Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st

century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically
advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects
that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century.
Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform,
organising principle, ideology, or "-ism". Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns
larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and
nationality.
In vernacular English, modern and contemporary are synonyms, resulting in some conflation and
confusion of the terms modern art and contemporary art by non-specialists.[1]
Following are the different contemporary art forms:

 Performance
This contemporary art form is a beautiful grouping of poetry and visual art.

 Installation
The aim of this contemporary art form is to produce a visually melodramatic situation
through arrangement of art.

 Minimalism
This art form seek to depict just the perception or the idea behind the art.

 Conceptualization
This contemporary art form encourages the impression that art not essentially has to be a
materialistic object, in fact it is the thought which is the real art form.
 What is Contemporary Art?
An In-Depth Look at the
Modern-Day Movement
To many people, coming up with a contemporary art definition can be a tricky
task. While its title is simplistic and straightforward, its modern-day meaning is
not as clear-cut. Fortunately, understanding what constitutes as “contemporary”
is entirely possible once one traces the concept’s history and explores its
underlying themes.

What is contemporary art?

In its most basic sense, the term contemporary art refers to art—namely, painting,
sculpture, photography, installation, performance, and video art—
produced today. Though seemingly simple, the details surrounding this definition
are often a bit fuzzy, as different individuals’ interpretations of “today” may widely
and wildly vary. Therefore, the exact starting point of the genre is still debated;
however, many art historians consider the late 1960s or early 1970s (the end

History:
of modern art, or modernism) to be an adequate estimate.

Major Movements and Artists

Given its “art of today” definition, you may be surprised to hear that contemporary
art actually has a relatively long history. To trace its evolution, let’s take a look at
the major movements and important artists that compose its history.
P OP AR T

Andy Warhol, “Flowers” (Stock Photos from Radu Bercan/Shutterstock)

Intended as a reaction to preceding modern art movements, contemporary art is
thought to have begun on the heels of Pop Art. In post-war Britain and America, Pop
Art was pioneered by artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. It is defined
by an interest in portraying mass culture and reimagining commercial products as
accessible art. While the movement lasted roughly from the 1950s through the early
1970s, it was reborn as Neo-Pop Art in the 1980s thanks to artists like Jeff Koons.
P HOTOR EALIS M

Portrait of Chuck Close (Stock Photos from Rushay/Shutterstock)

Much like artists working in the Pop Art style sought to artistically reproduce
objects, those involved with Photorealism—a concurrent movement—aimed to
create hyperrealistic drawings and paintings. Photorealists often worked from
photographs, which enabled them to accurately reproduce portraits, landscapes, and
other iconography. Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter often worked in this style.
C ONC EP TUALIS M

Ai Wei Wei, “Circle of Animals/ Zodiac Heads,” 2010 (Stock Photos from Alisa_Ch/Shutterstock)
In turn, Pop Art also helped shape Conceptualism, which rejected the idea of art as a
commodity. In conceptual art, the idea behind a work of art takes precedence. Major
conceptual artists include Damien Hirst, Ai Wei Wei, and Jenny Holzer. Though
this experimental movement is rooted in art of the early 21st century, it emerged as a
formal movement in the 1960s and remains a major contemporary art movement
today.
M INIM ALIS M

Donald Judd, “Untitled,” 1973 (Stock Photos from Todamo/Shutterstock)

Like Conceptualism, Minimalism materialized in the 1960s and is still prevalent
today. According to the Tate, both movements “challenged the existing structures for
making, disseminating and viewing art.” What sets Minimalism apart, however, is that
its simple, abstract aesthetic invites viewers to respond to what they see—not what
they think a given work of art represents. Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Dan
Flavin are some key Minimalist artists.
P ER FOR MANC E AR T

Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

Another movement with Conceptualist roots is Performance Art. Beginning in the
1960s and retaining its popularity today, performance art is a drama-inspired approach
to art. While the art form is performed by artists (as the name suggests), it is not solely
intended as entertainment. Instead, its goal is to convey a message or idea.
Predominant performance artists include Marina Abramović, Yoko Ono,
and Joseph Beuys.
INS TALLATION AR T

