Will anyone remember these 25 pieces of art in 10 years? 25? 50? 100?
No. But we'll still be reading Shakespeare and looking at Caravaggio.
Perhaps there is great art being made today but this isn't it.
133
Love the comment's I am seeing here, it renews my faith in American Taste !
As for the reviewer's.........
Those that can, DO:
Those that can't, Critique. (or teach gym)
41
Wow, what an arbitrary exercise by self appointed arbiters of taste. I can easily think of 100 other works that would make my list and I have asked friends who have done the same. I think the Times thought it was going to court controversy but all it did was cause some head scratching. We are well beyond the days when the so called 'culture media' controls who is hot and who is not. Outside the art world most of these people are unknown, unappreciated and irrelevant to the 'contemporary' scene. The art world has brought this upon itself by championing mediocrity and pretentiousness.
Where are the foreign artists like Kiefer, Richter...etc. How could this list stand as a serious statement without Joseph Beuys' felt suit. C'mon guys...you really got to up your game.
61
Surprised thus far no mention of Joseph Beuys.
10
I like the comments a lot more than the art.
77
“Unsurprisingly, the system fell apart”.
Wait a minute - WHAT? You expected and anticipated this effort would fail but moved forward anyhow??!!
That sounds lime its own piece of Post Modern artwork all by itself! This statement dazzles me and really points to a fundamental problem with art in general. No one really knows how to talk about it.
At least a half dozen questions immediately spring to mind:
What was the purpose of creating this gathering?
What motivated the NYT to spend time and money on it?
What value to society was to be gained by having those five people come together? Why five?
Why these five?
How is a list of this sort any different than the mindless bantering between sports fans of the greatest baseball team of the modern era?
If there were a valuable purpose in this exercise - what challenges need to be overcome that make the effort dramatically more complex than - The 25 most important Painting in history?
How did you determine the timeframe for consideration?
This feels lazy and not well thought out.
Marshall Mcluhan comes to mind: The message is the Medium/s.
22
You may agree or disagree. You may be scandalized or bored. But discourse and riots are encouraged. I am taking my time with this treasure sip by sip.
13
Even with its significant qualifications, much of this list seems weak to me in terms of the project proposed. I am glad to see some of the works included, to be sure, but the hoard of omissions that would contain better candidates is glaring.
10
Wow, what a collection of junk.
65
“Lynda Benglis at her New York studio in 2010. Due to its graphic nature, the artwork is not published here.”
Good grief.
This work is worthy for selection by a group of distinguished curators for the purpose of this article in the allegedly-“distinguished“ New York Times. But it is too “graphic” for it to be displayed in these columns?
Puritanism is still alive and well in New York it seems.
50
Upon seeing Heiji Jin's "Baby" (no. 23), these lines from Blake occurred to me.
My mother groand! My father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Make of it what you will.
20
Don't mistake confusion for profundity.
48
This list is relentlessly political - and politically correct - in a soul-crushing way.
Not including Cindy Sherman's "Untitled Film Stills" is baffling, since its a touchstone of the art of the last 40 years. Look around and see how the influence of Sherman and Nan Goldin is everywhere: fine art, advertising, film, television, instagram.
Their influence - not just imagery but sensibility - extends far beyond the art world.
No Cindy Sherman, no Madonna. Decide for yourself whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Also huge was the Lynda Benglis Art Forum ad. Lynda Benglis is the mother of almost all young women artists working today - they just don't know it.
No Lynda Benglis, no Miley Cyrus.
The purest great artist mentioned here is Davis Hammons.
Thanks so much for including him.
11
Surprised not to see Andy Goldsworthy included in the land art conversation
10
Would you trade all of this combined for one small Monet?
64
I am happy about the inclusion of the Feminist artists. However, conceptual art is the primary focus here. Figurative art (other than photography and video) is over looked. I would like to see the inclusion of Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Dana Schulz, Howardena Pindell, Kerry James Marshall, and Robert Gober. I am always baffled about Cady Nolan's inclusion in these best of lists. Her work is endless repetitious--not in a good way--yawn.
10
Without a criteria, these works are just a mishmash of personal favorites.
25
This list is shockingly USA-centric. Did the panel not consider this after their deliberations?
40
Anylist to identify important art is self-defeating from its inception. Art cannot and should not be constrained to the parameters of pop culture's ubiquitous "Top Ten" or "top 40" listings.
You should know better. But we understand that naming lists gets eyeballs.
9
This is contemporary art. An entity in this category must fulfill two essential criteria:
1. Be the potential basis for an elaborate theoretical discourse uniquely accessible to art critics.
2. Be marketable.
By these criteria, the twenty-five specimens collected here are indeed contemporary art. I see little reason why most would be of more than passing interest to individuals outside the 10,000 or so who comprise the "art world." Some are clever, or briefly shocking. Many contain trite socio-political messages. We see the art world chasing its tail, sardonically commenting on itself, amusing itself with stale in-jokes. Why should I care? Although I'll confess admiration for 7, 10 and 16, and find 23 emotionally powerful, overall I expect much more from art.
You see, I studied painting many decades ago. A painting engages you visually not verbally. You have to look and look and look. What you see and feel evolves as you look. Painting has been marginalized. Where are Joan Mitchell and Susan Rothenberg? Where are the Hunter Color School? Oh, sorry, they just paint, they don't preach political truisms.
Most of the works collected here read as advertising jingles for a culture of critics, dealers and curators with a visual attention span of about five seconds.
70
Fascinating list and good conversation. But, Robert Dunn with Judson Dance? Do you mean Judith, whose movie/dance combines work within the context of Rauschenberg/Brown and others, or Douglas Dunn, who danced with Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham before entering his own ongoing work?
1
Typically insular view from the "art world." These people were asked to name the most essential artworks of the last quarter of the twentieth century, and none of them recognized any work by the most important artist of our time, Steven Spielberg.
6
...Didn’t pick it bc i thought everyone would... i read several versions of this in the curator quotes. Unfortunately, that, right there, is the problem with contemporary art. Contemporary art isn’t contemporary art, it’s the contemporary art world.
17
Your choices seem learned, politically correct, academic. Some choices (Kruger, Walker) certainly justified - some an epitome of superficiality and greed (Koons), some just visually bland + culturally US-focused.
What about art that expresses a connection between the art + the viewer, a visual understanding that does not require didactic explanations, that can be felt, that moves us on a primeval level, independent of political or cultural context? The political context can be there as one of multiple layers (+ I very much appreciate it) but it has to move me on a sensual level as well.
Amselm Kiefer comes to mind.
17
I would add Yoko Ono's Cut Piece. Someone mentioned Maya Lin and I think that makes a lot of sense, the Vietnam Memorial gives so much insight into our current rallying cries on our contemporary moment with monuments. I would add Pope.L for all the reasons. I would say Francis Alys over Dahn Vo.
11
Your panelists' definition and selection of "art" shows that each is in the wrong field. The selection or works seems more likely to sit on the scale of marketing and politics, rather than pure creativity. (Alternatively, your panelists thought that this piece was a joke to begin with, so they thought they should help make it humorous.)
21
Could not agree with you more! Also, unbelievable that Mark Bradford is not on this list. He is a phenomenal visual artist!
5
Your choices are cluelessly urban, and hopelessly museum curator oriented. The fact that there's not one example of so-called "nature art" gives away your game. Out here in the PacNW boonies, and in Europe, nature art has a huge following with profound things to say about human beings and habitat. But I know why you didn't mention it. Whether its arranged leaves that blow away on the first stiff breeze, or someone improvising real time music with orcas with the objective of saying hello, nature art's one big flaw in terms of this NYTimes list, is that it seldom if ever offers up products to sit on gallery walls and floors. Look beyond the gallery scene. You will find not all meaningful art is decorative. Not all meaningful art iis made to show a price tag.
34
Sorry esteemed panelists. Not feeling it. I think your working it too hard.
41
What is the collective noun for curators ?
1
Heavens to Betsy! What a selection of eyesores!
51
I don’t understand. Nan Goldin and Cathy Opie are photographers and yet you wrote:
“Few paintings were singled out; land art was almost entirely absent, as were, to name just a few more categories, works on paper, sculpture, photography, fiber arts and outsider art.”
9
Really nice intro; I knew about only half of this stuff. Wish more was beautiful and visually arresting, but it occurs that that’s my prob, not the art’s.
By the way, scariest and most gorgeous stuff i’ve seen that wasn’t in the list was the Kabakovs. “Not Everyone Will Be Taken Into The Future,” you know.
4
What would Holland Cotter and Robert Smith have to say about this pretentious, politicized, and mostly rightfully unknown works of art?
28
@Asheville Resident I don't know what Robert Smith would say (Who he?), though I can guess Roberta Smith's response.
4
I am surprised to not see any reference to David Wojnarowiz’ work.
10
The title should have been “25 Works of Art That Define the Contemporary Art Scene”.
Inbreeding creates monsters, or in this case, 25 symbols used to promote various agendas.
Meantime, back in the real world, Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” – which earns no mention in the article – is and will remain the definitive Statue of Liberty for our era.
24
Only in New York City. Sad
29
Without a doubt, approximately half of the works here define what I would have called defining and contemporary back in the 1990s. This doesn't mean they are particularly good art, but they are defining. Now it is 2019. Is tjere anythinh defining now?
And it's incredibly sad that you refuse to publish the truly excellent Linda Benglis ad.
9
One photo stopped me in my tracks: #16. Not because of the work of art, but because of that sensational window & building in the background.
7
A list is a list is a list.
7
Maybe I need to start taking drugs or something to understand them better, but I only like 2 of these so-called "defining" works.
10
Is this whole article intended as an exercise in self-parody? If so, it is quite successful. If, however, it is intended seriously, it just shows how hopelessly out of touch the tiny community of people who can take this sort if claptrap seriously is with the broader community of those who love the arts and want to see them supported. This country needs far greater support for the arts and arts education. Nonsense like this will only turn people away from the arts.
93
Oh, so now there’s an official list. Needed that.
12
I studied art, I collect art, I make art. I also visit over 100 art studios a year but yet I don't get any of these top 25 pieces/events in contemporary art.
Maybe I'm just not jaded, cynical or ironic enough to comprehend the what I'm look at. Or maybe all these so called artists are suffering from a lack of imagination, technical skill, and/or talent (the Emperor has no clothes).
As for me, I wouldn't see or buy any of this stuff. Art is in the eye of the beholder and the woman with the cut up back was horrifying, sad and only demonstrated to me severe mental illness.
64
If these works of "art" define "the contemporary age," we're in big trouble, and "art" is in even bigger trouble because it's lost its audience. Who cares about this stuff except a few in group critics? It's silly at best.
47
Whose delusion is it that these artworks somehow define the era they exist in, when at best they merely represent that era, or at worst merely parasitize it?
9
The shocking emptiness of a culture dead at the core, or more likely just the empty taste of those polled. Kara Walker's work cuts rudely through, but this is a sad display. Absence of value is not value.
38
Absolutely spot on - this collection certainly does define this shallow, tawdry age. As we see in the art world now, the bar keeps lowering all the time. I know there are real artists out there taking care to produce work of lasting value of meaning.
They must be in hiding.
40
No. Simply no.
A list devoid of vision or for the most part the visual in visual arts. Anti painting. polemic replaces seeing.
54
This supports my opinion that the decay, irrelevance, and ultimate pointlessness of new "art" really took off in the 70s. There is no art without soul and beauty.
32
The choice of influential artists is heavily biased towards artists who were born in the United States, and have, or have had careers based in the US. The exceptions are Marcel Broodthaers, Hans Haacke, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Dahn Vo and Heji Shin.
The works cited by these non-US artists are primarily works that have been exhibited in the US. Sadly, the five members of this panel are practicing cultural imperialism. The US is no longer the world's only superpower, and New York is no longer the center of the art world.
17
Hmm. 'Beauty is in the eye...' It seems the panel of artists selected works and artists that were influential to them, but most of their selections are not significant in defining the "contemporary" age. I appreciate the inclusion of Barbara Kruger and Jeff Koons, but they forgot a few. How about Helmut Newton, Keith Haring, Robert Mappelthorpe, Richard Prince, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ed Ruscha, Robert Smithson, and Chris Burden?
