Contemporary just means "art that has been and continues to be created during our

lifetimes." In other words, contemporary to us.lifetimes."

Modern art represents an evolving set of ideas among a number of painters, sculptors, writers,
and performers who - both individually and collectively - sought new approaches to art making.
Although modern art began, in retrospect, around 1850 with the arrival of Realism, approaches
and styles of art were defined and redefined throughout the twentieth century. Practitioners of
each new style were determined to develop a visual language that was both original and
representative of the times.

Neo-realism in painting was established by the ex-Camden Town

Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World
War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and
colours of daily life. Their intentions were proclaimed in Ginners manifesto in
New Age (1 January 1914), which was also used as the preface to Gilman and
Ginners two-man exhibition of that year. It attacked the academic and
warned against the decorative aspect of imitators of Post-Impressionism.
The best examples of neorealist work is that produced by these two
artists; Howard Kanovitz and also Robert Bevan. For Robert Bevan he
joined Cumberland Market Group in 1914.
The Social Realist political movement and artistic explorations flourished primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, a
time of global economic depression, heightened racial conflict, the rise of fascist regimes internationally, and great
optimism after both the Mexican and Russian revolutions. Social Realists created figurative and realistic images of
the "masses," a term that encompassed the lower and working classes, labor unionists, and the politically
disenfranchised. American artists became dissatisfied with the French avant-garde and their own isolation from
greater society, which led them to search for a new vocabulary and a new social importance; they found their
purpose in the belief that art was a weapon that could fight the capitalist exploitation of workers and stem the
advance of international fascism.

Neoclassical Art is a severe and unemotional form of art harkening back to the grandeur of
ancient Greece and Rome. Its rigidity was a reaction to the overbred Rococo style and the
emotional charged Baroque style. The rise of Neoclassical Art was part of a general revival of
interest in classical thought, which was of some importance in the American and French
revolutions.

Integrated arts practice refers to inter-disciplinary art, art research, development, production,
presentation, or artistic creation of work that fully uses two or more artdisciplines to create a
work for a specific audience.
Process art emphasizes the process of making art (rather than any predetermined composition or plan)
and the concepts of change and transience, as elaborated in the work of such artists as Lynda Benglis, Eva
Hesse, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Alan Saret, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, and Keith Sonnier.

Site Specific Art, which is sometimes referred to as Environment Art,

pertains to a modern art form designed to exist only in a certain location. The
artists behind these contemporary art masterpieces always consider the
location in which their modern art work will be installed, including but not
limited to its physical elements such as length, depth, height, weight, shape,
temperature, and walls. Aside from this movements applications in the visual
arts, the concept of Site Specific Dance also exists.

Collaborative practices also suggest a paradigm shift in contemporary art production,

because the process of making can sometimes be the work itself.
Interactive art is a type of installation that allows the audience or spectator to interact
with the piece in a way that achieves its desired purpose. According to some, interactive
art was first produced in the fifth century B.C. when Parrhasius created a painted
curtain that Zeuxis tried to unveil. The work took its meaning from the gesture of the
attempted unveil, and the piece would not have existed without said interactivity.

Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and
designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior
spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called public art, land art or intervention art;
however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.

Mixed media art refers to a visual art form that combines a variety of media in a single
artwork. For example, if you draw with ink, then paint over it with watercolors, then add
some highlights in colored pencil - that's mixed media!
Performance is a genre in which art is presented "live," usually by the artist but sometimes
with collaborators or performers. It has had a role in avant-garde art throughout the twentieth
century, playing an important part in anarchic movements such as Futurism and Dada. Indeed,
whenever artists have become discontented with conventional forms of art, such as painting and
traditional modes of sculpture, they have often turned to performance as a means to rejuvenate
their work. The most significant flourishing of performance art took place following the decline
of modernism and Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s, and it found exponents across the
world. Performance art of this period was particularly focused on the body, and is often referred
to as Body art. This reflects the period's so-called "dematerialization of the art object," and the
flight from traditional media. It also reflects the political ferment of the time: the rise
of feminism, which encouraged thought about the division between the personal and political
and anti-war activism, which supplied models for politicized art "actions." Although the
concerns of performance artists have changed since the 1960s, the genre has remained a
constant presence, and has largely been welcomed into the conventional museums and galleries
from which it was once excluded.