May 2019

Talk by Robert Good about contemporary art

On Friday 5 April we were treated to a different presentation than normal – a talk by Robert Good about contemporary art. Entitled 'What is Contemporary Art?' Robert took us back in time to explain the art forms before that which is now recognised as modern art, and which was mostly realistic representations by the artist telling a story through a picture.

After 1863 disagreements occurred between the traditional members of the Royal Academy and younger artists trying new forms of art, thus widening the concepts and the 'isms' came in – impressionism, cubism, modernism among many others. Artists wanted to use any ideas using any materials to complete their pictures or sculptures, which wasn't acceptable to the older, more traditional practitioners. Colour, shape line and form became important with some success by some artists and some disastrous failures by others.

However, in more recent times the two branches of tradition and modern forms have begun to re-align and join together more comfortably, as can be seen at exhibitions like the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Robert then went on to tell us about his art, and how he had collected as many of the meanings and interpretations of art as he could collect from the internet then putting them into a book, as well as mounting an exhibition of random headlines collected from Google, which gave a claustrophobic feel to his small gallery being tightly printed on the walls. He wanted to convey the idea that we are now bombarded with news all the time, some true and some not.


Diane Bell