Art history is a vast canon of time, intellectual thought, and artistic expression. It very well could take a lifetime of education to fully understand the complexity of artistic movements. Art history is a dream riddled with insight and confusion, spirit and horror, victory and tragedy. There have been many movements and eras before us, and all of these have left their residual influence on how the world views art today. The biggest question, and the recurring question of our time is this… What era of art history are we experiencing today? How can we coin or define a term that encompasses the novel and complex time of the present. For the sake of entertaining this question, we will examine the movements of the not so distant past, and look at the 20th century specifically. Let’s take a quick review on what that century represented, and how the artists of that time shaped our conceptions on why we engage and commune for art today.
DADA — (1916–1923)
Dada was an intellectual and literary movement, just as much, if not more so, then it was an artistic one. It was about rebellion and revolution from wartime Europe and Russia. Dada members were brash, unstructured, and nonsensical. Dada quickly became an international movement when Marcel Duchamp, the leading practitioner of Dada, organized the group formally in New York City at Gallery 291. Artists like Raoul Hausmann, helped developed the technique of photomontage.
“ABCD” 1923, Photomontage (Figure 1.) is an example of how Dada was pictorially complex, unstructured, and hyper political. Hausmann was also famous for his phonetic poems; as series of nonsensical syllables spoken at random.
Perhaps the most famous of Dada artists was Marcel Duchamp himself. He was the first to coin the term “ready-made”, an object in industrial life that can be used as a piece of art. He is infamously known for his piece entitled, “Fountain”, 1917, an industrial urinal signed “R. MUTT”(Figure 2.)
This is an example of his rebellious and unconventional approach on art being a means of breaking down traditional values and the art world’s insistent use of traditional mediums. The movement of Dada would end roughly in 1923, yet remains an influence on many artists and thinkers today.
SURREALISM — (1916–1950)
Surrealism was about myth and fantasy within wartime dissolution. It captures the dream world in a way that exemplifies grandiose and surreal realties. It does this by exaggerating the mind’s assumptions on nature and form. The spirit of surrealism is an adoption of madness and disillusionment, for the sake of a higher understanding through non-rationality. Like Dada, Surrealism was highly influenced by the literary movements of the time. “Manifeste du surréalisme, Éditions du Sagittaire, 1924”, was written by surrealist writer André Breton. Surrealism encouraged the act of Psychic Automatism, and the act of depicting subconscious dreams and desires. Surrealist artists and writers were highly influenced by Freudian and Jungian Psychology.
Max Ernst and Salvador Dali are considered two of the most influential Surrealists artists of the time. Max Ernst’s most notable work is a piece entitled “Europe After the Rain”, 1940, Oil on canvas (Figure 3.) a beautiful and nightmarish representation of the aftermath of World War I.
Salvidor Dali’s notable works include, “The Phenomenon of Ecstasy” 1933, Photomontage (Figure 4.), and “The Temptation of Saint Anthony”, 1946, Oil on canvas (Figure 5.)
The Surrealist movement would see an end in 1950, yet like Dada it will live on in the work of many artists to come.
PHOTO SECESSION — (1903–1920)
The Photo Secession was a period of photography that was led by Alfred Stieglitz, the great American photographer, and founder of Gallery 291. Gallery 291 would become a place dedicated to the recognition of photography as fine art, as well as the American and European avant-garde. At the time Stieglitz, and the artist he represented, stood for creating works that depicted nature and industrialization through avant-garde techniques. They also showcased a deep reverence for surrealism and abstraction. He was also a writer and publisher known for the famous art magazine entitled “Camera Work” (Figure 6.)
A publication that highlighted the works of Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, and even the works of European painters such as Rodin and Matisse. The Gallery 291 and Camera Work would see an end in 1917.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM — (1950–1970)
Abstract Expressionism was a period of painting that is regarded as one of America’s greatest contributions to modern art. The movement is highly inspired by the surrealist sentiment of automatism and subconscious emotional expression. It was a direct engagement with unconventional painting techniques, and engaged with the spirit of emotional and spiritual release. Many of the early expressionists were extremely volatile and energetic, yet were highly intelligent individuals possessing the need to express what they deemed to be the existential temperament of the time…. the freedom of movement and thought through pure sensibility.
From a technical perspective it challenged the norms on how painters engaged with the practice and execution of painting. It was a fervor in expressing movement, density, and texture with paint and color. Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Rothko, and Robert Motherwell were some of the most influential and prolific of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Some of their most notable works were Pollock’s, “Blue Poles” 1953 Oil on Duco (Figure 7.)
Rothko’s “White and Greens in Blue” 1957, Oil on canvas (Figure 8.)
and Motherwell’s “Elegy to the Spanish Republic №110” 1971, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas (Figure 9.)
You can argue that Abstract Expressionism has never seen a termination of development, as many artists to this day use abstraction as a means of creative expression across the world.
POP ART (1960-Present)
Pop Art was a direct rejection of Abstract Expressionism, and almost everything that came out of it would challenge the way we view painting, sculpture, photography, etc. forever. Fredrick Hartt, an art historian, writes in ‘A History of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture Vol. II’ , “Abstract Expressionism… and then what? The opposition was not long in coming, and with bewildering speed and multiplicity a new movement began to appear every few years — Pop Art, Op Art, Color Field, Hard Edge, Minimal Art, Postminimal Art, Environments, Happenings, Body Art, Earth Art, Kinetic Art, Conceptual Art, and Photorealism — to name only a few. The variety and complexity of the new artistic movements of the 1960’s and early 1970’s can only be suggested here through their most important achievements.”
Indeed this is the truth. The sheer complexity and novelty of art that comes out of the Post-War and Post-Cold War era has been culturally groundbreaking and hyper eclectic to say the least. Many believe Andy Warhol was the generator and father of Pop Art, yet many are unaware of the others who pioneered what we know as Pop Art today.
Robert Rauschenberg was a major figure in the pop art movement as well as Roy Lichtenstein. Rauschenberg would produce work in the spirit of Duchamp’s conception of the “ready-made” object by using industrial objects, painting over them, and then mounting them on canvas, wood, metal, etc. His most notable series of work was his “Combine Series”, where he would combine unconventional objects creating compositions such as, “Monogram” 1955, (Figure 10.)
and “Black Market” 1961,(Figure 11.)
These are examples of how using everyday materials can create works that expressed the industrial angst many artists were experiencing at the time.
Roy Lichtenstein would use comic strip illustrations and advertisements as inspiration for large scale paintings that tended to be satirical in nature, as well as highlight the social-political climate of the 60’s and 70’s. A meta- commentary on consumerism and the areas of American life we romanticize and idealize in Pop Culture. “Girl with Hair Ribbon” 1965, Oil and Magna on canvas (Figure 12.) is an great example of his work.
We can also see similar temperaments in Andy Warhol’s “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn”, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen (Figure 13.).
Warhol would later produce works depicting American consumer products and become more of a cultural influencer rather than just a figurative artist as Liechtenstein mostly was.
MINIMALISM — (1960-Present)
Minimalism was a movement mostly of sculptural and architectural sentiments surrounding the building of objects in industrial spaces in order to produce feeling and spectacle. It did this by stripping away excess form, color, and texture, and used sculptural methods such as metals, industrial plywood, concrete, and color-impregnated plexiglass. The most notable of the minimalists is Donald Judd, a man who spent most of his formal education in New York City, but later would work extensively in Marfa, TX. He would use abandoned properties in the desert to build upon his conception of what he belived minimal art was really about.
“Three dimensional works do not constitute a movement, school, or style. The common aspects are too general and too little common to define a movement. The differences are greater than the similarities.” Judd believed that art should not represent anything, that it should unequivocally stand on its own and simply exist. His aesthetic followed his own strict rules against illusion and falsity, producing work that was clear, strong and definite. Judd emphasized space and architecture as the dominant force of his practice, which is why most of his work is untitled. Scenes like, “15 untitled works in concrete”, 1980–1984, Marfa, TX (Figure 14.), are a prime example of what he achieved when building structures for ecological and industrial spaces.
DIGITAL ART — (1990-Present)
Digital Art can compose the entirety of digital based artwork exploding out of the unprecedented technology of the Internet. Many if not all modern artists are privy to engaging in the medium of digital art in some way or another, yet for the sake of keeping things formal we will briefly speak upon the onset of Graphic Design, Coding/Blockchain, and NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens).
