How to tell if it’s contemporary art

A. You could say that that contemporary art is present-day art. In both cases, we are talking about the art that is created to day. The term contemporary art is more frequently used because it is more all-encompassing.

Modern art
Art historians use the terms modernism and modern art refer to the art of the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in the Western world. Both visual artists and architects rejected the conventions of the past and sought new avenues that were more closely adapted to the world they lived in. This was the period that saw the rise of such movements as Fauvism, Surrealism, Cubism and abstract art. Modern art ends in the late 1960s. After this date, historians tend to use the term contemporary art. Guido Molinari’s Mutation rythmique bi-jaune belongs to the modern art period.

A. Specialists generally agree that contemporary art begins in about 1970. In the late 1960s, art underwent profound aesthetic transformations and the look of art changed. This was a time of intense creativity and growth in the number of successive artistic movements, all of which shared the same goals: to revolutionize practices, break the rules, change the way people look at art, reconsider reality and gain some distance from the system. They are united by one purpose: to desanctify art by bringing it closer to life.

A. Contemporary art encompasses all art that is produced today. It has no unity nor does it favour any particular technique. It reflects the society in which we live ,it is the art of our time and what is being done today. The subjects addressed by the artists reflect their own concerns and what they perceive as questions that perturb society. For instance, the environment is a hot topic today. For his work Marines, Jérôme Fortin used plastic containers he found along the shores of the Saint Lawrence, playing with the formal and poetic qualities of the material and also spurring us to reflect on waste in our society.

Artists are also the prophets of their time, and any idea originating in the mind can become a work of art. Contemporary works very often convey an image of ourselves that obliges us to take a stand and think about what they signify.

A. We say a work, whether it is a painting or a sculpture, is abstract (or non-figurative), when it does not imitate visible reality as we perceive it. Instead, we see a combination of shapes and colours. In the same work, there can be both abstract and figurative elements. Art historians agree that the watercolour painted in 1910 by Russian artist Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is the first work that makes no reference to the outside world. Painters Denis Juneau, in his Espace jaune, and Claude Tousignant play with shapes and colours. Other artists work with materials and colour, such as Louise Robert in No 78-54, No 78-263-A-B.

A. A movement is a group of artists that have adopted a new outlook on art. Sometimes, they are in physical proximity and work together. Occasionally, a movement transcends the borders of one country and has members in several different countries. There are even artists who simultaneously explore the same issues without realizing it. It’s part of the times they live in. Art movements are often named after the fact, often by art critics.

Art movements have existed for a long time. The history of Western art is marked by many crises, splits and condemnations that precede or accompany societal movements. Their precursors are often criticized. The Impressionists are a prime example of this: at an exhibition presented in 1874, a group of young artists defied the existing system and were disdainfully branded Impressionists by a critic, who took the name from a painting by Monet, Impression, Rising Sun (1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris).

Another example: Pop Art, which arose in Britain and the United States. The artists who worked at the Atelier Graff at the time adapted Pop Art to their own social and political reality. European artists did the same. But it is reductionist to limit artists to a given movement: each work is unique, and over the course of their career, artists change the way they do things.

A.First of all, forget your preconceived ideas and let yourself be surprised, but don’t allow yourself be intimidated. Leave yourself open to the impressions created by the work to find out what the artist is trying to convey. Your reactions might range from disgust to surprise, from admiration to amusement. Contemporary art constantly explores new themes, combines a number of different technique and adopts the latest technological discoveries: in short, it is fed by the life around us. Artists look at the world.

Even today, artists attempt to answer the questions Gauguin asked in his painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1898, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Artists often shed light on things and awaken society’s awareness. But the subject and message of some works are not easy to decipher. Viewers must wrack their brains to decode them: reflecting, observing, analyzing, and making associations. The following activities provide you with tools to become an informed museum visitor.

We can also gain a better understanding of a work by placing it in the broader framework of the history of art in Quebec and in the West: knowing the context it was created in, other works by the same artists. Introductory texts, labels displayed next to a work in a museum, books about art history are all good ways to demystify contemporary art and learn this foreign “language”. The more exhibitions you visit, the better you’ll understand—and enjoy—what you see.

A. It’s easy to say a child could have done it. Children paint or draw spontaneously, whereas artists are aware of the image they are producing. The difficulty artists face is maintaining the simplicity and boldness of childhood while using their technical mastery and drawing on their maturity to convey their inner world and their vision of reality.

Viewers who make this kind of judgment at the outset avoid asking themselves how they really feel about a work. The fact that you don’t have a frame of reference does not mean a work is devoid of meaning. It is like condemning something because you don’t know what it means. It’s a language that must be learned. The originality of the viewpoint and the presentation, the era in which the work is situated and your ability to immerse yourself in the work, the choice of materials, the message conveyed: these are all criteria you must consider in determining whether or not you like the work. You don’t have to like it, but you can still understand the artist’s artistic or social concerns, and you don’t have to reject the work and our back on the artist so quickly.

