Contemporary art, the basis

Contemporary art was intended to counter the overly academic ways of modern art. The practice of art is freed from any rule.Plastic art which takes place in French faculties allowing to test new materials, new ways of composing a work, new media. 

Contemporary art amounts to questioning the place of art in society. As Marcel Duchamp and his Ready-made do so well, everything is art and everyone can become an artist. Thus, thanks to the open-mindedness that contemporary art brings, new artistic movements are taking place.

Conceptual art is a movement that is difficult to date, but it can be placed approximately between 1965 and 1977.

Tis movement accords a little weight to the realization of a work and even less to its aesthetics.

The work does not need to be finished to make work, because it is the idea of the work that takes precedence over its realization.

The origins of conceptual art comes from the «Ready-made » by Marcel Duchamp with his work named « La Fontaine », a spilled urinal. 

« L’art est défini non par les propriétés esthétiques des objets ou des œuvres, mais seulement par le concept ou l’idée de l’art.» 

In English: “Art is defined not by the aesthetic properties of objects or pieces of art, but only by the concept or idea of art.”

 

This work is a marker of conceptual art, because it shows three possible representations of the same object: the chair. The importance is, therefore, not the realization or the way to show, but the very idea of showing a chair.

Minimalism 

Minimalism is a movement that began in 1960 in the United States. As the name suggests, the goal is to create as little as possible. This movement was created to form an opposition to pop art, a figurative movement loaded by its colors and repetitions. Minimalism embodies the timeless Maxim by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, representative of the Bauhaus, «less is more» The least does the most.

Richard Serra, an American artist sculptor realizes :
Torqued Ellipse IV Weatherproof steel,
1998.

 

Red Circle on Black, Jirō Yoshihara, 1965

 

Ifafa II, Frank Stella, 1967 

Artistic performance

The essential actors of body art

Loïe fuller is one of the protagonists of corporeal art. In the early 1900s, she used her body to create a work halfway between performance and theatre. Her body will become the scenography as well as the dialogues of her work. She will call her first scenography Serpentine Dance.

Gina Pane is a representative people of body art. She uses her body in the purpose that the wound becomes her symbol. She calls this part of her work «the Partitions», which are inspired by the religious iconography and the life of the saints.

Modern medium, contemporary approach

Some contemporary actors have chosen to keep classical techniques and know-how closer to modern art than to contemporary art. Nevertheless, their thought and their non-academic approach, place them as artists belonging to the contemporary art movement.

New Realism 

The new realism appeared in 1960 in a statement given by artists with a common artistic language. These artists are: Yves Klein, Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques de la Villeglé; to which are added César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps in 1961.

Together, they will appropriate the real and make «a poetic recycling of the real» as Pierre Restany said. For this reason, several artistic movements will be inscribed in the new realism. A specific movements to each artist.

The major actors in the new realism