Art History and Contemporary Art in Art Education

Ideas about art history and how it has effected the contemporary art world have recently been floating around in my mind, so I am going to attempt to put words to those thoughts.  I hope this doesn't come out sounding like a lecture (imagine that, an educator giving a lecture!) or a rant, but rather it is my hope to shed some light on what I think a lot of people don't always understand.

People have said to me before that Minimalist art is dumb, and they don't understand it; why does someone pay millions to put a blank canvas in their art museum?  Or, what about Abstract Expressionism - why can someone drip paint all over a canvas (something a child can do) and show up in the history books?  I've heard that about so many different pieces and artists that seem to not make sense to the general public.  

Making a statement like that is one of my largest pet peeves.  As if whether or not you like something determines its importance.  Have they tried to understand it? Have they researched, or looked up the history or the culture that it came from?  Have they thought about its impact on the art that came after it?

While I think people can have their opinions about how they interpret a certain piece, I don't think they can judge a piece just on that interpretation.  Not only do we interpret different works in different ways the more they age, we also should look at these works from the perspective of someone who grew up in that time period.  

Because time changes the meaning of art, being educated on what certain pieces meant during their time periods is essential to understanding why a work like that ends up in an art museum.  Not being educated on it is no excuse - it doesn't mean you can walk past and write off those pieces because you didn't like them.  If you didn't like them, wouldn't you be interested in why they are there in the first place?  Have a little respect, and put aside your opinion in order to learn something that at the very least, will enhance your literacy in art.  

Donald Judd, 1965

Take Minimalism, for example.  Minimalists radically changed how people thought about art.  Why couldn't art be the column of brass boxes pictured to the right? Did art always have to be highly decorated?  Why couldn't simple forms create the same kind of meaning as something more visually complex?

This movement led the way for people to challenge the "rules" of art.

People like me.

My own work challenges the definitions people have given to painting and sculpture, using the physicality of paint to form a 3D surface similar to a sculpture.  Without Minimalism, would I be able to create what I create?  Or would I be stuck like too many other people, as a painting emphasis, striving to make my paintings look like photographs?  

While this seems like an obvious statement, contemporary art owes everything to art history.  So even if you don't like a piece from history, you can at least respect it, and recognize what it did so that you could be where you are today.  

References I Made, Linked For You

If you can't remember who it was that dripped paint all over canvas, click here.

For more information about the Abstract Expressionist movement, click here.

For more information on the Minimalist movement, click here.

For my image source, and a few more images of Donald Judd's work, click here.

To really take this post to heart, click nowhere and get yourself to an art museum to stare at the art you think you hate.