed in the book. Which of the facts or statements made an impact on your thinking about the world of art and how women are received or treated?

Taking Notes: Around 16 of 20 vocabulary words refer to artistic movements. Notice the most frequently listed vocabulary word, trompe l’oeil. Discover how these terms apply to the most recent art and how a concept such as “fooling the eye” still plays an important role.

By now you should have a fairly well developed method for note taking, allowing you to keep track of what your instructor has presented in class and how that interrelates with what you've been reading in the assigned text. This note-taking method is one you can adapt to future courses, even if they’re not art related. It should help you get details, specifics, and extra information no matter what the subject. In the case of Chapter 21, it should help you to chart out and distinguish the art movements and their characteristic works of art, and details from individual artists' lives and activities. Use of your notes will improve your ability to quickly recognize a work of art in a multiple-choice test, or to discuss in detail a work, movement, or artist in an essay question.

Your instructor may choose to use examples of contemporary art from previous chapters of the text, so don't be surprised if you find references to Chapters 1 through 12 when studying for a test.

Preparing for Tests: If you are fortunate, your final examination will not be comprehensive, but still, as mentioned in the Taking Notes section above, there are many examples of contemporary art from previous chapters of the text. Prepare for testing by reviewing any materials referred to by your instructor.

Your final test will play an important role in determining your grade for the course you are taking. Many students who have been "coasting" through the course may try to rely on doing better than average on their final test. Statistics show that students usually perform about the same on a final test as throughout the entire course. Some even perform below their average score, because they are stressed, weary and have not spent the required time studying for each course in which they have a final examination.

For some, the testing process may seem to be only faintly connected to their actual learning process at that time in their lives. True learning, of course, is not easily assessed by an artificial testing process, but by its intrinsic value to the motivated learner over a period of time and life experiences.

For the present, do your best using the study methods presented to you over the course and your use of this study guide. Divide materials into different sections and study in short sessions, rather than cramming in a long siege-like period of time. Study with classmates if possible, helping each other review materials in different order. Remember that many titles of contemporary works of art may have little to no bearing upon the visual content, so being able to identify a work titled Dragon, or even Untitled, will present a new challenge.

As you study, ask yourself if you enjoy knowing about art and learning new things in general. Studies have shown that people learn more, and learn more easily if they are having fun, almost as if learning is a form of play for them, like a game. Others who do not feel as involved in their own learning process, or who do not feel inclined towards a subject, can enhance their approach toward what they may view as a formidable or uninteresting subject, by making it into a game-like challenge, if only for a few short weeks. Decide what kind of relationship you have to learning, and make the most of it!

Review sample test questions for Chapter 21 at the Understanding Art website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e), in the Student Test Packet, or on the ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art.

Try your hand at the following sample essay test question:

• Much contemporary art is "issue-related." Select and discuss one work of art and its relation to a contemporary issue in the arts and in the world today. Be sure to discuss visual detail of this work, describing how this detail supports your discussion of the work of art and its related issues. [Extended Essay Assignment:

Use two research sources. Cite research on a separate bibliographic page. 2 pages minimum, double-spaced, 12-point font.]

Enhancing Your Observational Powers: Locate or create a timeline that includes the recent years of art explored in Chapter 21.

1. Place some of the contemporary art movements into their respective years, and describe their basic distinguishing characteristics.

• List influences that are unique to the 20^th and 21^st centuries from all the previous time periods on earth.

• How do you think future artists and art students will view our times and art? Speculate on the role art will play in the 21^st century. Write your notes here:

2. Look back at all the previous chapters of our text. Going chapter by chapter, locate works of art belonging to artists of contemporary movements and compare them to the ones in this chapter. You may even find works that have been used as comparisons to how artists of our time borrowed ideas or motifs from past artists and renewed them in unique creations of their own. Make your notes here:

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3. If your professor or instructor were to ask you to write a brief statement delineating your current philosophy of art, what would you write?

• What three visual examples could you use to demonstrate your point of view?

• How does this view differ from your ideas about art when you began studying for this course?

For More Understanding: Chapter 21 is a long chapter—as long as Chapter 2, though it doesn’t have quite as many images. Use the many examples provided in Chapter 21 as well as the other contemporary works shown in previous chapters to gain a deeper understanding of how artists are combining their ideas with contemporary media. Be sure to visit the website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e).

ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art: Use the flashcard section to view contemporary art images.

Also learn more about the information and artwork presented in the Compare and Contrast and A Closer Look sections.

Notes and Links to Remember: