For over half a century, all art has fallen under the “Contemporary” umbrella. The term has become so embedded in art historical practice that it often is applied without much thought. However, as the period progresses, it feels increasingly unstable. It raises the question: why are works produced in the 1970s and those made today, created under radically different technological, social and political conditions, being grouped together as if they belong to the same movement.
Creating a concrete definition of Contemporary art has been notoriously difficult, and the term has already undergone redefinition during its tenure as the dominant art movement.
Initially, the period was said to have started in 1945, marking a clean break from the themes of totalitarian control and human suffering seen in the Second World War. However, the postwar period has since taken on its own unique identity, characterized by a rebellion against traditionalism and the rise of Abstract Expressionism. Today, the rise of Pop Art with the collapse of the modernist ideals during the 1970s are often cited as the movement’s starting point.
The problem has less to do with language and instead reflects a misalignment in how the art historical timeline is organized. Historically periodization, the division of history into distinct eras, featured longer spans at the beginning of its timeline, which shortened as history moved closer to the present. Earlier periods, like the Renaissance, lasted for centuries, as artistic production was less likely to be preserved and cultural change occurred more gradually. However, by the mid-19th century, as industrialization, globalization and the exchange of ideas accelerated, art historical periods began to shorten. Movements such as Impressionism and Cubism unfolded over roughly 20-to-50-year periods, or in the case of Dadaism, less than a decade, reflecting the rapid transformations the world was undergoing.
Using the logic that the length of an artistic period should correspond to the rate of societal advancement, the Contemporary period should be the most fragmented of all. Instead, the over 50-year-old movement has no clear end in sight. What began as a useful temporal classification has become a catch-all that groups together artistic practices that differ not only in style but also the social conditions that lead to their production.
Consider the technological differences of the period. In the 1970s, artists worked within an analog framework defined by film photography, broadcast media and early computing. For example, Canadian photographer Michael Snow used darkroom processes to make silver gelatin prints of images shot on film, to explore his social commentary about 1970s Toronto.
Artists today operate within a completely different technological landscape. Digital tools, artificial intelligence and global internet networks have transformed how art is made, circulated and understood. In her work An Impossible Perspective (2022-2023), Canadian artist Sanaz Mazinani uses machine learning to sort thousands of images to construct a narrative around truth and authorship. This intersection of human intention and algorithmic process, both in its themes and production, explores a relationship that would have been inconceivable in earlier decades.
Right:
From Geometric to Organic (2022 – 2023), by Sanaz Mazinani. Pigment prints combining the artist’s own images with those generated using Midjourney.
This is not just a difference in technique; it reflects a fundamental shift in the relationships between artist, medium and audience. Yet both works are classified as Contemporary.
The solution seems straightforward: refine the timeline by breaking the Contemporary period into segments that more precisely reflect these cultural shifts.
Proposed Redefinition of Contemporary Art History:
Postmodern / Media Expansion (1970-1990):
Defined by the rise of conceptual art and the increased use of media and performance, the period prioritized ideas over objects.
Ex. The Toronto-based artist collective General Idea’s 1971 performance at the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Miss General Idea Pageant, reflected the group’s use of satirical mimicry of popular culture as a means of social critique.
Digital Turn (2000-2015):
Characterized by the integration of digital technologies into every aspect of daily life, art became increasingly interactive, reproducible and detached from physical space.
Ex. South Korean artist Nam June Paik’s TV Buddah (2002), in which a buddha statue watches its own real-time image on a television, juxtaposes spiritual contemplation with mass media and uses technology as both its medium and subject.
The Algorithmic Era (2015 – present):
Currently defined by artificial intelligence and platform-based distribution, artistic production is increasingly shaped by algorithms, data and digital visibility.
Ex. Faces (2022) by Montreal-based studio Irregular presents a continuously shifting 3D portrait generated from the participants facial features. Using artificial intelligence to analyze and reconstruct the viewer’s facial geometry, the piece reflects on identity, connection and the blending of individuals into a shared digital presence.
The proposed framework outlined above provides a more detailed vocabulary used to understand recent art. However, simply redrawing the boundaries does not resolve the underlying issue. Every system of periodization, no matter how refined, is inherently flawed. This is because it imposes structure on a history that cannot be neatly divided, forcing works into categories based on interpretation rather than reality and ultimately prioritizing the organization of knowledge at the cost of its complexity.
However, there have yet to be viable alternatives to periodization. Instead, some scholars are redefining its use away from a strict timeline to a more flexible framework that can be used to answer a key question related to our research methods: does a specific periodization aid our work and address our specific questions?
“Every periodization is prone to the same issues: it pigeonholes our thinking and imposes arbitrary interpretations,” said Christoph Haack, a historian at the University of Tübingen. “my suggestion would be to view periodization strictly as a heuristic tool.”
The question then becomes less about when Contemporary art begins or ends, and more about whether the term still helps us understand the art being made today. If it does, it remains a useful tool. If not, it should be adjusted or set aside in favour of a more precise framework.
The categorization of Contemporary art may not be something that can – or should – be fixed, but acknowledging its limitations allows for an improved approach to art historical research, one that better reflects the complexity of the present rather than smoothing it into a single, continuous narrative.
Featured Image: Family Movie Night, by Annette LeMay Burke, from her 2020 project Memory Building