At the beginning of the pandemic, an artist known as Beeple sold a piece of digital art on the Ethereum blockchain entitled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days“ a collage of digital images (Figure 15.), selling at auction for $69 million USD.
Directly after this there would be a boom in digital artists who garnered global attention from the art world. NFTs have become, and still are a huge source of interest and controversy. Like most new technologies and developments, blockchain technology has shown the world that Digital Art is not only a force to be reckoned with, but could very well be our generation’s “avant-garde” if we look at it in terms of mediums and mediums only.
The narrative and conceptual element of such works is another conversation to be had, but regardless of what one thinks of the content of such creativity, the work within itself is an example of the power of blockcahin technology. The art world must, and should not turn their heads to such developments, and in fact many are looking to the world of NFTs as grounds for the experimentation and globalization of the art world. As Caroline Taylor states beautifully in, ‘Embracing Technical Innovation in the Artworld’, “The advent of NFTs has created what is referenced as the ‘Creator Economy,’ an ecosystem in which artists and creators are perpetually compensated through royalties and are in direct contact with their audience. Art and music have been at the forefront of promoting the benefits of blockchain, pioneering a path for other industries to follow. Creators have rewritten many rules through engagement with the new technology, which will continue to be reinforced by real-world use cases of applications of blockchain.”
The world of blockchain, aka Web 3, has given the modern artist an ability to create for themselves a dedicated online audience. It has not fully abolished the establishment entirely, although it has given way to the realization of communities and markets created from the sheer will of those who engage in their development. This is the trajectory of all new movements; technology puts the power of creativity in the hands of those who need it most… the youthful pioneers of the time.
Given the fact that Digital Art is the closest to the present as we can get, it is also a good place to end. There are of course movements and artists that have been left out of this essay such as, The Mexican Muralist, the Arte Povera Movement, and Modern Video Art in general, yet these are deserving of their own attention and will be written about in future articles.
Now with a century of art history being glossed over, let’s contend with the question at hand… WHAT ERA OF ART HISTORY ARE WE IN TODAY?
The simple answer would be to say we do not know and that time will only tell, yet if we were able to gain a modicum of wisdom from what we just read, we will see that so much time has already passed. The fluctuation of time and art has shown that time will only confuse us more as we transition into the endlessly novel modern world. Dada told us to break down ideology entirely — Surrealism showed us how to bring religion and myth back into a secular world — The Photo Secession showed us how to see authentically through photography — Abstract Expressionism taught us to feel and breath spirit into the act of painting itself — Pop Art shows us that our current world of commercialization and popular culture is a endless space to appropriate, and Digital Art has shown us that all of these ideas, movements, and bodies of work can be infinitely reproduced with no sign of resolution. It is like the great uroboros endlessly circulating only to find itself eating its own tail. A sacred process of death and rebirth that never ends… it only circles around and around finding itself back to the beginning.
It would seem to be the case that we are no longer in a place to produce new mediums and or ideas regarding the avant-garde… we are now in an era of creativity that must unapologetically pay homage to its ancestors and the artists who come before us. This idea is also akin to what Terrance McKenna speaks of when he speaks of “The Transcendental Object at the End of Time”, a fall into the singularity of history as we know it. This can also be characterized as what we call the Anthropocene, or to put a bit more simply, The Post-Industrial World.
We live in the aftermath of the 20th century, a time when the world saw the fall and rise of many political, religious, and technological movements. We must now contend with what it means to have the privilege of recalling such failures and achievements of our beloved cultural leaders. We must become new leaders and create a world that not only strives to amend such failures and achievements, but strives to emulate them toward a divine ideal. A divine ideal must come from the realization and reverence toward what has come before us. You could say all art can be attributed to this way of being. A way of being that observes, learns and emulates through the present act of creativity itself and all that surrounds it. Regardless of what medium you choose to use… one must hold the narrative and intention paramount to the object, even if the object expresses no intention at all. The object and the space in which it inhabits is a means to derive meaning in a world that aches for it more than ever.
This is the end of history…
This is the end of time…
This is THE POST-ART ERA.
