What's next for 'Art'?

[Frank]

From what I can tell, there's a lot of artists and other people interested in art on this forum so naturally this makes this topic a nice fit then

Yesterday, I was thinking about Art, I suppose in general, for the majority of my day. I began thinking about and researching some big artists in the past century such as Picasso, Andy Warhol etc. and more modern stuff people like Damien Hirst.

 

Soon I got to thinking about the different art movements like Impressionism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism...you get the drift. What I'm thinking is just how relevant and popular 'Art' was back then, if that makes sense. Nowadays, I'm struggling to see any noticeable movements in Art like before or even any 'house-hold name' famous artists.

 

I'd like to know your opinions on whether there can be any more movements in art which are just as relevant as before or have we, as a culture, become immune from feeling strongly enough to be shocked for example when we see an Art piece just like how Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'avignon had such a strong reaction way back when.

 

Even 'shock art' isn't as shocking nowadays, have we just come to the point now where we've run out of ideas or just that we've simply become accustomed to it.

 

Is 'art' dieing?

[Daft]

I think we're just stuck in a postmodern world (As Fredric Jameson defined it; "The experience of bewildered disorientation in an environment too complex for the individual to comprehend is a characteristic theme of postmodern culture.")

 

However, quite aptly, I don't really know.

[jayseven]

Postmodernism is the name given to that sort of idea; 'hey, everything's been done, so let's be over-aware and self-aware of it!'

 

You raise a lot of points at once; the idea that one becomes immune to ideas or thoughts that for previous generations may have been taboo, but art as a form of expression will not die. Art concerns an artist attempting to express an idea or an emotion through a medium, and as it is not a science it is not something that can ever be conclusively finite. That society and culture and technology are still evolving is further proof that art still has a job to do. Each technological development provides an artist with more reason, or more mediums with which to express oneself with, to express onself about.

 

Returning to the over-exposure angle; the information age we live in creates a sort of ADHD nature for the 'audience'. That we can simply stumble through the internet, through images created with photoshop or snapped with a camera or written with the ease of a mouse-click we find that we are potentially numbed to the deposit meaning an artist may have invested, but while an artist's intentions may be harder to be noticed it does not remove the demand for the novelty that art instills.

 

Labelling a movement in the art world is often done retrospectively, once it is easier to ascertain when a style wholely occured. Perhaps we are just experiencing a certain lag between art and the modern world, or perhaps (and is more likely) we are unable to notice that which defines the world we live in because we are living it day-in, day-out.

 

Think about when you see a 'period-drama', or a movie set in an era that we consider the past. The costumes and the architecture are specifically chosen to echo that phase of humankind's culture. Try to imagine what a move of 2010 would look like should it be made in 2050. Everything we consider normal now will, then, be ancient, maybe even quaint. Banksy is a good example of how the transition of art-within-a-frame has become art-is-everywhere. Consider how the politics behind his work is now, and thus temporal and eventually becoming another body of work that will be considered a part of art-history.

 

A lot of culture is reflective of the immediately-precursive generation, usually a rebellious attempt to distance itself from what has been. This is clear in art, which is, of course, a generic label that can be applied to many different forms -- again, these forms are becoming more and more diverse. Computer games (as topical as anything on this forum) are a good example of how the art 'world' has new forms to shape. I started playing Bioshock 2 yesterday, and my mother was horrified at the opening scene. I had to explain to her how computer games have evolved from the simple "shoot that, win the game" into a story-driven piece that attempts to immerse the 'audience' further than a movie does.

 

Another thing to think about is how art fits in with the commercial world we live in. From the basic idea that even fonts go in and out of fashion, art helps to drive our consumerist nations by being so pro-active about countering the past. It's hard for me to elaborate on this point (for it is late and, yes, some cider has sought its way into my soul), but consider advertising especially, and how a product seeks to label itself as freshly and novelly as possible.

 

Anyway, blah-blah; there's a lot to the history of art and the purpose of art (don't ask Oscar Wilde to agree with me, here) that should essentially suggest that art is something that helps to define our species. Many people would argue that a free society is one which holds a freedom of expression in high regards. Art is the utmost form of expression, and successful art is that which can achieve a universal appeal, something which can tap in to the shared consciousness and relay a feeling or emotion which we can all identify with. As the world changes, as new stimuli are shaped, then we as a species have new reactions, new cocktails of ideas that can be captured and expressed.

 

AND STUFF. Such an almighty topic.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Wow. You stun, jayseven. I can never even seem to figure out just how to define "art".

[Dan_Dare]

Art is simply expression and reaction through creation. There are no rules on what you have to create or how- art merely requires that you do.

[Emasher]

I don't think the next movement in art is going to have anything to do with the older forms of art like painting, sculpting, ect. I think its much more likely to come from one of the relatively newer art forms like movies or games, with games being the more likely of the two. In newer art forms, there's so much more that hasn't been discovered yet. At this point, the vast majority of the great paintings have been painted, the vast majority of the great sculptures have been sculpted. There's still lots of room for innovation and originality in the games industry or the movie industry. Part of this comes with the fact that both mediums (but games to a larger extent) rely on technology, which is rapidly advancing at the moment. With every generation of gaming consoles, new possibilities open up for developers to create better games. As these innovations become easier to do, we're probably not just going to see them in games, but people who have more interest in developing games artistically are going to be able to use these innovations to make more and more artistic games.

