Do you speak Modern Art? Viscerality of luminescent tubes, esoterism of textile fibres and the vertical horizontality of plastic?
Modern art has long had a negative image, unaffordable and elitist. Modern art means conceptual art, and conceptual art means … conceptual art!
And whoever finds a better definition, raise your hand!
But today, more and more, the opaque veil is being lifted and modern contemporary art is becoming the art of modern contemporary people, the art of the people, made for them and by them. Indeed, in 2014, the role of the public has never been more important. The new quest of artists is what is felt. The work of art is immaterial, the artwork is no longer an object, the artwork becomes a moment – THE moment! – when the public interacts with what is before him.
If the status of the artwork changes according to its installation, the status of the viewer also mutates. He or she is no longer confined to the role of mere spectator, the viewer becomes the co-creator, both narrator and storyteller .
As the artwork is experienced, the viewer recounts his or her experience and tomorrow this becomes an integral part of the artwork. Beyond a static object of art, beyond its projection, it is the memory of the work that the artist must design tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the experience of losing our normal visual references in the coloured artificial fog created by Olafur Eliasson will be as meaningful and important as the installation itself.
The magical sensation of an infinite field of stars we experience in Yayoi Kusama’s cube is the key feature of the œuvre.
The shock of touching real tattooed skin in the London Tattoo Museum is the key reason behind the exhibition.
In his “Origin of the Work of Art”, the philosopher Heidegger says, “Art is the implementation of the truth”, but in 2014, the truth is no longer the artwork itself, the truth is in our relationship with it. Marketing has already understood how to focus on the experience. We pedal on a bicycle at Stefan Sagmeister’s Happy Show to reveal the artist’s messages, we perform gym movements in front of the vending machine to get a free Coke.
So, who is copying whom?
One thing is certain, in our “let’s take it a step further” society, simply participating won’t be enough for our narcisso-man, who always seeks to outdo himself.
In the future, the public will become the raw material of modern art.
Tomorrow, our living human stem cells will be exhibited in art galleries, in tribute to Amy Congdon, the biotechnology artist who designs bespoke biological jewellery based on skin cells.