Modern Art Making Sense? What does it do for you?
It was fascinating being interviewed on the radio and to face challenges about Modern art Making Sense
Definitions
Modern Art is the non-traditional, non- academic art from roughly the 1860s to the 1970s as epitomised by Manet, Monet, Duchamp, Picasso, Pollock and the British St Ives School.
Post Modernism: from the 1970s particularly Performance and Conceptual Art.
Wiki for more detailed descriptions.
Complex definitions, philosophies, opinions and attitudes persist with incredible seriousness and it has to be said with some, preciousness.
What to make of it all?
The confused viewer. What can they make of The Turner Prize? Picasso? Surrealism? Emin and Hirst?
My response in the radio interview? Allow the piece to work on you, don’t dismiss it too quickly as ‘rubbish – that’s not art’. Modern art – making sense to you?
When was the piece created? What were (or are) the political, social, economic circumstances of the time and could these have influenced the artist?
Maybe even consider the piece within the chronology of modern art history?
Also try and find the artist’s intention, what were they trying to achieve? Then in your opinion, did they achieve it? Modern art – making sense to you?
The Viewing Eye
How would the work have been considered by a viewer in the 1860s, the 1930s, the 1950s? The ‘period viewing eye’.
With Conceptual Art, don’t expect to be given the ‘answers’. You are invited to work them out for yourself. Maybe you’ll come up with your own interpretation, how it impacts on you. That’s fine. Maybe your interpretation is different from the person next to you or the 1860s viewer. That’s fine too.
Your prerogative as a gallery visitor.
Modern Art Making Sense : Indulge or walk away
Then it’s easier to identify or not with the piece. Indulge yourself further or simply walk away.