Medina, Cuauhtemoc, “Contemp(t)orary: Eleven Theses”, E Flux 12 Jan 2010 accessed from www.eflux.com/journal/view/103 41 17 Feb. 2010
Cuauhtemoc Medina is and art critic, curator and historian. He lives in Mexico and has a PhD from the University of Essex where he researched and wrote on Fluxus non-art and anti-art.
Medina claims in section two of “Contem(t)porary: Eleven Theses” that an indicator of contemporary arts lack of substance is the way in which galleries and museums define their contemporary collections by a chronology that begins at an arbitrary point after modernism. Such collections normally begin with artwork from the 1940’s (Medina 1).
On the contrary, I think it is a testament to the substance which contemporary art continues to provide us, that galleries often devote a large amount of wall and floor space to presenting contemporary collections.
It is possible that the period from mid 19th Century to mid 20th Century be an exception to the common system of curation due to its chronological position in the art historical landscape. The artwork made during this period is old enough to be categorised into art historical groups such as abstract expressionism, pop art etcetera, but is new enough to be interesting in a contemporary art context.
The idea that the period of art from the 1940’s until some not yet specified date could be coined “contemporary” one day in an art historical categorization is interesting but I think it more likely that with time it will be broken into smaller categories. These categories are likely to be related to the trends that are emerging in recent art.
In February 2006 Kay Larson wrote an article “Beautiful Mutants” for ARTnews magazine that identifies one trend for writer Robin Cembalest who was attempting to identify the top 10 trends in contemporary art. She calls it “Postmodern Mannerism”. Larson describes Postmodern Mannerism as includes art that is “sweet and sad, sentimental and repulsive, cute and creepy”(Larson 1). Postmodern Mannerism is one such category that some contemporary art maybe placed into sometime in the future.
Whether recent art one-day falls under the official label “Contemporary” or another, I do not see the current state of chronological categorisation to be an indicator of a lack of substance as proposed by Medina.
References
Larson, Kay “Beautiful Mutants” ARTnews 6 Feb. Accessed from http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2002 08 June 2006
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I agree that the system of curation can be the reason for the ambiguous division for a new movement. We see a lot of ‘old’ art historical piece of art work that is curated with what we call ‘contemporary’ within a same boundary. Maybe what people now, or art world now is more interested in seeing is a new and something different that can arouse awareness or interest in certain subjects/issues. I personally feel that categorization of art practices/movement at present can be a limitation over what individuals intend to do. I think it would be better naturally analysed of the trend of the present in the future to be more exact.
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