Yayoi Kusama, “Gleaming Lights of the Souls,” 2008 (Stock Photos from ephst/Shutterstock)
Like performance pieces, installation art is an immersive medium of art. Installations
are three-dimensional constructions that transform their surroundings and alter
viewers’ perceptions of space. Often, they’re large-scale and site-specific, enabling
artists to transform any space into a customized, interactive environment. Well-
known installation artists include Yayoi Kusama, Dale Chihuly, and Bruce Munro.
EAR TH AR T

Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty” (Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain)

A unique spin on installation art, Earth Art (or Land Art) is a movement in which
artists transform natural landscapes into site-specific works of art. Robert
Smithson, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and Andy Goldsworthy are celebrated for
their avant-garde earthworks.
S TR EET AR T

Keith Haring, “The Pisa’s Mural, 1989 by Stock Photos from peepy/Shutterstock
As one of the most recent contemporary art movements, street art is a genre that
gained prominence with the rise of graffiti in the 1980s. Often rooted in social
activism, street art includes murals, installations, stenciled images, and stickers
erected in public spaces. Key street artists include figures from the 1980s, like Jean-
Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, as well as practicing artists
like Banksy and Shepard Fairey.
What’s Next for Contemporary Art?

Stock Photos from mujiri/Shutterstock

While some of the artists we’ve looked at are either no longer alive or unable to
practice, many aforementioned greats, including—but not limited to—Damien
Hirst, Ai Wei Wei, Marina Abramović, Yayoi Kusama, and Jeff Koons, continue
to create avant-garde works of painting, sculpture, installation, and performance art.

In addition to these famous figures, many up-and-coming contemporary artists are

stunning the world with their original approach to art. On top of putting their own
twists on conventional forms like painting, sculpture, and installation, they’ve also
popularized unexpected forms of art, like embroidery, origami, and tattoos, proving
the endless possibilities of the all-encompassing genre.
Origin:

Contemporary art, to be put simply, is art of today. From a painting to a sculpture and
from photography to a performance, it can be anything as long as it is produced in
today’s era. With no specific medium or apparatus, Contemporary Art has been
interpreted differently in different times and different regions. This genre of art is
believed to have started in the late 1960s by the end of modernism art era.

Characteristics:

The most prominent feature of contemporary art is the fact that it has no distinct
feature or a single characteristic. It is defined by the artist’s ability to innovate and
bring out a modern masterpiece. Here are a few of the technical characteristics:

Innovation in Art:

Contemporary artists have been the pioneers in introducing new forms of art to the
world. Different art forms have been combined or newer ideas employed to bring out
newer types of art.

Collage art is an example of innovation that proved to be a great example of modern

contemporary art. Likewise, mixed forms of assemblage, different variants of kinetic
art as well as different categories of photography, animations and land art are a result
of bringing together newer ideas.

Using New Materials:

Another characteristic that was employed to bring about modern art was the
employment of different objects, materials that looked useless to the common man but
were brought to great use by modern artists. For instance, painters used pieces of
newspapers as a backdrop to their canvases and created masterpieces of modern art
from it. It was unprecedented to use something like a newspaper in a painting.
Similarly, sculptors used pieces of junk to produce what is now known as junk art.
Also, common items like cars, chairs, boxes have been used masterfully to create
assemblages.

Use of Color:

Traditionally, color was used as means to bring reality to paintings and art pieces.
However, modern artists experimented with colors and used it unconventionally to
make new textures and themes and used them in their pieces of art.

Expressionism was mostly based on the vibrant and expressive use of colors as a tool
to innovate their paintings.

Newer Techniques:

Modern art is not only about playing and experimenting with colors and objects,
rather it has also given birth to newer techniques that form the basis for contemporary
art today. Chromolithography is a prime example of a technique that was developed
by Jules Cheret. Similarly, surreal artists introduced automatic drawing to the world of
art. Decalcomania and Frottage are also vital techniques that developed with time and
are employed to produce contemporary art.

After the Second World War, several movements by artists began that gave the world
newer forms of art that shaped up to be known as contemporary art, today.

