3 Art Trends in 2020 Everyone Should Watch
Art Class
I think I might be a closet art Marxist.
Art has this veneer of class, of refinement but artists are usually anything but. And why should they be? What they’re creating is hopefully universal: beautiful and crass, refined and kitsch, poignant and banal.
When some moron pays 120 000$ for a banana taped to a wall he, well, looks like an idiot and he makes the whole art world look like idiots. I actually like Maurizio Cattelan — he’s a funny dude — and I question his true intent when he created this piece. Was this a Banksy-esque prank on an unsuspecting buyer? I mean someone basically ate the buyer’s 120 000$. Only a rich shit can pay for a piece like that, a piece by the way, the public would never see, and never benefit from, except through publicity.
Classism has to be taken out of art and I think the rise of street art is a reflection of that. Thirty years ago these guys weren’t taken seriously, now there are establishment endorsed festivals, even a museum.
Even outside the visual arts, television and film are moving away from pretentious art house crap. Netflix and Prime’s collection of highly produced, well written shows contains complex ideas on life, ethics, and the future (see Black Mirror).
Artists of the world, unite.
2. Authenticity
These prankster-artists are biting the hand that feeds them but are they also creating a new audience, a popular audience. Ricky Gervais’ gleeful mockery of the Hollywood elite is a similar thing. He mocks the system that’s built him up but at the same time he delights the audiences. People want to see these glitterati, these idiots with more money than brains, put in their place or at least taken down a peg.
Gervais’ monologue was funny because a lot of it was true. The rampant sexual improprieties of Hollywood, the disturbing links between Hollywood and politics, make their lecturing of us, the little people, nauseating. “Accept your little award, thank your family and your god, and get off the stage” is a mean little line that I’m sure a lot of people are thinking. Spare us the moralizing while you cover for Harvey Weinstein, thank you.
The hypocrisy of Hollywood actors who taking private jets, owning 3 + houses, and indulging a luxurious lifestyle that sucks up so many resources it would be impossible for a country to live like that much less the world is ballsy. It’s hard to take it seriously when they start telling us to bike to work for the climate.
Exposing the epidemic of fake-ness and the difficulty of reality is going to be a major theme throughout the year. Instagram and image based culture reigns supreme and even though we all indulge it, there’s clearly a malaise that surrounds it.
Photo from Priya’s Mirror Exhibition at the Lincoln Center
3. Digital and Augmented Reality
Digital art is just starting to take hold. Its impermanence makes it difficult for public consumption but augmented reality has started to make an appearance in street art . Instagram, TikTok and whatever other obnoxious apps come up in the future haven’t yet been exploited enough by artists. Online curators are building a new network of artists and buyers and pushing new ideas to new people.
Artists themselves are exhibiting their work but creativity using the platforms themselves hasn’t flourished yet. Art can be used to make us think about our humanity, our society; technology is almost part of us now. Art that doesn’t use it, and negotiate it, will eventually become irrelevant. If that can be done it’ll open a new space in the art world, and maybe push our ideas about technology, and ourselves, even further.
Alex Byron is an all round baller who writes for lowercase on the reg.