Jamie Spatt

Contemporary Art History

Final Paper

August 1, 2010

Global Kitsch: Contemporary Art in the New Direction

Perhaps one of, if not the most influential faces of recent art history, Andy Warhol once said, "Art is what you can get away with." When looking at the recent protagonists of contemporary art, one begins to see this quote in a new light despite it's status as a somewhat sepia lit memento. What we have now is something the entire art world was unprepared for, art AS world, and world as art. Looking back at art's complex and ever changing history we move through from movement to movement, renaissance, to impressionism, to the romantics, to the expressionists to the da-da and the neo da-da, and the post painterly expressionists, and the modern artists, and finally we fall in to a category that is considered post-modern, a term which in itself is an ironic contradiction. How can we be past modern? In this past modern society, there are some fascinating things going on with art. But what do we call ourselves? What will future generations refer to this time period as when all gets record and goes down into the books.

A few characteristics of this new art movement stand out to me as clear. One is that we are no longer operating out of a central location. Pollock's New York is no longer the apex of popular art culture. It doesn't stem from London either, or from Paris, or from any one or two specific cities. With the advent of the internet we now find ourselves connected to people and artists the world over like we have never been before. Another striking future of the new artists of today is that nothing is original. We have lost in a sense our individuality. No matter what an artist decides to do, in whatever medium, or style, aspects of it have all been done before. You can look at a piece by William Kentridge and say to yourself, okay, expressionism has been done before, video has been done before, video with audio has been done before, drawing has been done before. Nothing new. The funny and somewhat scary thing is you can look at any piece of art, and see the influences and traditions of thousands of years of artists that came before them. Whether an artist is aware of it or not, we are no longer original. Originality is a thing of the past. 

And at first, it is terrifying. Artists have at least in recent history been the type of persons to want their uniqueness confirmed more than anything. More than money, and usually, fame too. But if you go back far enough you see that it wasn't necessarily always so. Pre Renaissance artists were operating in a very similar way to the artists of today. The works were not about the artists touch or brush stroke, they were about what the patron asked and paid for. Their pieces were never intended to be unique, original, beautiful flowers. At least not at first. Eventually, culture broke away from this, but with much opposition from the non-artist's perspective. How could Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Sauvignon" be art? For the viewer in 1907 it was considered an abomination. Today, this piece is hanging in MoMA, and is often the topic of many art history 101 courses as it represents a major shift in the tides for the world of art. The move from realism to abstraction. 

But we have dominated abstraction. We have over-killed it. Not only have we seen Picasso, we have seen Johns, and Hesse and Oldenburg, who said, "I am for art that takes it's form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips and is heavy and course and blunt and stupid as life itself." We have seen Kaprow, who said, "The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps, indistinct as possible." We have seen Andre, and Lichtenstein,  Koons. Today we are perfectly comfortable calling the Demoiselles beautiful, valuable, works of art. In the modern day we have nothing more with the resources we have as artists that could possibly shock us. We find ourselves in a position where history begins to repeat itself. We become graphic designers creating with pixels what Michelangelo once did with paint. We study to become teachers because the art market is once again, a commodity for the upper class. The art of the middle and lower class, is, although not all of it, is mostly re-used ideas through re-used techniques for decently a low cost. As artists of the twenty first century, we find ourselves in albeit, weird place. 

Perhaps, this returning and recycling of art movements will proceed until technology offers us something new to play with. While we wait, we work with what we have, and draw our uniqueness from our subject matter rather than our materials. It is not that because we are currently unoriginal that we are not good artists. We are great artists. With resources available that no artists in history have ever had before. Our materials and vehicles of expression however are at a stand still. It cannot be denied. What is original to this art period that we haven't seen before is that almost anything can be passed off as art. In the right light, with the right title, the orange sitting chair in your kitchen might be the next ready made sculpture in your local gallery. Maybe it doesn't need the gallery, maybe it's art already. Who knows. In the most respectful way possible I go back to  Warhol, and say, "Art is what we call it." This is my essay. This is my art. Fluid, blunt, and stupid as life itself.

"As Soon as Possible-Acceleration in Contemporary Society."

Looking-Assignment

by Jamie Spatt

Fast food. The world wide web. Ipods, cell phones, game boys, and televisions. Trains, planes, automobiles. From the food industry to the entertainment industry, to industrial industry, everything today is operating at a quickly increasing pace compared to the steady crawl of those generations who came before us. "As soon as possible- Acceleration in contemporary society" at the Strozzina in Florence is an elegantly posed critique on what it means to live in the high speed society that we find ourself immersed in today. In the basement of the exhibition space of Palazzo Strolli, curator Franziska Nori asks ten international contemporary artists to offer their unique responses to their experience with accelerated modern culture, some explicit, some aesthetically beautiful, and some more simple and open-ended, all giving us opportunity to reflect on how we humanly fit into the constantly evolving pace of our time. 

One of the primary places we often feel the rush of the times is at work. We all know what it is like to be faced with deadlines, living pay check to pay check, and being 'on the clock' for up to or more than forty hours a week. Mark Formanek takes this experience and quite literally puts his 'workers', 'on the clock'. In his piece entitled 'Standard Time', a group of men in hard hats construct and deconstruct a monumentally sized 'digital' faced clock built of wood, that actually keeps real time for viewers in the gallery. The piece is a video installation projected on the wall. The men continue as the video loops all day long, twenty four hours a day, building and rebuilding the clock, with no lunch breaks or cigarettes. The piece leaves us with the feeling of staring at the clock all work day long, just waiting to go home for the night to rest. But unlike these us, these workers never do. 

In a Completely different style Jens Risch carefully knots thread over and over until they become small lumps that are reminiscent of coral, or some naturalistic form of personal importance. Placing them in glass cases on pedestals, and displaying a video of her carefully knotting hands creating the pieces shows us that they are precious. Something to be treasured. But were they not in the cases, on the pedestals, process revealed, would we see them as important? Or overlook them for something more entertaining? In any case the slower movement in this piece is refreshing and helps to keep the show in balance, the aspects of which are, as they should be, varied as life itself. 

One aspect we do not see in either of these pieces, which life is full of, especially at this speed, is tension, and what happens when tension goes unrelieved. In Arcangelo Sassolino's 'Pneumatic Expansion of a living force' we see just how tense this life can get. The piece is a glass bottle in the middle of a glass tank, which eventually explodes, shattering the bottle and startling museum goers with a loud sound. We look at this piece with apprehension, wondering, will explode while I am standing in front of it? Or will I avert the point of shatter, and 'safely' walk away? Is our culture and way of life a ticking time bomb? Can all the glory of a high speed life like the one we live in survive throughout the centuries or will it eventually self-destruct, leaving us in a dystopia? 

As far as the future goes, no one can be certain what will come of our race-pace culture, and the world as we know it today. But through works like the pieces we see in 'As Soon as Possible' we are made aware and conscious of both the problems and the benefits of our life styles. Maybe the artists are asking us to slow down, maybe to do nothing but just embrace our awareness, or maybe to say what the hell and speed it up and see where the modern trends are taking us. But most importantly, as all art does, these works at the very least serve to make us question and critique our world, others living around us, and most importantly ourselves, the choice is ours what we decide to do post-gallery experience.