In her article “It’s Okay Not to Like Modern Art”, Elen Bigaj states her disliking for modern

artworks
and stands in favor of her preference to art other than contemporary art. She mentions that,
unlike other forms of art, contemporary works of art do not evoke the sensorial experiences born
from color, beauty, representational illusion, emotional expression or painterly texture; advocates
of contemporary art, she says, are interested in things that she is not. She also mentions two
repeated claims of contemporary fans: (a) that the lack of formal education leads to a disliking of
art, to which she responds that acquiring the historical and philosophical background necessary to
begin to appreciate contemporary art is a huge time investment with no considerable relevance to
experiencing art; and (b) that modern art is superior to representational painting as the former is
serious, cutting-edge and more relevant to our times, while the former is shallow and outmoded,
which she refutes by stating that contemporary art does not stand up to scrutiny. I agree with
Elen’s idea that contemporary art does not dazzle its audience with the wonders of visual and
emotional expression, as its purpose is to infer meanings and communicate concepts relevant to
our times. I also agree in that modern art has taken a turn for a more judgmental view of art
pieces through a good/bad labelling perceived by fans of the contemporary as a positive aesthetic
experience. Furthermore, it is also known that the value and the appreciation of works of art are
not alien to the passing of time and that it behaves the same way as fashion, being volatile and
reinvented indefinitely. Just as Robert Hughes claims in his Time essay “Confusing Time with
Bullion” (1979) “If artists who in their day were considered outstanding, whose work was
underwritten by the capital and by the social opinions of a powerful empire, could vanish into the
oubliette, there is no reason to suppose that the same thing may not happen to their modern
equivalents”. Contemporary artists, then, may see their most prestigious works randomly,
unreasonably disregarded as icons of the movement in a matter of years. To conclude,
contemporary art, while conceptualized as a cutting-edge channel for the communication of
revolutionary concepts and relevant wake-up calls in modern times, does not possess an
irrefutable value that undeniably overcomes that of any other piece of art, hence positioning as a
more relevant work, nor does it overshadow the bliss and the shudder other works of art
conceived in past times can spark in the audience through their appreciation.

WC: 436

Alcaide, Lucio Nicolás

Group C-D