Contemporary essays

Contemporary essays It is a very exciting time to be involved in art. The contemporary art world has exploded into a cacophony of anything-goes themes and ideas. This provides problems for standards and conventional schools of wisdom, but at the same time, it results in a more stimulating and enriching artistic climate. As much as can be said against contemporary art, one has to admit that the relinquishing of old standards has been beneficial to the artist and the art viewer. What is really interesting is that now, as the Whitney Biennial shows us, works that would have been previously dismissed as too traditional are again being taken seriously because they are no longer a hierarchical standard, rather they are just another choice that the artist has in his repertoire. To abandon tradition temporarily in order to induce change is obviously necessary. But to permanently refuse to accept work that seems similar to a traditional style is blind and contrived. So it is refreshing to see this change in the new world of art. The fact that currently you can see a realistic oil on canvas in the same exhibition as a video installation is an uplifting reality. The playing field is truly open, well at least more open then it ever has been. As a young artist it is extremely overwhelming and extremely exciting to be in an art world that more then ever seems to be steering towards anarchy. One of the current themes in contemporary art is that of the psychedelic palette. The psychedelic theme frequently extends beyond the use of color. Fred Thomasellis work is a good example of more literal or direct referencing of psychedelic materials. What interests me is the work that responds, in a nostalgic way, to the extreme color relationships of the psychedelic era as opposed to work that conceptually responds to psychedelia. One of my favorite example of this nostalgic color is in the painted installation assume vivid astro focus ...