1. “What defines contemporary art?”

In his recent book on the economics of contemporary art, Don Thompson mentions that he was often asked about “what defines contemporary art.” He continues: “There are really two questions there; what is contemporary, and what is art.”¹  Thompson then tries to answer how contemporary is to be defined today, but he has less to say about art that goes beyond economic conditions. In fact, the two questions are more interrelated than he admits. If contemporary has adopted a new meaning, then art has also begun to change in concept and practice. My own answer is that it is its global production and distribution that “defines contemporary art.” But we encounter a certain resistance of Western critics to speak of global art, since they fear that the Western art scene will loose power when art is globalized. For the same reason, they would favor the notion “contemporary art”, as it is familiar and since it sounds neutral with regard to newcomers in the art world. Read the rest of this entry »