Contemporary Art Vocabulary

An art movement that emerged in the mid-1940's. The artists mixed intensely emotional and improvisational gestures and concerned themselves with psychic self-expression, spirituality, and individualism.

A work of art or a term applied to a work of art that is not recognizable as a picture of a person, place or thing. An abstract work of art may reflect an emotion, a sensation, or some aspect of the real world that has been generalized, simplified, distorted, or rearranged.

A personal response to what we consider beautiful, often based on cultural or educated experience.

An inferred relationship between things that is otherwise unlike. Likeness may be drawn on structural, intellectual, or psychological levels.

The term means "Raw Art", and refers to the art of children, naive artist and the art of the mentally ill. Leading figure, French Artist, Jean Dubeffet.

The process and result of critical thinking about art. It usually involves description, analysis and interpretation of art, as well as some kind of judgment.

A three-dimensional work of art in which a variety of non-art objects and/or images are assembled or combine together to create one sculptural work.

A style of art which is experimental or daring. The content is often unfamiliar, shocking or radical for its time. Avant-garde is derived from theFrench military term meaning "front line."

Sculpture on which part of the surface projects from a flat plane.

taken from nature, from the greek meaning "structure based on life".

The substitution of one material for another by means of a mold.

Using contrasts of light and dark to create the illusion of three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional surface.

Movements, periods and impulses in western art that prized qualities of harmony and formal restraint Traditionally contrasted with Collage.

Building image using glue to attach paper or other materials to build color and texture. Often used in combination with paint, Picasso was one of the first artists to use as a distinct medium.

In this style the emphasis was placed on the flatness and texture of the canvas rather than a depiction of a recognizable object. Color field artist often poured or brushed on an unprimed canvas that was placed ton the floor. The color seeped or stained through the canvas fabric creating the image.

Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response.

The way the parts are arranged

An idea of general notion, as in the underlying meaning of a work of art.

Art Created to explore the idea of art rather than the actual art object. Conceptual artists used text as well as photography, publications, drawings, video, film, and performance to focus on an inquiry into art practice and meaning. Conceptual works could be seen in nontraditional art contexts like books, magazines, mail, ads, and billboards.

Early 20th century Russian constructivism emerged from Picasso and Braque's experiments with cubism Influenced ways of thinking about art in relation to art and technology. Its rational approach influenced graphic design, minimalist sculpture and painting.

The way in which consumption is organized within modern capitalist societies over the modern period. In consumer culture consumption by and large takes the form of consuming commodities, goods obtained through market exchange rather than produced for direct use.

The message created by the artist. May be functional for consumer purposes; iconograpy.

An early 20th Century art, beginning in 1907, movement dominated by Picasso and Braque, distinguished by it's experiements with analyzing forms into planes seen from many sides as once and by liberation of art from representational depictions Flattened pictorial space, and figure-ground ambiguity.

Behaviors, ideas skills and customs of a group of people.

A term chosen to describe the "non-art" movement. The movement was developed in Zurich in 1916 amidst WW. It was an attack on the pretentious western world that had come to the worst example of humankind seen in the atrocities of the war. Nonsense texts, performances and absurd works of art produced the effect of anti-art. Marcel Duchamp, Jean Arp major figures. Although over seventy ears old, Dada reverberates through contemporary popular culture

A work consisting of two panels side by side.

Changing an object's usual shape to communicate ideas and feelings

A large-scale three-dimensional project involving physical alteration of the earth's surface for aesthetic purposes.

The medium, technique of painting with molten wax, resin and pigments that are fused after application into a continuous layer and fixed to a support with heat. This achieves a lustrous enamel appearance. Greeks used this method of painting as early as the 5th Century BCE.

Term that describes emotional art, most often boldly executed and making free use of distortion and arbitrary color. Artists dealing with inner feelings rather than outer reality. (jazz, punk)

An art movement of the first decade of the twentieth century, sing bold color to express inner qualities rather than superficial appearances of things.

In opposition to the purity and exclusivity of modernism, feminism called for an expansive approach to art. The feminist use of narrative, autobiography, decoration, ritual, craft-as-art, and popular culture helped catalyze the development of postmodernism.

More of a state of mind than a style, with Fluxus artists social goals often assumed primacy over aesthetic ones. Early Fluxus events included Guerilla theater, street spectacles and concerts to electronic music. Major figures, joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik.

