Modern art, contemporary art, and what freaks me out.

 

It is a refreshing change to be thinking about art again. The presentation on Modern Art was useful as a teacher, to hear another teacher curate and summarize a movement. As an art teacher, and an appreciator of art I see the value of teaching the history of art, of explaining the historical and cultural context of art in different cultures and during different periods of time. If people don’t understand the progression of how contemporary art evolved, it is easy to misunderstand artist’s intentions, and be confused why some contemporary art is in art museums and galleries, even it looks as though “my kid could do that.”

 

The chapter that we read this week on contemporary art was a good survey of contemporary art. I appreciate that after the 1980’s, there is no real logical progression of art in easily definable movements. I like analogy of the rhizome to the direction that art is moving. The idea of multiple entry points and multiple exit points in contemporary art makes more sense than trying to categorize artists into linear progressions of conceptual thought or aesthetic principles.

 

As this chapter points out, technological innovations have at once made the world a smaller place and driven people away from physical community engagement and into the world of online social media. War, ridiculous political campaigns, poison spinach, preadolescent sexualization of girls internalized by all of us through the metalanguage of visual and cultural media. I like the distinction made later in the chapter about the difference between theories and values. Saying all art is political is a theory, and is true in my opinion. The artist that paints those snowy scenes of log cabins on the popcorn tins does what they do because of their history, their training, the social and political climate they belong to, even if that climate is ignorance.  Saying that all art should be political is ridiculous. The painter who is in a creative flow mixing colors and painting flat geometric squares has something going on in their brains, or their hearts. Maybe they see the entire history of modern and contemporary art leading up to their own personal epiphany, like Julie Mehretu, who describes the process like meditation, like focusing white noise.

 

One part of this chapter I really enjoyed was the explanation of post-modernism, that post modernists in some way or other opposed the tenants of modernism. “including modernists confidence in social and technological progress, faith that history unfolds in a rational, linear direction, and belief in individual self-determination.” The chapter goes on to talk about how postmodernism lead to artists opening the art world up to kitsch, to ready-mades, to a break down in the distinction between high art and low art. The chapter points out that the functionality of the word postmodernism means nothing because it embraces almost everything, it is still a good distinction for a lot of art that was in direct response to modernist beliefs and aesthetics.

 

In undergrad I was in sculpture and fell in love with latex, metal and egg shells. I performed a bit, made some ephemeral sculptures, cast extracted teeth in bronze. I was over the top with feminist cliché in my BFA shows. I own all of the CREAM books. I grew up loving the strong women artists. I’m thinking of getting one of Eva Hesse’s drawings tattooed on my arm. “Oh Superman” gets stuck in my head at the weirdest times. The Le Tigre song Hot Topic  lists a lot of my favorites. I have recently joined a group of feminist artists from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area. We had a show at PS1 in Iowa City, and it was a great experience to make work for public consumption again. As an artist, and as an appreciator of edgy, political, uncomfortable, funny art that makes some people feel is “difficult.” It’s hard to let myself go there as a teacher, working in public education. I’ve heard stories of teachers getting fired for making edgy art. As a teacher I encourage students to look at contemporary art, probably to the point of over neglecting the rest of art history, but I figure, hey, if it speaks to them, on a now level, a social justice level, a technological level, hopefully they’ll get hooked and look at all the pretty religious and royal stuff sometime later. Don’t get me wrong. If left to my own devices I move like a snail through all art museums I enter. I can stare at painted tapestry with the best of them, but my passion lies with the weird stuff. I look forward to learning about the new artists I haven’t heard of in our course content this semester!

​

Oh, and failing...at anything...freaks me out. Saving for retirement freaks me out. Politics and war freak me out. My son growing up freaks me out. Plastic surgery freaks me out. Art only freaks me out when it's supposed to.