“Modern Art” In Contemporary Society

Ask the average twenty-something what ‘modern art’ is and apart from an indifferent shrug, the response heard most often will be along the lines of “Oh, you mean Warhol and the soup cans?”

Warhol’s take on art was considered by many to be “the end of art”. Within the last year I have begun to realize the unintentional meaning this phrase carries in the ’00s. To the average consumer, kid, adult and American, “art” is whatever is on television, our favorite films and the video game of the moment. Traditional art, paintings, sculptures and the idea of a museum has become completely irrelevant apart from those who actively seek it out. Art has faded into the background as a hobby at best and an unnecessary, exclusive, expensive and outdated luxury at worst.

Some might say, “Well, it’s simply been redefined” — this is ignoring the issue. Paintings and the idea of putting art upon a pedestal for viewing has vanished from contemporary society and from the practical consumer’s mindset. Sure, it has been replaced by flashier culture, but it’s only on a metaphorical pedestal, not a literal one, that we view video gaming and television. What does a painting mean now? If the term “modern art” means something that is half a century old (‘soup cans’), it’s clear that the very term is hypocritical.

Personally, art has meant album artwork. This is a medium which many could toss up to containing a cohesive and beautiful statement once every 300 album covers. Regardless, I have thrived off of my last remaining attachment I have to traditional paintings, even though the pedestal said album art is viewed upon is my laptop.

There is a poster on my wall containing the album artwork of Animal Collective’s 2009 album, “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. When moving from college dorm A to college dorm B, I had forgotten to take down my posters. My friend, Ryan, kindly took the posters down and stored them in his car, where they collected dust all summer long. These posters were rolled together in a messy clump, rendering most of them ruined from being stuck together for such a long time. However, there was one interesting effect to the Merriweather Poster. In addition to several white tears, the sunlight had created a fantastic faded blue streak across the bottom of the image. It gave a precise effect that looked as if it could have only been created digitally — or perhaps by leaving a poster exposed to three months of sunlight.

With no real desire to seek out far-less stimulating culture, the place for massive and vibrant paintings, sculptures and installations has been moved to one of two places:

There are enthusiasts, many of them, who will never say goodbye to the wonder and subtlety that “true” art, found in a museum, provides.
The second place this art has gone to (and the place which gets far more attention) is upon Flickr accounts, various impersonal Tumblr pages and occasionally upon a Google Image search.

If art was an experience to help transcend the trivialities of daily life, if even for a moment, and said experience no longer takes place outside the stream of our lives — what does that say for art? We no longer have to visit museums to experience a plethora of styles; all we need is StumbleUpon and perhaps a search string. Such ease allows us a whirlwind of culture, but at the same time, it is easy to under-appreciate the magnitude of the culture itself.

Conceptually, the artist is dead, because there are no longer pedestals for each artist to showcase their work upon. All art created gets thrown into the digital void, upon one unified pedestal. This pedestal is shared amongst all artists and with this sharing, artistic individuality has been lost in the digital stream of consciousness. The artist is no longer relevant so much as the audience, i.e., you, as you have the power to skip to the next image or share it on your Facebook wall. This is about as much praise as one can practically expect as an artist on a mass scale, apart from the occasional PR puff piece and blogosphere commentary.

I.e. my poster hanging upon my wall, my all-in-all “unimpressive” favorite album art (in the traditional sense) — to me, this is art. The poster on my wall does not ask for my attention, yet it exists outside the internet, in its own museum (my room) on its own pedestal (the wall). The audience (I and whoever is in the room at the time) is not forced to look upon this poster, but when they do, it captures the overstimulated attention span, if just for a moment. It allows time for escape and transcendence, but particularly for myself most of all. This brings me to my final point, a definition for modern art in the modern age.

Modern art is completely individually-oriented and based around personal narratives. My poster has the most meaning to me, because one glance upon it reminds of a story that forces me outside of my self-made bubble. It calls attention to something I have no control over (sunlight, the forces of nature, destroying my perfect replica of a favorite album) and in its own subliminal way, reminds of my own impermanence. One may think that this is all a bit hyperbolic, but that’s just it! There is nothing that is going to exist in our lives which will live up to the mythical shadow cast upon by pre-internet society, when it was impossible to fathom the audience even touching the pedestal, let alone controlling what was seen upon it.


[link to houseofxen.wordpress.com]

Last Edited by Phennommennonn on 02/22/2012 06:54 AM