Having to do with the formal qualities of a work of art. Formal qualities include a work's overall design or organization. Form or visual elements work in a work of art include color, shape, size and structure.

Something extracted from its original context and used in creating works of art.

Design that is utilitarian; necessary.

A movement initiated in Italy in 1909 to sweep aside all artistic conventions and captured the qualities of modern industrialized life in a Cubist like construction.

A unified configuration-having properties that cannot be derived from simple's addition of its parts.

Referring to art in which representational images conform more closely to ideal aesthetic standards than to real life.

In painting, thick paint applied to a surface in a heavy manner, having appearance and consistency of buttery paste.

An art movement originating in late 19th century France centered on direct responses to light and color.

Placed side by side for comparison

Three-dimensional art that moves.

Refers to "low art" artifacts of everyday life.

An evolution or change from one form or state to another.

A figure of speech or visual presentation in which a work, phrase, or image is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them, while in the process formulating a new concept for the imagination.

Originated in the 1960s when a group of younger artists including Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, and Kenneth Noland rebelled against what they perceived to be the emotionalism and sensualism of the abstract expressionists. They sough an art that was depersonalized, in which the hand of the artist is nowhere present. Minimalist forms in painting and in sculpture are reduced to their ultimate simplicity.

A sculpture consisting of parts that move in air currents.

Arose as part of western societies attempt to come to terms with the urban, industrial, and secular society that began to emerge in the mid 19th century. Modern artist have challenged middle-class values by depicting new, avant-garde subjects in dislocating new styles that seemed to change at a dizzying pace. Modern-art, especially abstract art, was thought to progress toward purity; refinement of the medium's essential qualities of color and flatness: direct line of influence running from impressionism, to Post-Impressionism then Cubism, Constructivism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism.

Although commonly thought of, as "false stories", myths are also truths presented in rational forms. Myths reflect the reality of a culture; its values, ideas, truths, fears, dreams and superstitions.

A style of art, which seeks to represent accurately and faithfully the actual appearance of things.

A late 20th century movement, in which painting is used to express the artist feelings, projected as distorted images from the exterior world.

In terms of modern art, it refers to art works that have no representation of recognizable figures and objects.

The term Op Art relates to several tendencies in art-making developed during the 1960s that involved a wide range of experiments with optics or optical illusions. These experiments often involved the use of bright colors, skewed perspectives and natural or man-made light.

A smooth texture and sheen created on a surface by aging and use or by chemicals.

Term is open-ended; Since the 1970 it is a popular name for art activities presented to live audiences encompassing the elements of music, dance, poetry, theatre, computers and video. Time based art

The doctrine that numerous distinct ethnic, religious, and cultural groups should and do coexist, and that no single group is superior to others. pluralism is also used to refer to art in the 1970s and 80s, when the great variety of attitudes and style was taken as sign of cultural vigor.

The term pop art was developed in the 1960s to describe a style of art that explores everyday imagery that is a part of consumer culture. Common sources include advertisements, comic strips, celebrities, consumer product package and other objects of popular culture.

Made up of a multitude of forms of cultural communication-illustrated news papers, movies, jazz, rock, pop music, radio, cabaret, advertising, comics, cheap novels, television, internet. Modern phenomenon born in western Europe in the late 19th century. Currently a worldwide scope

Transcendence of the perceived limitations of Impressionism by such artists as Gaugin, Van Gogh, and Cezanne.

One distinctly new aspect of post modernism is the dissolution of traditional categories. The divisions between art, popular culture and the media have been eroded by many artists. Questions Modernism's unyielding optimism idealism. Appropriation artist challenged the cherished modern notion of Avant-Garde originality by borrowing images from the media or art history and re-presenting them in new juxtapositions that paradoxically function as art.

An Object divorced from its usual function and presented as a work of art

Descriptive of art that depicts objects from the world of our experiences.

The tendency to emphasize emotion and imagination rather than logic. Occurring many times in Western art.

Communication requires the use of signs, language itself being the most universal system of signs; Semiotics is the science of those signs. Analysis includes the study of snapshots, comic strips and body language among the many others.

A movement founded by Andre Breton in 1924. The term is French for transcending the real. The movement absorbed the nonsensical Dada movement and was heavily based on the writings of Sigmund Freud. Surrealist practices are meant to liberate the unconscious through various methods and suspend conscious control.