How To Look At Contemporary Art
Open your mind to the wonderful world of 21st century art
I’ve been looking at contemporary art for more than twenty years now. My excitement, and occasional bewilderment, at the things that go on inside contemporary art galleries continues to be exercised.
I also know that, for a lot of people, contemporary art can be difficult to understand or to even take seriously.
This is where I want to help.
At first it may seem impertinent to suggest a series of methods for looking at contemporary art. Anyone who has stepped inside a modern gallery in the last few decades will know how diverse the arena has become. If contemporary art is anything, then it seems to be a place where rules are perpetually broken.
So can a pithy list of ‘techniques’ begin to cover it?
Over the years, I’ve seen all sorts of things presented as art: a glass case with a cow inside it, a giant fiberglass mushroom, a wall-mounted neon sign saying “I WOKE UP WANTING TO KISS YOU”, televisions on plinths showing pop videos from the 1980s, a collection of several hundred pots and pans hanging by wire from the gallery ceiling, a cast of the artist’s head made from his own frozen blood, a room with a light switching on and off, a sculpture with the appearance of a massive lump of melting wax, a map showing a route the artist walked across countryside, and much more else besides.
The strange thing about all these diverse artworks is that they do, in fact, have things in common, and what they have in common can help a great deal in understanding what contemporary art is trying to do. Are you ready come venture with me into this wonderful world?
Contemporary art is not trying to trick you
Let’s start with the biggest problem of them all…
Let me assure you, contemporary art is not trying to trick you. It’s time to leave that idea behind.
There is an American artist named Carl Andre, a very renowned figure these days thanks to his influential minimalist sculptures. Back in the 1970s, the Tate Gallery in London purchased one of Carl Andre’s works, a piece called Equivalent VIII. The event caused a…
