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QotW: Qotw : What name would you ascribe to the current period of art history that began in 2000?


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Glazenerd is one of the few who has posted a question lately in the QotW, so here it is: What name would you ascribe to the current period of art history that began in 2000? That is a tough one for me, and I really wonder how to describe what I perceive to be happening. 

My personal observation and discussion with others brings to mind much of what I believe would be seen in art circles during the 19th and 20th centuries with the reaction to Industrialization. I also believe that we are in the early stages of a new manufacturing revolution along with some great changes in the way we view consumables and all sorts of everyday appliances. As 3D printers and the technology become more able, less will be manufactured by hand, less will be shipped, and planned obsolescence may be a term of the late 20th and early 21 century. We cannot continue on the way we do now. When any idea, could be printed in 3 dimensions, cheaply, easily with no skill involved other than the thought process and being able to use a 3D interface of some sort to construct the object, the value of the object will become less important. I believe that people even now are returning to human made/performed arts and crafts. The idea of the human touch, warms the object or performance. It appeals to the individual looking for value, relevance and a human aesthetic in their environment. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought about a number of movements, Fauvism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism,  to name a few, we will be looking at several movements in the first part of the 21st century that will either hug new technologies, or ignore them, or react with direct opposition to them just as the arts reacted to photography or the Industrial Revolution.  I have no idea what to call them, but I do believe we will see a new resurgence in the arts.

So for you I ask, Qotw : what name would you ascribe to the current period of art history that began in 2000?  Also if you believe differently than I Please let me know.

 

 

best,

Pres

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Maybe it's just the stuff that finds me, but it's really kitschy or edgy or witty.  I think a lot of the popular art right now is people feeling like they have to either make something so awful it's adorable or overly shocking/dark/depressed, and then wittiness seems to underly a lot of these themes.  

Thats definitely pigeonholing an entire two decades of art into a tiny narrow beam, but from what I see as popular it is usually some depressing theme, with a witty political message or something that purposely looks like vintage kitsch.

I'm not a huge fan, but I do understand it and why it is popular.  People be upset.

Maybe a name could be the period of unrest or discomfort.

Edited by liambesaw
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On 5/29/2019 at 9:30 PM, liambesaw said:

Maybe it's just the stuff that finds me, but it's really kitschy or edgy or witty.  I think a lot of the popular art right now is people feeling like they have to either make something so awful it's adorable or overly shocking/dark/depressed, and then wittiness seems to underly a lot of these themes.  

Thats definitely pigeonholing an entire two decades of art into a tiny narrow beam, but from what I see as popular it is usually some depressing theme, with a witty political message or something that purposely looks like vintage kitsch.

I'm not a huge fan, but I do understand it and why it is popular.  People be upset.

Maybe a name could be the period of unrest or discomfort.

It's tiring isn't it!

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I'm not sure that a contemporaneous period, or movement, is possible to be named and categorized while still unfolding and in motion.  History, to me, is an amalgam of hindsight with a mix of alleged and actual facts shoring it up. It is always a bit twisted---sometimes very, very twisted.  I don't see art history as being exempt from the ways in which history (formed from records, opinions & observations, critiques, all kinds of analysis, supposition,  explanations, and relational interpretations) may be, and has been,  "used" as a political, cultural,  socioeconomic, even religious, dynamic that affects entire populations and subgroups, sometimes quite negatively (think post-Soviet actionist art). There are deep roots and reasons why the general U.S. population was initially disgusted with and fearful of the emergence of "abstract" art.  People had to be taught how to be "the viewer", how to enter a new visual reality, how to participate in the dialogue, how to "appreciate" what made no sense to them.  Once history has blessed an art movement/period with the names of the identified heroes and generated enough money to give it credence, even the most impenetrable or nonsensical works, the most blatantly naked emperors, get to assertively confound us with challenges to our discernment of what is art and what is artifice.  Most of us can't tell 'em apart, but once we slap a label on the period or movement in question, it's pretty well settled. One hopes that there is a strong core of intelligence and benign creativity when articulating an art movement or period and that art historians may bless us with insights and context, and not leave us in the dark (think of Ai Weiwei and the urn--you have to understand it to understand it). 

On 5/29/2019 at 11:30 PM, liambesaw said:

Maybe a name could be the period of unrest or discomfort.

Yep.

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