2
Interesting but unsatisfying. Without a common definition of art, we’re each discussing it with our own vocabulary. The panel favored works that startled or shocked. Some commentators favored aesthetics, and I would argue that an artwork is the first sentence in a conversation. But to have that conversation, the viewer must understand the language of the artist, and art and the public have developed separate tongues.
Art has shifted from the subtlety and depth of ideas in works which reveal worlds of information that could not be revealed by any other medium, to blunt and shallow ideas that could be transcribed into the words of a single sentence. Even so, the public fails to understand modern art. Without knowing that cutting a house in half has some significance, that copies of splashy flowers are a comment on the myth of lone genius artists, or that pieces of candy represent decomposition and rebirth, there is little point.
Several works are about manipulating the viewer into reaction, rather than interaction. One panel member felt the ballot box work was about constructing a picture of the art-viewing public, yet the piece tried to manipulate viewers into buying the artist’s viewpoint.
Maybe that’s the big message: many people have lost the will or ability to think about messages, leaving them open to manipulation by radio bombasts, “influencers,” and maybe a few artists. If the public understood this, perhaps modern art would have a grander purpose after all.
17
To all the commentators who are saying that art needs to be beautiful, and/or should not be political:
There is room for all of it. What these artists are doing is using their voices. Their aim is not beauty, necessarily, but stating their truths through a visual medium. There is only so much about a beautiful painting that makes it truly contemporary. Only so far it can go in speaking about our time. And that is one of the functions of art, a record of the time in which we live. Make no mistake -- I ADORE paintings and drawings and beautiful sculptures. They are all over my walls and I treasure them. But do they represent what artists are SAYING in our contemporary time, these ones on my walls? No. That does not diminish them, it just means that they aren't important in that way. They ARE important because the world NEEDS beauty. But it's a different kind of importance. It's vital that artists also make work that reflects TODAY, in addition to those beautiful works on our walls.
15
@Art Lover
I have a different take since, for me, these works make the beholder think, look at our world through a different lens and this is just what I want from art in any medium be it sound, written word or image.
The process by which an artist comes to make a work interests me deeply and the works on your "list" show how important it is to understand what happened before, during and, yes, after the work is completed, what concerned, frightened, excited, moved the artist. This brings us up close to many aspects of our culture about which we may not often focus.
I think of the "artwork" as something spun off by the creative process of its
maker and the issues most important to, the inputs affecting the maker whether that is a single person or a collaborative work (i.e. Suzanne Lacey). In turn these are the very issues about which we need to think and feel as a society. I am grateful to the artists who lead us into new, often unseen and challenging territory.
While I choose to live with art I find "beautiful" and reassuring in this troubled world, viewing and learning more about contemporary art is crucial to my understanding of and interaction with that same troubled world.
And thank you NYT for an interesting read that clearly provokes many of us to focus on just these issues.
5
I don't doubt that these works are in some sense a representation of our times. But they are almost all -- to my mind -- not much more than poster 'art'.
I am certainly reminded of the truism that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This beholder finds much truth, but quite little beauty. The greatest art can incorporate both.
Perhaps the best test of great art is whether I would want any of these works on my wall (or other space) -- to reflect on or to inspire or just to gaze at, day after day.
I truly wouldn't trade what's presently on my walls for any one of them.
12
I really enjoyed reading this. About half were things I would have chosen and half were new to me and really interesting. I’d add Byron Kim, Synecdoche and Chris Burden, Shoot. Say what you will about earth works, If you’re being honest about this list, I think you can’t leave off Spiral Jetty.
27
@Lisa Strong Spiral Jetty was the 2nd thing I thought of, after Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial.
14
I enjoyed this article very much but this content does not fit the title of “The 25 Works of Art that Define the Contemporary Age.”
Works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman and Ai Weiwei are omitted. The list is baffling.
20
@She-persisted Stay baffled, please, then 'splain to me this definition of Appropriation Art: "Playful and subversive, somewhere between parody and homage, her efforts also echo the centuries-old tradition of young artists copying old masters."