 

Personally, I would define art as the product of creativity.

[jayseven]

Well supergrunch made a thread fairly recently about one new form of art -- interactive fiction. Imagine a cross between the "choose your own adventure" books and wikipedia and you have a vague idea of the form, which steals from various media such as text, video and audio. Interactive, digital fiction has pros and cons; as an art form it is rewarding because it offers a novel experience while forcing the user to question their own established preconceptions of thos aformentioned forms, yet at the same time that medium is pretty much obsessed with subversion and the lack of any particularly scholarly take on the form means that, without discussed methodical use of the medium, it is all rather hit-and-miss and still very much in its embrionic (no idea what the correct word here is) stage.

 

The digital age certainly demands a new artform, but again art, in its traditional sense, should be regardless of any such monetary evaluation and as such it is hard to recognise any forward movement in such fields as artistic, or at all relevant to our culutre, especially as this medium is very much secular and unknown to the vast majority of people.

 

I think our society is still experiencing techonology such as the internet as a very new thing. Once it is truly the norm can we expect to see art florish without hindurance by monetary values.

 

When I speak of art being reactionary to previous iterations, I think it is important to realise that there will be concurrant movements that will exist only to ensure classical forms of the art will continue to exist. There is scope for parodies as well as actual intellectual attempts to further the old-school of arts, such as those you name, of sculpture and paint. What is interesting about those fields is that they are currently seen as very finite and, in a way, exhausted methods of art. And it's a fair point - if you can say "well, the gratest writer of all time was shakespeare", then, really, why should anyone else bother?

 

I read an interesting article today in a Times supplement from the weekend about a Norwegian chess player who, at the age of 19, is considered the greatest of all time. Before him there was Karpov, Kasparov and Fischer who were also given similar titles. Nobody could've predicted this genius to have arisen within the game, let alone that he could be, at such a young age, the greatest of all time -- yet it has happened. There is a certain unpredictability that is, in combination with the ever-evolving structure of the mind (we hope), means we can never truly say that we have experienced the zenith of human cacpability.

 

Dan; I think you're bordering on the simplist definition of art; that all it needs is an artist with an intention. I think that art can be formed without intention, and without an artist, therefore I think your classificiations are erronerous.

 

And Emasher; as I said above, movements are often named retrospectively. Similarly, if you examine any previous movement you will see counter-movements, traditionalists and radicalists. You never get one push without another group of people, whether they realise they're aligned together or not, acting the other way.

 

I would personally shy away from any definition of art, because it is entirely possible for something to be perceived as art without the 'artist' ever intending it to be so.

[ReZourceman]

I studied art at college.

[Murr]

I studied art at college.

 

I did art in my GCSE's in school....

 

oh how i wish i had done Business Studies instead

[Paj!]

Considering I'm an art student, I've never really been able to articulate much on this topic, other than the whole "we'll know what art was like in this period after the fact, when we name the period etc". Which isn't really what I think/I'm not sure that really answers the question (if you can answer nintendo-master's question completely, since we can't see the future).

 

I think our society is still experiencing techonology such as the internet as a very new thing. Once it is truly the norm can we expect to see art florish without hindurance by monetary values.

 

This is what I'm interested in. As you say it is a very new thing, and I wonder how soon/if the kinda...barriers of what society considers high art will melt away eventually, as anyone can now make "art" for sites like deviantart and things like that (for an example). There's less of a focus on (traditional) technique, which has happened before in the main artworld, of course, with conceptual art booming not long ago. But the kinda saving grace of conceptual art is the concept itself...I wonder what digital stuff can claim as being it's point - or whether digital art will evolve beyond being just that, or being seen as trivial etc. If the artist themselves perhaps has no physical drawing and painting skill, no big ideas and whatnot...

 

I'm gonna stop there cause I don't know what I'm saying/it's drifting off. It was a bit of train of thought.

[Grazza]

As far as I'm concerned, the true modern artists are the ones designing things for films and computer games. I've never understood the "meaningful" type of art. Maybe it's good, but I don't understand it.

[Paj!]

I LOVE conceptual art. Well...I appreciate it, and I know a lot don't. Obviously it depends on the piece, I don't like/relate to everything. "Love"'s way too strong of a word to blanket an "art type" with, really.

[Emasher]

And Emasher; as I said above, movements are often named retrospectively. Similarly, if you examine any previous movement you will see counter-movements, traditionalists and radicalists. You never get one push without another group of people, whether they realise they're aligned together or not, acting the other way.

 

I don't think I said anything to the contrary. I completely agree with that.

[jayseven]

Sorry, I didn't intend for it to come across as a disputing post or anything

[Frank]

Thanks for the replies!

Especially you Jayseven! It seems you love your little essays :p

 

One more question though. Do you think that there will be any more house-hold name artists in the future? I'm not talking about directors etc. I'm talking about artists that are famous for painting/sculpting for example. It seems that era has long gone now and an artist must do much more than 'just' paint.

 

I think it's like what is said on this thread, that in the future newer art forms in place of painting etc. are simply going to be more recognized and appreciated.