Art in Context was created as a simple research site to get a sense of The Contemporary Art World as it manifests itself online today.
Since ‘The Art World’ as it relates to contemporary fine art, ‘modern art’, art of the 20th Century, ‘fine art’ as defined over the ages in human history (see History of Art Wikipedia) is a topic as sprawling as it is narrow and deep, a true paradox of a concept in relative terms, as it encompasses the breadth of recorded human history while defining it at the same time.
Art is one of those topics that is as subjective as the viewer, sort of an emotional version of Quantum Physics, very much as vague, sublime and subjective as ‘color’. One man’s art is another mans trash. One can take art appreciation courses, as well as art history courses to find a way to wrap your mind around what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘great’ art, yet still be baffled. Just like Quantum Physics, where there is no way to accurately measure any event without incorporating the viewer of said event, one cannot take an art history course without being influenced by the teacher and the other people in the class.
In this world of ours, we are surrounded by art in many forms, from graphic design, to product design, to architecture, to pretty much any manufactured or man made product or artifact. In our culture we have been immersed and bombarded by advertising, marketing and media for generations, all of which is ‘art’.
The contemporary fine art world has become a very narrow branch off the greater tree of ‘art’. Without being deeply immersed in the top world gallery and museum scenes (New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Milan, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Dubai), etc) it becomes a challenge to know where to start as to getting insight into this world via organic search, as the keywords remain hidden to outsiders.
Art in Context is an attempt to present some places to start in this search.
