LibGuides: Art: Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art - Austin

Big Medium
They exhibit innovative gallery programming throughout the year in both Big Medium Galleries, provide affordable studio space to artists, and partner with various other arts organizations in Texas to help foster the arts throughout Texas.
Contemporary Austin
Mission: The Contemporary Austin reflects the spectrum of contemporary art through exhibitions, commissions, education, and the collection.

Vision: The Contemporary Austin aspires to be the contemporary art museum for Austin and an essential part of city life. Through its unique combination of urban and outdoor sites, The Contemporary will embody an eclectic and collaborative spirit.
grayDUCk Gallery
Located in east Austin, grayDUCk strives to exhibit the work of exceptional artists while creating a welcoming place for everyone: viewers, artists and neighbors. Monthly shows highlight artist’s work from a broad range of experience, both locally and nationally.
Link & Pin
Link & Pin is a new art space dedicated to local, quality art. The concept of Link & Pin is a progressive "artist-influenced" space offering artists not only a place to show their work but also a community they can be a part of and have an impact on. The ultimate plan is to have artists help select future artists.
Lora Reynolds Gallery
Lora Reynolds established the gallery in March 2005 after working with Anthony d'Offay and Matthew Marks Galleries in London and New York.
Work by emerging, mid-career and established artists is presented in all media including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, film and video.

The gallery consists of one main exhibition space, with six to eight exhibitions annually, in addition to a project room, with four to six installations per year.
The Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria
The Contemporary Austin was awarded a $9 million grant by the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation to help create an unparalleled arts destination at Laguna Gloria, with the majority of the funds committed to commissioning and acquiring sculpture and permanent outdoor installations by some of today’s leading artists.
Women and their Work
Women & Their Work is a visual and performing art organization located in Central Austin that serves as a catalyst for contemporary art created by women living and working in Texas and beyond. For over 30 years, Women & Their Work brings groundbreaking art to Austin, with exhibitions, performances, and educational workshops.
Yard Dog Art
Yard Dog Gallery opened in September 1995, showing folk and outsider art from the American South.
Today they show art by many contemporary artists from the US, Canada and Europe whose backgrounds run the gamut from self-taught to art school graduate.

Contemporary Art Museums

There are many contemporary art museums in the U.S. and the world. Listed here are a few in Texas and a few around the U.S. and Europe.

Contemporary Art Museum Houston
The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a non-collecting institution dedicated to presenting the best and most exciting international, national, and regional art. Founded in 1948, the Museum prides itself on presenting new art and documenting its role in modern life through exhibitions, lectures, original publications, and a variety of educational programs and events.
Contemporary Austin
Austin's largest collection and exhibit spaces for contemporary art.
Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art
the LaM is the only museum in Europe to present simultaneously the main components of the 20th and 21st centuries art : modern art, contemporary art and outsider art. LaM's holdings include some masterpieces of Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder and the biggest outsider art collection in France. LaM possesses also a library and a rich park of sculptures.
New Museum (of contemporary art, New York City)
The New Museum began as an idea in the mind of founding Director Marcia Tucker. She observed firsthand that new work by living artists was not easily assimilated into the conventional exhibition and collection structure of the traditional art museum. Started in 1977 the New Museum is exclusively devoted to presenting contemporary art from around the world.
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
The museum houses an impressive selection of modern art. Its picturesque setting and well-respected collection attract some 400,000 visitors per year. Works on display include those of prominent Italian futurists and American modernists. Pieces in the collection embrace Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract expressionism
Tate Modern
Tate Modern opened in 2000 and now exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day, including some modern British art. In its first year, the Tate Modern was the most popular museum in the world, with 5,250,000 visitors.
The Modern (art museum of Fort Worth)
The collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is comprised of nearly 3,000 objects, including paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, and prints. The majority of works in the collection are dated between 1945 and the present. All major, international movements are represented, including Abstract Expressionism; British, German, French, and American Pop; Color Field Painting; Minimalism; Conceptualism; Post-Minimalism; New Image Painting, and Neo-Expressionism. Pop and Minimalism are particularly strong, as is German art of the 1970s and 1980s.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
The museum's exhibits consist primarily of American and European contemporary art created after 1940. Since the museum's inception, MOCA's programming has been defined by its multi-disciplinary approach to contemporary art.
Now numbering over 6,800 works and steadily growing, this invaluable cultural resource provides extensive opportunities for education and enjoyment to thousands of national and international visitors.
Whitney Museum of American Art
Thought not only contemporary art, the Whitney has a special focus on works by living artists.
The Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American art, and its collection is the Museum’s key resource. The Museum’s signature exhibition, the Biennial, is the country’s leading survey of the most recent developments in American art.

Contemporary Artists

You might begin your exploration of contemporary art by looking up some of these artists.

Especially look at their images on Google. Begin asking yourself questions about the art: How is it made? Am I supposed to interact with this art? Look up videos and newspaper and journal reviews of the artists who interest you. See how art critics approach their work and learn more about their work and lives.

Better yet: look at contemporary art here in Austin! You will find it every day at the Contemporary Austin Museum as well as the Blanton Museum and a number of small galleries around town. Find some of those galleries in this guide.

Ai Weiwei

Charles Long

Christo (and Jeanne-Claude)

El Anatsui

Felix Gonzales-Torres

Jenny Holzer

Kara Walker

Louise Bourgeois

Robert Gober

Sophie Calle

Thomas Shutte

Yinka Shonibare

Types of Contemporary Art

What is contemporary art?

"Art21 defines contemporary art as the work of artists who are living in the twenty-first century....

Contemporary art mirrors contemporary culture and society...

Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform organizing principle, ideology, or -ism....

Contemporary art reflects a wide range of materials, media, and technologies, as well as opportunities to consider what art is and how it is defined...

It can be

process-based (performative, collaborative, spontaneous),

experiential, or

interactive (video, Web-based, multimedia, socially engaged), or

It can exist outside of traditional exhibition forums—including public spaces, site-specific locations, non-art sites—and is often presented in innovative ways—as an installation, an event, a performance, online, or as documentation of an impermanent work."

See this website for more info: http://www.art21.org/teach/on-contemporary-art/contemporary-art-in-context