Abstract Expressionism, Tachisme, Pop Art, Op Art, Minimalism are some of the art
movements that changed as was known before.
Today, Contemporary Art is the most-widely demanded form of art. Be it
Contemporary Art in Dubai, London or New York, it is showcased and liked by
connoisseurs across the Globe.

10 Contemporary Filipino
Artists to Know
Ernest Concepcion (1977-present)
Concepcion is a studio artist whose work experiments with intense emotion,
deconstructing images in his paintings, sculptures, and installations. He
creates art like recording a music album, where each painting is from a series
of nine. Concepcion describes it as producing an old favorite, a classic,
sleeper hit and one piece he doesn’t really like but keeps coming back to.

He is a graduate of the University of the Philippines, with a Bachelor in Fine

Arts while under the mentorship of pioneer conceptual artist Roberto Chabet.
After graduation, he moved to New York in 2002 and spent a significant
amount of time in Brooklyn, where he participated in art residences for
the Bronx Museum of Art Artists-in-the-Marketplace (AIM) Program, the Artists
Alliance Inc. Rotating Studio Program, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural
Council (LMCC) Workspace Program.

Concepcion returned to Manila in 2013 with a triumphant solo show at the

U.P. Vargas Museum, after participating in the El Museo del Barrio La Bienal
in New York. He remains active on the Asian art scene and is a recent
recipient of the 13th Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
'OMG CHRIST', 2015 © Ernest Concepcion
Ronald Ventura (1973-present)
Ventura is a contemporary artist from Manila, with a Bachelor’s degree of Fine
Arts in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas. He initially taught in the
same school after graduating but found his true calling as a visual artist after
his first solo exhibition at the Drawing Room in Makati in 2000. Ventura’s work
is known to consist of multiple layers, using imagery that focuses on the
human form. His paintings are a dramatic union of comic sketches, reality,
and graffiti. He draws inspiration from Asian mythology, Catholicism, science
fiction and comic book characters. He is known to have the highest selling
work in the history of the Southeast Asian art market: his painting Grayground
sold for a whopping $1.1 million USD at an auction in Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

'Grayground', 2011 © Ronald Ventura

Leeroy New (1986-present)
Initially trained as a sculptor, Leeroy’s work blends theatre, fashion, film,
production design, and public art. He graduated from the
prestigious Philippine High School for the Arts, before continuing his Fine Arts
degree at the University of the Philippines. He has received artist residences
in Singapore and Australia and was awarded the 13 Artists Award by the
Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2014. His large-scale public art uses
common objects and materials found in everyday environments.

In the sand dunes of Paoay, Ilocos Norte, Leeroy collaborated with the local
government to convert discarded water tanks and cement fountains into a
post-apocalyptic park filled with sculptures. His most recent grant from the
Burning Man Global Arts foundation was used to transform the most polluted
waterway in Manila, the Pasig River, with floating installations – challenging
views on the environment.

Oscar Villamiel (1953-present)

Born in Caloocan City, Manila, Villamiel is a multimedia artist known for his
large-scale installations consisting of objects found in local communities. His
art career may have started later in life, but his installations have enthralled
audiences for the past decade. He initially worked as a set designer for
television, a leather bag craftsman and a successful t-shirt company
entrepreneur before holding his first solo exhibition in 2006.

He once filled a room with thousands of bullhorns in his show Mga Damong
Ligaw (‘Wild Weeds’) in 2014, at the Light and Space Contemporary in
Fairview, Manila. The bullhorn installation was made to look like a terrain of
weeds when viewed at a certain angle. Villamiel’s work reflects the current
socio-political situation in the country, highlighting elements of poverty,
consumerism, and religion. His massive installation Payatas, which features
thousands of doll heads, was chosen to represent the Philippines in the
Singapore Biennale exhibition in 2013. It took him two-and-a-half years to
finish this work.

Dex Fernandez (1984-present)

Another Caloocan native, Dexter practices a variety of mediums ranging from
painting to street art and animation. He most recently participated in art
residency programs in Lir Art Space, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2013), Asian
Cultural Council in New York, Fine Arts Work Center, Massachusetts (2015),
and Ongoing Art Center, Tokyo (2016).

