<nettime> how the term 'Contemporary Art' is used

["D. Schmudde via nettime-l" <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

I always took the term 'contemporary art' quite literally - art 
that is contemporary. This allows for a contemporary art gallery 
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to show local artists to exhibit something 
that might be considered pastiche in New York City but a 
meaningful reflection of local culture.

The ebb and flow of capital culture means that those who hold 
decision-making power in markets like NYC, London, or Berlin will 
occasionally farm contemporary art outside of their immediate 
social bubble. The stamp of "outsider art" is just one form of 
such "validation." But it's all just contemporary art.

But I'm rather unimaginative in such matters. The definition of 
"art" is simply anything that reaches beyond 
functionality. Anything that is purely functional in conception is 
engineering. That's a pretty low bar for "art" but I think we've 
seen the bar become pretty low in the 20th century. And "art" is 
better for it.

/David


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>    1. how the term 'Contemporary Art' is used
>       (d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2023 05:32:30 -0700
> From: d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk
> To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> 	collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the 
> nets"
> 	<nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
> Subject: <nettime> how the term 'Contemporary Art' is used
> Message-ID:
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> I had a recent on-line discussion with writer and artist Matthew
> Collings recently offered a critique of the term 'contemporary 
> art' the
> gist of which was that it was too loosely applied to actually 
> mean
> anything significant.
>
> I took issue with Matthew arguing in effect was that it was more
> interesting to look at how the term was actually used.
>
> The term 'contemporary art' (e.g.Turner Prize) functions a bit 
> like the
> term 'literary fiction' (e.g. Booker Prize) Both terms signify, 
> *as an
> ideal* an author/artist is willing to raise difficult and 
> complex
> questions, live with doubt and ambiguity even opacity. Refuse to 
> give up
> all its secrets immediately, refuse to be likeable, And above 
> all retain
> a degree of ungraspability. This makes relatively high demands 
> on the
> audience, as well as on themselves. To get the benefits audience 
> and
> artist have to put in the work. As the cliche goes.. its for 
> anyone but
> not for everyone.
>
> David Garcia
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer


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