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.