Lecture 1 contemporary art - an introduction

Art Matters: Illuminating Contemporary ArtShepparton Art Museum2015

LECTURE 1: CONTEMPORARY ART – AN INTRODUCTION

Lecture Schedule

Drew Pettifer and Chris Bond, Melbourne Now, Installation view,National Gallery of Victoria, 2013-14

Contact Details

Course Lecturer

Drew PettiferRMIT University and SAM FoundationEmail: [email protected]: www.slideshare.net/DrewPettifer

Brendan Huntley, Untitled (Upside-down goblets), 2010SAM Collection

What is contemporary art?

Modern Art

Alfred Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art, 1936

Hans Haacke, MoMA Poll, 1970

Contemporary art: c.1970 to today

Maurizio Cattelan, Novecento, 1997 at the Sydney Biennale in 2008

Conceptual approaches to art

How does contemporary art practice differ to modernist art practice?

Tracey Moffatt, Invocations # 1, 2000SAM Collection

What is postmodernism?

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (I shop therefore I am), 1987

Benjamin Armstrong, Hold Everything Dear III, 2009

Louise Bourgeois, Avenza Revisited II, 1968-69

“aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally”

Frederic Jameson 1991, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, p. 5

Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog (Yellow), 19944-2000

Mona Lisa mug

Marc QuinnBlood Head 1991

Sherrie LevineAfter Edward Weston1981

Appropriation

Brook Andrew, Paradise 1 (red), 2011SAM Collection

Appropriation

Yasumasa MorimuraVermeer Study: Looking Back (Mirror)2008

Participation and socially engaged practice

Rirkrit Tiravanija, Workshop, 2013

Francis AlysWhen faith moves mountains2002

Maurizio CattelanA Perfect Day

1999

• Contemporary art begins around 1970• Response to changing social conditions• Break from modernist art practice

• Contemporary art no longer follows movements, but instead

embraces pluralism, openness and diversity• Contemporary art values ideas over materials• Contemporary art questions accepted histories• Contemporary art techniques include referencing,

appropriation, parody, performance and irony• Contemporary art is socially engaged and responsive

Some Key Ideas from this lecture