You mustn’t look at contemporary art the same way you would an old painting. It could appear to be made of debris, it could look poorly done or, even worse, overly simple, as in the case of the vertical bands in Guido Molinari’s Mutation rythmique bi-jaune. But daring to create a painting such as this at the time the artist created it took courage and a desire to break with convention. What interested Molinari was the interaction of colours, not a faithful depiction of reality.

A. Sculpture no longer has any boundaries, either in the subjects it depicts or the materials and processes used. Some artists still work with the so-called noble materials like marble, bronze and stone. Sculpture still exists in space, but it makes use of other materials such as fabric and recovered objects, as well as integrating multimedia or photography. The following works are all sculptures: Sans titre by Jean-Pierre Morin is made from shaped, welded steel; Overexpansible rouge by Jean Noël is made from assembled, thermoformed plexiglass; Loop by Henri Saxe consists of modules of assembled and welded aluminum; and Trophée by Josée Fafard is made from recycled otter fur.

At times it can be difficult to determine the boundary between sculpture and installation. The latter is sometimes “in situ”, i.e. created for a specific site, in which viewers can circulate. Installations draw on all the senses and use a wide variety of materials. Inclinaison VILLE Inclination. Immeuble de la Banque Royale by Pierre Granche is part of an installation comprising 16 architectural elements and 20 cloud elements, made primarily from wood, cardboard and rusting steel. Michel Goulet’s Exil/exode consists of two chairs and 20 steel boxes.

A. In a traditional landscape painting, just like in contemporary work, you can’t be certain the landscape you are looking at really exists. It could have been put together from sketches and photos that the artist collected and combined, for example, Raymonde April’s Les Pèlerins de la croix lumineuse. Artists represent nature without imitating it. And landscape does not necessarily mean countryside and nature. It can be an industrial or urban scene, as in Liliana Berezowsky’s Muir Park Series.

R. Like landscapes, still lifes and nudes, the portrait has been part of the history of Western art and has adapted in response to different formal revolutions. Before the emergence of photography, some portraits served as a source of information: Today’s artists focus more on what the model exudes. In Richard-Max Tremblay’s portraits of artists, each artist’s personality is reflected in the way the image is framed: a wide shot for Guido Molinari and John A. Schweitzer and a close-up for Betty Goodwin.

Other artists, such as Clara Gutsche in her Les Soeurs Adoratrices du Précieux Sang. Le jardin and Gabor Szilasi with Jeanne Lessard, Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, 1973, practice what we call documentary photography and depict subjects in their community.

Artists have long created self-portraits, either in paintings or photographs. The artist Raymonde April, who draws on her daily life, family and friends for inspiration, combines documentary, autobiographical and fictional elements in her art. In Femme nouée, she photographs herself in nature, whereas in Moi-même, portrait de paysage, only her shadow is seen, thereby creating two different impressions.

R. Artists are first and foremost a product of their history. In creating, they draw on their past, their fears and fantasies, their views, their aesthetic vision of society and nature. They are often driven by a strong desire to create something that no one has asked them to do, and to which they dedicate their lives. They observe, pass judgment and take a critical, personal and sometimes humorous look at society. They often see themselves as witnesses to cultural, social political and economic events in the society in which they live. Artists like Raymonde April and Peter Krausz create works that take something private as a starting point but end up expressing something universal.

Today’s artists also have ties with artists who came before them. Those who study at art school learn to master techniques in sculpture, printmaking, photography, video and the media arts; they take art history courses and discuss aesthetic issues to develop their creative and intellectual autonomy. Even today, people still earn to draw, sculpt nudes and paint still lifes from models. To break the rules, you must first master the techniques and be familiar with historical references to find inspiration or to make fun of them. Thus, in Beyond Sweeties, Naomi London makes reference to salon style, a means of hanging paintings that was all the rage in nineteenth-century galleries. The works are stuck together and cover practically the entire surface of the wall.

A. Except in a few cultures where religion prohibited the depiction of the human body (Islam and Judaism), the body, whether clothed or nude, has always been present in art. But the way it is depicted has changed dramatically over the course of the twentieth century. The body has become a favourite subject, since art today is often driven by the self, by the inner “me”. Artists speak out, they create installations, performances and videos using their bodies, or the bodies of those around them as the subject of the work. They use a wide range of techniques (painting, photography, sculpture, video) and approaches: autofiction, photography, personal stories, fables, tales and self-portraits.

