MODERNISM FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

Modernism For Contemporary Art

Modernism For Contemporary Art

The attempt to produce a response to contemporary visual art or to any particular examples of it, such as Andy Warhol and David Hockney, runs immediately into the problem of the legitimacy, or rather the lack of legitimacy, of modern art. This is the fact that much, if not all, of modern art (late 1800's to the present day) is regarded as a dubious or perhaps fraudulent activity by a substantial proportion of modern everyday society. The result is that the history of modern art is punctuated by numerous 'art scandals' in which sections of the press, the media and the public either get upset or pretend to get upset about the latest artistic 'outrage', be it Jackson 'Jack-the Dripper' Pollock or Carl Andr''s 'bricks' (Dunn 2004 644-63).

The response of the media to every new artistic style or breakthrough is also invariably faced with the question is it art? Throughout this essay I intend to answer the question of what is art? And subsequently what justifies it being art. I intend to do this by dividing the essay into two sections. Firstly I will display my understanding of modernist arts roots and major conventions. The Modern refers to a period dating from roughly the 1860s through to the 1970s and is used to describe the style and ideology of art produced during the era. Modern art and modernism is characterised by a radical 'new' attitude toward both the past and the present, of ideology and social orders such as communism and capitalism.

The early modernists were educated intellectuals reacting against societies dominant ideology, cleansed of the corruptions of religious and political ideologies their education brought them truth, with which it was their intentions to develop a better society. In contrast to conservative modernism, which remained aligned to old ideas and tended to support the status quo, progressive modernism took up an antagonistic position towards society and its established institutional frameworks. The modernist's manifesto became focused upon the challenging of all authority in the name of freedom and truth. As a product of this they automatically affronted conservative borguios values and set up a social divide (Willard 2005 48). The gradual breakdown of financial support from the church for this 'new' art gave the now independent artists the freedom to determine the appearance and content of their art at the price of capitalism induced poverty and starvation.

This is were the term 'art for arts sake' derives from, as there was no interest in the art they were producing then there subsequently was no sales, this lack of production encouraged the artists to experiment with styles and techniques and produce pieces that were aesthetically challenging and self indulgent in stark contrast to the classical logical style. This idea of progress became more clearly relevant during the later post World War 2 era. A highly productive market for contemporary art emerged in the 1960s portraying strong stylistic ...