Home Open Arts Object: Critical Term - Modernism III: Modernism and contemporary art

Open Arts Object: Critical Term - Modernism III: Modernism and contemporary art

In this short film, Warren Carter and Paul Wood discuss the complex relationship between modernism and contemporary art. Starting out with the proposition that modernism is often caricatured in writing about contemporary art for its supposed elitism or complicity with power, they seek to show how the phenomenon is actually more complicated. Wood also challenges the extent to which the contemporary moment represents a complete break with the past. He instead argues that while things have changed significantly since the end of the Cold War, we are in fact living in a different phase of modernity in which the some of the contradictions and social crises of the past are still with us today, if in a modified form. And, moreover, Wood argues that some critical forms of contemporary art have their roots in the avant-garde tradition, which have been understood in some circles as irrelevant and outmoded.

Artists discussed include: Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol.

transcript of film

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