Some artists use their own bodies as a medium: they test the mind’s limits for tolerating suffering and explore the relationship between being naked and being clothed, the internal versus external, parts versus the whole, through changing or mutilating the body, through self-metamorphosis and by photographing themselves during performances and happenings. This focus on the body also provides food for thought about identity and sex. This is what Josée Fafard did in Trophée, as did Irene F. Whittome, in Incision 5, which relies more on allusions.

A. They use everything from graphite pencils to domestic waste, from new technologies and oil paints to photographs and prints. Peter Krausz used tar in L’île devant Chinon and painted Fragment no 1 (De la série Natura Humana) using the age-old technique of fresco, which was very popular in the Renaissance. And yet, he used a salvaged object, an old radiator, to frame his work.

Artists transform waste materials into art objects, sometimes changing them until they are no longer recognizable. Jérôme Fortin cut up and stretched plastic bleach bottles to create Marines, Betty Goodwin’s print Collapsed Vest One (Crushed Vest) was made from a vest that once belonged to her father, and Josée Fafard used recuperated fur in her sculpture Trophée. Regardless of the technique, what is important is the artist’s vision of a subject, the symbolic value he gives to the objects and materials he has chosen to use.

Sometimes the materials used are perishable, which can present problems when it comes to conservation! In 1991, Canadian artist Jana Sterbak included a dress made from raw meat, entitled Vanitas, in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada. The work sparked a great deal of controversy.

Today’s artists often use photography, video and the Internet, which allows them to integrate a number of elements: live, real-time images, stills and scripted texts. The devices they use are now part of our daily lives; they serve as faithful and discreet witnesses but they produce images that can easily be manipulated on a computer.

A. Not all visual artists turn out to be stars, but obviously this does not mean they are not producing interesting art. To survive, lesser-known artists must do something else besides art to earn a living, such as teaching or technical work at a museum. Artists can achieve fame when their works are added to private or museum collections that enjoy a good reputation in the national or international art community, and when they take part in exhibitions, both at home and abroad. Fewer people buy works of art than CDs. There is no market if there is no one interested in buying art. The leading galleries are located in cities where there is a certain level of prosperity, such as Toronto and New York.

Someone who becomes a “great” artist serves as a model for other artists in his own and in subsequent generations because of the innovative nature of his art and his original vision. Art critics, gallery owners, and exhibition curators play a major role in establishing an artist’s reputation, but this does not necessarily mean he will make a fortune during his lifetime. Over the course of a career, an artist may, for instance, enjoy the esteem of his peers but will only become widely known after his death.

The artists who are the first to break with convention sometimes enjoy greater recognition and play a leading role. In New York in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp exhibited a mass-produced urinal upside down on a pedestal, which he named Fountain, it was met with loud protests. Duchamp challenged the notion that art must be beautiful and freed the artist from the obligation to have mastery of skills. For the first time, the idea prevailed over the final result. The repercussions of this action back in 1917 are still felt in art today.

A. A. Gaining public recognition is a long and difficult process, and not every artist wants to make the effort needed to achieve this. In pop music, for example, not all artists are ready to accept the sacrifices made by Celine Dion to become an international star.

To make a name for themselves, artists are generally represented by galleries in one or more cities in Canada that organize exhibitions on their premises and in museums, and present their works at major international art events. For example, Peter Krausz is represented by Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal and Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto.

There also other events to which artists are invited by curators, such as the Documenta de Kassel in Germany and the Biennale de Venise. Angela Grauerholz was one of nine artists representing Canada at the Documenta de Kassel in the summer of 1992, and Geneviève Cadieux represented Canada in the 1990 Biennale de Venise.

A. The © symbol means that the work is protected by copyright. For a set period of time, depending on the country (in Canada, for the author’s lifetime and 50 years after his death) a work is protected, meaning it cannot be reproduced or modified without the author’s consent. Some artists manage their own copyright while others entrust this to management companies. It is important to respect these rights, since using a work without permission is considered theft.

In Canada and in Quebec, there is a law that defines the status of artists in general and protects their intellectual property rights.

R. A. Prices depend on the rarity of the work, the period it represents in an artist’s output, how original it is compared to other art from its era and its symbolic value. The works of a well-known artist increase in value after the artist’s death. Exhibition curators, museum directors, critics, collectors, art dealers, gallery owners and art institutions all influence the art market. A one-person show at a museum or gallery that is well known in the art community can bolster an artist’s reputation without necessarily making the artist wealthy. With a few notable exceptions, visual artists are rarely as rich during their lifetime as film stars and athletes.

Artists are responsible for the cost of creating their works. As a general rule, galleries retain 50% of the sale price of a work to cover their expenses: publishing catalogues, rent on the gallery, shipping works, promoting the artist at international art shows, etc.

Works by grand masters are sometimes sold in auctions by companies like Christie’s and Sotheby’s.