1
The article uses conventional spelling and grammar to convey meaning and nuance. However the examples of contemporary “Art” make little use of the elements of color, form, light, pattern, shape, and texture which have delighted, inspired, and spurred to action, viewers of art for thousands of years. Self-inflicted cutting may be an outcry of pain and suffering, and disintegrating organic material may be a metaphor for death, or the overindulgence of a voracious appetite, but these are interesting or shocking ideas about the contemporary world and not “Art”. Let’s not forget the beauty of nature, the human figure, ritual, color, that which keeps us from succumbing to despair as we confront the horror of contemporary life.
45
Firstly, the idea of ranking art seems to be the antithesis of art.
Secondly, this might be a good time to remember that Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto was deemed unlistenable garbage when it debuted and Citizen Kane did not win the Oscar for best picture.
24
Interesting selection, glad to see my Atlanta- Oxford Bookstore workmate Kara Walker included in this list...
2
I'm a low-budget art collector; I love Open Studios tours, and when I visit someplace new, I try to bring back an art piece instead of a stupid made-in-China souvenir.
But I'm afraid I'm a very old-fashioned art lover: I want artworks to be beautiful. If it can be beautiful /and/ make a point, okay. But at museums I tend to walk right past works that have words in them, like many of your choices. My daydream for after I win the lottery is to open Brian's Museum of Beautiful Art to try to get the rest of the world back to my way of thinking.
https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/art.html
25
@Brian Harvey Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth, and let's not forget the eye of the beholder and the doors of perception.
1
The founders of the United States believed in the separation of church and state , a division between the sacred and the secular. A state-sponsored church would demean the church; a church-sponsored state would demean the state. I propose something similar for the arts. We should have a separation of politics and art. Many of the works here fall more in the politics category than the arts category. I think the purpose of art has to do with aesthetics. Art is supposed to sharpen our perception of the world. It is supposed to make us see better. Many of these works only advance a political cause. They don't move me. They don't make the hair on the back of my neck stand up -- which is really the purpose of art.
54
This exchange failed to help me understand why these works are significant - sorry, my fault; if an art work does not stir my wanting to know more, or estimulates my senses, then I dismiss it. But when it moves me, then I treasure the work.
38
If this represents the best of Modern Art, thank heavens for the art of previous generations, centuries, and millennia, for such older works give us a cultural heritage really worth appreciating.
Most of the of art highlighted in this article does serve the purpose of helping to explain why today's world is such a messed-up place.
89
What a stunning body of work, which gathered together here, represent a brilliant appraisal of the times we live in--even though much of the work is decades old.
6
I look at these works and recognize their formal innovation, intellectual rigor, and cultural significance, but at the same time I don't feel particularly moved by them. Lately I've felt that too much contemporary art follows Duchamp's lead, and it gets kind of boring when it's all clever strategies, cultural interventions, activist gestures, and so on. Maybe you should have included some of those female abstract painters after all.
80
I enjoyed this. The choices for me on the whole were more prickly and challenging and less comforting and inspiring than I would have guessed they would be. But I liked the multiple comments and the chance to think about the works as a group. Now, if I had had a contribution, I would have included Christo—it would take some time to decide on which installation—maybe a wrapped island or bridge; And Rachel Rosenthal’s performance art piece where she told the audience she didn’t feel up to performing and then talked to them about why and all the while she was interacting and performing. I may work on my 25 now that I am at it.
13
@Marc Seltzer I also appreciate the article [ and the links ] and I also wished for Christo to be considered.
Stimulus for thought. Years ago I had a Drawing & Painting class whose instructor claimed he couldn't draw and didn't like to paint. "What would you guys like to do ?" I designed a tattoo { all caps ; T..A..T..T..O..O } and built a form around an acorn squash so that I might make a parrafin squash and color it (authentically) with melted crayons. Took D&P 212 pass-fail and I got a pass.
The identified (listed) works of art validate the idea that art, like beauty are, indeed, subjective determinations.
10
Off top of my head, I would add: Maya Lin, Banksy, Ai Weiwei, Martin Puryear, Frank Gehry, El Anatsui, Deth P. Sun, James Jean, Jean Giraud, Lebbeus Woods
25
@steven ....and also Don Ed Hardy, Emory Douglas, Nick Cave, Tinker Hatfield, Jim Phillips
1
Did not enjoy this article, are we all so cynical, especially where Art is concerned. I love paint, color, texture and context but razor cuts? Art and social commentary are not necessarily the same.
76