Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since World War II.
Contemporary art is exhibited by commercial contemporary art galleries, private collectors, corporations, publicly funded arts organizations, contemporary art museums or by artists themselves in artist-run spaces. Contemporary artists are supported by grants, awards and prizes as well as by direct sales of their work.
There are close relationships between publicly funded contemporary art organisations and the commercial sector. For instance, in Britain a handful of dealers represent the artists featured in leading publicly funded contemporary art museums.
Contemporary art can sometimes seem at odds with a public that does not feel that art and its institutions share its values.In Britain in the 1990s contemporary art became a part of popular culture, with artists becoming stars, but this did not lead to a hoped for "cultural utopia".
Modern art
Modern art is a general term used for most of the artistic work reckoned anywhere from the early 17th century until the present time.
Modern art refers to the new approach to art which placed emphasis on representing emotions, themes, and various abstractions. Artists experimented with new ways of seeing, with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art, often moving further toward abstraction.
The history of painting
The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, and spans all cultures. The history of painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, and spanning continents and millennia, the history of painting is an ongoing river of creativity, that continues into the 21st century.
Painting is no longer about representation, it is about inspiration. However, painting today is too focused on the creation of the ?new? rather than the creation of the ?true?. The 20th century was infatuated with new painting styles and materials, which has led to a focus on the mode and medium of expression rather than the message being expressed. After one-and-a-half centuries of innovation, with so many art taboos shattered, with so much of the field colonized and long-inhabited, the search for the new is becoming increasingly shallow and repetitive. Creating the new, purely for newness? sake, can bring academic significance but offers little long-term weight. Truth and beauty, on the other hand, have longevity ? they affect the viewer and the resonance of that experience lingers for a long time. All three need to be combined to create contemporary art, abstract art or any other forms of art that has impact as well as freshness.
