Contemporary Art: An Emphasis on the Erosion of Meaning or a Search for Meaning? (With Reference to the Transformation of Modern Art and Its Subsequent Developments under the Influence of the Criteria of Thought in the Modern World)

Abstract

“Art” and “meaning” are both concepts that resist straightforward definition. Whenever art becomes the subject of discussion, one inevitably becomes engaged with the question of meaning; and whenever meaning is brought into consideration, one is confronted with the full range of phenomena that constitute the world. By examining artistic developments over the past century, this article seeks to determine how contemporary human beings, under the influence of modernization, have confronted the question of “meaning” in the process of artistic creation. Has the new condition and the crisis of meaning in contemporary human life led the contemporary artist to emphasize this depletion of meaning in life, or perhaps even to acquiesce to it? Or, conversely, does the artist’s effort to create works in novel forms and through new approaches actually represent an attempt to search for meaning in contemporary life? Furthermore, is it fundamentally possible to answer this question? What reliable evidence is available to us for addressing it? And can a broader examination of the condition of the “contemporary human being” provide us with a reflection of the orientations and tendencies of contemporary art?