Chapter 31: Contemporary Art Worldwide

Chapter 31: Contemporary Art Worldwide

 

Since the 1980s, artists worldwide have used art to explore a range of themes, from individual concerns to pressing political issues. A host of artists, including David Wojnarowicz, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Shahzia Sikander, have used art to examine sexuality and gender, while many African-American artists such as Lorna Simpson and David Hammons focus on racial identity and inequality. Abstract and figural painters and sculptors across the world continue pursue innovations in representational form and novel uses of material. Artists such as Maya Lin, Richard Serra, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude work site-specifically and bridge the gap between architecture and sculpture. Architecture has become a particularly diverse practice in recent decades, as architects pursue postmodernist, Hi-Tech, Deconstructivist and green building approaches. New technology has had a profound impact on art, allowing new forms of visual expression and multimedia spectacle never before possible.