What Makes an Artwork Contemporary? (notes from CAI)

↰ texts · 555 words · Published: Feb 14, 2026

What makes an artwork ‘contemporary’? (and not, for instance, ‘classical’, ‘modern’, or ‘postmodern’?) What places an artwork in the now, making it of  our time?

Julien Delagrange, CAI

These are some quick notes from a video by Contemporary Art Issue (CAI) on Youtube. The host, Julien Delagrange, states that the phrase “Art that is produced today” is not a clear-enough definition of contemporary art — where would one make the demarcation, say, for art that was made yesterday, or last year, or 10 years ago? He gives the example of Basquiat, who died in 1988 but is considered a contemporary artist even beyond the grave; and there are works from 60 years ago (Gerhard Richter) that are still contemporary! And conversely, all art produced today cannot be considered contemporary — for instance, a reproduction of a Rembrandt painting.
 

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And so, Delagrange notes that there are four conditions that must be met for an artwork to qualify as ‘contemporary’:

1. The Time or Era of the Artwork
   Made between approximately 1960 and today — ‘post-modern’/ ‘post-War’ art: art movements such as minimal art, conceptual art, land art, performance art, video art, etc and beyond.
   (Defining the starting point is tricky as there is the fluidity of eras and movements as one goes back in time — many now argue for the demarcation to be the ’80s/’90s, or the turn of the millenium. Other, more specific terms proposed: ‘Post-post-modern’, ‘Ultra Contemporary’, which haven’t caught on).

2. The Intention of the Artist
   “Premeditated intention of the artist”, to create a work of contemporary art
   (e.g. ‘Your Dogs’ by Wolfgang Tillmans, 1 captured with the intention to be viewed as an artwork … even though everyone takes photos of dogs all the time)
   With new media and installation works — it’s not always obvious if something is an artwork! 2

3. Time-Bound Aesthetics
   Can it be identified as having been made in the contemporary era?
   (Compare with academic drawing/ painting — vs. something that could only have been made with today’s aesthetics, or “engages in a dialogue with recent artistry”)

4. Contemporary Relevant Subject Matter
   The subject matter is relevant in a contemporary context: Specific historical events, specific political events.
    

Delagrange concludes by stating that the first two conditions are a pretext for an artwork to be contemporary. The latter two are not, but they do help in assessing if and how “some artworks are more contemporary than others”.
 

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Since watching this video, these points continue to provide triggers for my art practice, and have helped direct it in a certain way.

A few questions arose in me, in response to the fourth condition (that ’the subject matter is relevant in a contemporary context’) — Who decides which subject matters are relevant to our contemporary condition, and which are not? How does this get decided? Which ‘specific historic events’, which ‘specific political events’ to focus on? What about events beyond those?

I think this is a loophole that all artists have the responsibility to exploit: that the window of what is ‘contemporarily-relevant’ seems to be constantly shifting, and artists also have the power to stake claim to different spaces that this window can be shifted towards (or returned to). What’s the master narrative you’re seeing, and in expressing that, (assuming you’re a contemporary artist) what issues do you claim to be relevant today?

 

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Roshan Shakeel