Contemporary Art

Rising up in the 1950s, Pop Art is a pivotal movement that heralds the onset of contemporary art. This post-war style emerged in Britain and America, including imagery from advertising, comic books, and everyday objects. Often satirical, Pop Art emphasized banal elements of common goods, and is frequently thought of as a reaction against the subconscious elements of Abstract Expressionism.

Roy Lichtenstein’s bold, vibrant work is an excellent example of how parody and pop culture merged with fine art to make accessible art. Andy Warhol, the most famous of the Pop Art figures, helped push the revolutionary concept of art as mass production, creating numerous silkscreen series of his popular works ("13 Revolutionary Art Movements That Have Shaped Our Visual History").

Minimalism was not only a reaction against the emotionally charged techniques of Abstract Expressionism but also a further refinement of pure abstraction. It was an attempt to discover the essence of art by reducing the elements of a work to the basic considerations of shape, surface and materials.

Minimalist art used hard-edged forms and geometric grid structures. Color was simply used to define space or surface. Ad Reinhardt, whose late paintings anticipate Minimalism, put it simply, ‘The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. More is less. Less is more. The eye is a menace to clear sight. The laying bare of oneself is obscene. Art begins with the getting rid of nature.’

Photorealism is a style of art that is concerned with the technical ability to wow viewers. Primarily an American art movement, it gained momentum in the late 1960s and 1970s as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism. Here, artists were most concerned with replicating a photograph to the best of their ability, carefully planning out their work to great effect and eschewing the spontaneity that is the hallmark of Abstract Expressionism. Similar to Pop Art, Photorealism is often focused on imagery related to consumer culture.

Early Photorealism was steeped in nostalgia for the American landscape, while more recently, photorealistic portraits have become a more common subject. Hyperrealism is an advancement of the artistic style, where painting and sculpture are executed in a manner to provoke a superior emotional response and to arrive at higher levels of realism due to technical developments. A common thread is that all works must start with a photographic reference point ("13 Revolutionary Art Movements That Have Shaped Our Visual History").

In the middle of the 20th century, avant-garde artists in America and Europe began producing Installation Art. Installations are three-dimensional constructions that play with space to interactively engage viewers. Often large-scale and site-specific, these works of art transform museums, galleries, and even outdoor locations into immersive environments.

Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s Dadaist Readymades—a series of found objects contextualized as sculptures— this important genre was pioneered by modern masters like Yayoi Kusama and Louise Bourgeois. Today, contemporary artists keep his practice alive, crafting experimental installations from mediums like string, paper, and flowers ("13 Revolutionary Art Movements That Have Shaped Our Visual History").

Lowbrow, also called pop surrealism, is an art movement that grew out of an underground California scene in the 1970s. Traditionally excluded from the fine art world, lowbrow art moves from painted artworks to toys, digital art, and sculpture. The genre also has its roots in underground comix, punk music, and surf culture, with artists not seeking acceptance from mainstream galleries. By mixing surrealism imagery with pop colors or figures, artists achieve dreamlike results that often play on erotic or satirical themes. The rise of magazines like Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose have given lowbrow artists a forum to display their work outside of mainstream contemporary art media ("13 Revolutionary Art Movements That Have Shaped Our Visual History").