His work is influenced by pop culture, graffiti, children’s drawings, and tattoos
– creating pieces that challenge people’s views on fine art. He is known locally
for his on-going series of Garapata street art (the Tagalog word for ‘tick’),
filling public spaces with the notion of ‘infecting’ the city with his art.

Fernandez has exhibited extensively in top galleries in the Philippines and

abroad, including in Paris, New York, and the Singapore Biennale. He recently
participated in the Melbourne Art Fair 2018 with fellow Filipino, Melbourne-
based artist Diokno Pasilan.

'Heartache', 2018 © Dex Fernandez / The Drawing Room

Neil Pasilan (1971-present)
Brother to artist Diokno Pasilan, Neil is a Bacolod-born artist from a family of
craftsmen and boat builders. He is a self-taught visual artist who displayed
creativity as a child. Pasilan has moulded clay figures for most of his life and
continues to use this in his work.

Currently based in Manila, he has become known for his paintings that hold
multiple layers, using different mediums to expose new forms. Pasilan’s work
has been represented by the Drawing Room of Manila, Artinformal Gallery,
and West Gallery. A notable collaboration with Raffy Napay was featured in
Art Fair Philippines in 2017.

'Isla Hubad', 2012 © Neil Pasilan

Kawayan de Guia (1979-present)
This Baguio-born artist is son to legendary filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik and
German artist Katrin de Guia, and was mentored by famous Baguio artists
BenCab and Santiago Bose. Kawayan’s art contemplates the Philippines’
changing urban culture. He illogically arranges texts and icons to compose a
painting, depicting the human form in new ways. His work draws from popular
culture, the media and mass consumerism. He also creates sculptures and
massive art installations – such as his Bomba series – and blings out
discarded Jukeboxes.

In 2011, he initiated the Ax(iS) Art Project, promoting the local artist
community in the chilly hill station of Baguio and the Cordilleras. Kawayan has
held numerous solo exhibitions in the Philippines and abroad. He was a guest
curator for the Singapore Biennale in 2013.

Patricia Perez Eustaquio (1977-present)

Eustaquio is an artist who works in various mediums, experimenting with
different materials through installation, drawing, and painting. The frames from
her painting are cut, resulting in canvases that evoke images of wilted flowers
and carcasses. Her sculptures are fashioned from fabric, covering objects with
resin-treated silk or crochet. The object is then removed, to allow the fabric to
retain its position, folds and drapes. Her work examines the ideas of
perception and memory. Eustaquio’s solo exhibitions have been held in
Manila, New York, Taiwan, and Singapore. In 2016, her site-specific
installation was featured in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

'The Mountain is Coming', Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2016 © Patricia Perez Eustaquio /
Silverlens Gallery
Martha Atienza (1981-present)
Born to a Dutch mother and Filipino father, Atienza continues to live both in
the Philippines and Holland. After receiving her Bachelor in Fine Arts from the
Academy of Visual Arts and Design in the Netherlands, she accepted
residency grants from England, Australia, New York and Singapore. Her video
art reflects snapshots of reality and the environment drawn from her Filipino
and Dutch roots.

She is currently interested in using contemporary art as an aid to bring about

social change. In 2017, she won the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel
International Fair for her video installation Our Islands, 11°16`58.4”
123°45`07.0”E., which shows a traditional Catholic procession from the
Philippines under water.
Elmer Borlongan (1967-present)
The Manila-based artist often refers to Filipino culture in his paintings, drawing
from everyday scenes of local urban life, which sharply depict an imperfect
world. Borlongan’s work is a favorite among collectors and at auctions. In his
first major work, Rehimen (1988), he uses bold brushwork to manipulate the
Marlboro emblem, which is guarded by a pack of dogs as an emaciated figure
lays in despair in the foreground. The painting represents the marginalized
Filipino people who are living in poverty, with no way of moving forward. In
February 2018, Borlongan celebrated a retrospective of 25 years in art,
showcasing more than 150 paintings and 50 drawings featured in the
Metropolitan Museum of Manila.