How to distinguish classical, modern and contemporary art

The direction of art depends on its buyers. We take the development of art as an example. Classical art, modern art, contemporary art, different buyers determine the direction of art.

The so-called period of classical art is actually the period of customization. It's like a lady looking for a tailor to make gloves and hats. In other words, in terms of design, it is mainly the customer who makes the decision. At that time, people mainly regarded painting as a handicraft, so they were very concerned about materials. I think the reason why a painting is expensive is mainly because the materials used are expensive. Therefore, in addition to the size of the painting, the complexity and simplicity of the composition, and the number of people painting, there are also strict restrictions on how many gold threads are used, as well as the expensive pigments used in the cuffs or shoes of the Virgin Mary.

So, what is modern painting? Actually, it's a hypermarket.

Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais invented department stores, so tailors don't have to wait for ladies to come, so they can just be staple food. Go to the department store and let everyone choose at will. Painting has also undergone such changes. That is, the painter paints first and waits for the guests to choose after painting. What do guests like? You can't just guess, you can only keep up with the trend of the times.

Then who will be the trend of this era? That is, the cultural people who control the mass media will make it. Therefore, modern painting is essentially only the concretization of various philosophical trends and literary schools. Such as impressionism and positivism philosophy, fauvism and Bergson's philosophy of life, expressionism and free will, surrealism and psychoanalysis. As for symbolism and Dadaism, they are closely related to the literary movement.

What about contemporary art? The biggest dilemma of contemporary art is that the sales target has changed again. It is no longer aimed at the broad middle class. In this way, it is meaningless for artists to maintain good interaction with newspapers, magazines and television.

Clients of contemporary art have become public institutions, private equity funds and collectors. It should be noted that the rise of the art collection market occurred in the 1970s, that is, after the collapse of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the currency lost its anchor, and all countries issued paper money indiscriminately, and art became one of the important means of maintaining and increasing value.

Since then, works of art have neither pointed to aesthetics nor pleased the public. It has become something that is particularly divorced from the masses and reality.

Then, if a work of art does not show off its skills, nor does it bear the responsibility of causing emotional resonance based on aesthetics, nor does it please the public, how can it persuade the rich to buy it? In other words, how to prove to the buyer that it has good quality as a work of art?

First, you have to pass peer review. Because modern art has evolved from a skill to a complex and subtle concept. Just like music, the little apple is the hottest, but as far as music taste is concerned, it is vulgar and has no long-term value. Whether it is good or not cannot be judged by the audience. When collectors buy works of art, what they care about is not the current price, but its possible price in 100 years.

Secondly, it is the curator. The curator marks the value of the work by showing the place and object of the work. It's like you make a new brand of clothes, and you open a shop next to GUCCI or Uniqlo, so the price difference is very big.

Third, it is also important for the broker to decide who to sell your work to. Ford Foundation, 5 yuan; Wang Xiaoer, who sells train tickets at the railway station, buys tickets for free. Tell collectors that if you buy it at 100 yuan, it will appreciate in the future.

Finally, professional magazines. Since contemporary art has become a game about concepts, it is necessary to establish a concept pedigree between works.

But it is precisely at this point that the work of contemporary art has not been done well. You listen to some people in the art world talking about philosophy, which is totally different from listening to Aunt Cui Hua talking about Freud in the country canteen. In three words, I turned to fortune telling. But it doesn't matter. Anyway, collectors don't really care what you say.

The following comments and replies are also posted, thanks for the discussion and contention.

The above answer comes from Grayson Perry's grandstanding. It is a partial summary and refinement.

This is a book about contemporary art. Perry is the president of university of the arts london and an academician of the Royal Academy of Art.

The questions asked are very open and need to be cut in. My starting point is that art will not die because there are audiences. It's just that the play of art will change with the audience. People who lived in the last era can't understand the current gameplay and are at a loss. For example, some of our parents' legs have stood in industrial civilization and are moving towards information civilization, while their thinking is still stuck in farming civilization. But now the non-mainstream gameplay breeds an invisible future, which requires big waves to wash sand, and Qian Fan is exhausted.

Nietzsche declared that God was dead and we killed it ourselves. It is new ideas that kill it in the world of symbols. This is what Marx Weber called disenchantment. The subsequent World War I and World War II proved this point. The rise of nationalism, Malthus' population trap and Spencer's social Darwinism of the law of the jungle are its profound ideological roots.

Then the question is, what events or ideas are about to subvert and change society, which will lead to the demise of art?

The only thing we can witness is that the media of information is changing. Before, it was the word hegemony controlled by the elite, and then it was the image era of radio and television, which was still dominated by the elite; Then came the gateway era of information migration to the Internet, and Weibo announced civilian participation. On the WeChat circle of friends based on mobile Internet picture socialization. Nowadays, short videos are changing the way information is disseminated. The rise of Aauto is faster, and the number of Tik Tok and videos will profoundly affect the future information dissemination. We can witness the beginning of a new era. Civilians have never been so easy to show, even illiterate farmers. Information can be mobilized to the grassroots of society and become a force to change society. Perhaps no less than Napoleon took the lead in leading civilians to the battlefield to sweep across Europe and summon the monster of nationalism, perhaps no less than Gutenberg's printing triggered the religious reform, the dark Middle Ages ended and the whole European civilization was restarted.

Of course, all this remains to be verified. . .