Engaging with Contemporary Art (Reflections Part 3)

Imagine yourself walking into a repurposed industrial space to find that the inside walls have been painted completely white. Positioned around the space are objects of varying sizes arranged seemingly haphazardly. There is a wall of text beside you, opposite that wall of text is a young woman behind a desk who briefly acknowledges your existence. She’s probably wearing glasses and is definitely dressed much better than you. 

This is where your journey begins. You approach each of the objects and you don’t know what you are looking at. You turn your head around, perhaps you skim through each of the works quickly, perhaps one or two of them catches your eye. Perhaps you say to yourself, “Why is this here?” If it is a commercial gallery maybe you even eye the price and say to yourself, “Oof! Really!?” If you came with a companion, perhaps you roleplay, if you’re lucky they have a relationship to the art and can illuminate some of it for you. 

“What do you see?” 

“What does it remind you of?”

“What happens when you stand closer? Further away?”

“How would you go about replicating it?”

“What is it made out of?”

“When was it made?”

“What does the gallery say about it?”

“Why do you think you stopped at this one?”

For whatever reason we step inside of a space where there are art objects, we should first understand that we are stepping into what is a mediated experience. The viewer engages at their own pace and on their own terms. This can mean that you can dismiss, complain, exclaim, pose, and poke fun to your heart’s content. At the same time you can also participate, observe, appreciate, and contemplate as much as you want. Contemporary Art inspires as many emotions as there are people to see it. 

For those of you who have been following me for the past two weeks, you and I have come to understand that there is a world of art and artists that exist under the banner of Contemporary Art, and how art is chosen and curated is a mystery. Over the year that I was employed at Contemporary Calgary I did my best to dispel this mystery for myself and will endeavour to do the same here for you.

Lets begin with the simple question: “What is Contemporary Art?” This was a question posed to a group of children by the chief curator. I will quote her here by saying that Contemporary Art is art made by artists who are currently alive. It can also include the recently deceased but that’s a very helpful starting point for our discussion. We imagine that artists who are living and working today have the capability of illuminating the times we are living in and providing different perspectives on human experience. These works may be beautiful, but the long history of art has taught us that aesthetic beauty does not automatically make a work of art thought provoking, influential, nor even easily agreed upon. 

To illustrate my point, take the term, “Baroque” That word evokes the ornate classical beauty of fine art like marble statues, oil paintings, royal architecture, etcetera. The term “Baroque” emerged as an insult as the ornamentation on buildings, the huge complex paintings, and ostentatious displays of wealth required to manufacture these works of art were seen as unnecessary, tactless, and garish.

Compare a work of art by Michelangelo to Pablo Picasso and it is plain as day the enormous changes in art and human thought that occurred in the 400 years between them. Since the end of the Second World War and today, the world has gone through enough changes, both in society and technology, that art has changed, developed, and transformed at a radical pace. 

When we are looking for art that speaks to today it is helpful too to try to understand the times we are living in. The current moment is defined by its instability. War, ecological disaster, migration, economic uncertainty, disease, and technological advances have uprooted the prevailing world order and cast previously held truths into doubt. It is chaotic and most people are concerned with how they are going to put a roof over their heads and food in their mouths. This is the cultural context that we are experiencing and creating inside of. It also informs the structures of power around art and what comes to the forefront. 

Contemporary Art in Canada is informed by the problems faced by the people living in different parts of the country and the particular demographics of those areas. For people living in Halifax, pictures of the sea and the harbour are everyday life, put those pictures in the landlocked city of Edmonton, Alberta and they mean something very different. Any institution must necessarily speak to their immediate public which brings me to my point: Contemporary Art is experiential.

A sculpture cannot accurately be experienced through an image. A photo on a computer screen of a painting is a collection of pixels on a digital screen. Reproductions have very little to do with the original work of art beyond a superficial resemblance. The texture of a work of art, be it an assemblage of objects, a painting, even a video, ignites the imagination of the viewer. Consider what you experience when you stand in front of a metal object that is rusted and corroded, seemingly on the point of collapse and certainly forgotten. Would you run across a rusted metal bridge? Compare that to a brand new, stainless steel walk with glass along the sides. Your relationship to material is informed by personal experience and your body has feelings about this.

Learning to appreciate art goes directly in hand with a willingness to engage with your own body and investigate the associations you make with your mind and body. It is also important to note that this does not have to be a positive conclusion. I really have to stress this. In order to make meaningful art, have meaningful experiences with art, and to mature, we have to grapple with the fact that we will be offended, shocked, disgusted, triggered, and disappointed. We don’t have to celebrate but I remember during first aid training and learning that the feeling of revulsion at an accident is something we have a choice to indulge in. Indulging in that feeling does not solve the problem at hand: a person in danger. Likewise, our society is in danger and bleeding from a gaping wound in its chest. If we, as artists, do not have the wherewithal to look life square in the face, then we have no business telling other people what they should and should not feel. 

Art cannot exclusively be an escape. But conversely it does not have to be doom and gloom either. It can transport us to fantastical worlds, it can teach us about a history we never knew existed. In Canada today, artists are encouraged to explore the history of materials and mediums as a means to tell stories. The side effect being that there is a novelty involved in approaches that tend to spark delight or fascination in the public. 

Across Canada, those expressions look different. With these in mind, In the next essay I will go from east to west and talk about what is going on in Contemporary Art across Canada. See you then.