In a message dated 01-09-06 13:56:25 EDT, Jay Heuman writes:

<< [For those around my age (late 20s and early 30s) who are
 uninvolved with the art world, the term "contemporary" is
 often confusing in reference to anything before their
 births.  And even those who are in their early 40s were born
 right around the time Warhol was screen printing his first
 Marilyns, Jackies and Maos.] >>

Call me a linguistic fuddy-duddy, but I hate to see a common workhorse word
like "contemporary" used to denote a style, any style.  I haven't studied the
policies of museums of contemporary art, so I'm just rendering an opinion
which may not coincide with, er, contemporary practice, but the word ought to
imply current or very recent, regardless of style or philosophy.  Warhol has
been dead quite a few years, so he's hardly contemporary in my book.  Thomas
Kinkade is alive and producing, so he's a contemporary artist, regardless of
whether or not you think his work is worth showing in your museum of
contemporary art.  If I opened a museum of contemporary art, I would collect
only recent works by living and possibly recently-deceased artists (corpses
still warm) whose impact is still current.  Feature exhibitions would
concentrate on loans and recent acquisitions of recent art.  At the close of
each such exhibition, the new acquisitions would be retired for later
recycling.  All older works from the permanent collection would be labeled
with acquisition dates whenever exhibited.  Although thematic exhibitions of
older acquisitions would be possible and encouraged, I would expect to do a
lot of shows from the permanent collection whose titles might be simply a
date.  For example, I might juxtapose a "2001" retrospective with my "2010"
survey when that year rolls around.

It seems to me that such a scheme might make "contemporary" more meaningful
and provocative.  It would not be without healthy controversy, as critics
debated my selections of both the "now" art and works representing what was
significant "then".

David Haberstich

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