Dailylin

The exhibits at the Moco Museum which is a museum Amsterdam are mostly modern art, contemporary art or street art. Most people know what kind of art street art is simply by hearing its name. An obvious example would be mural art and graffiti painting. But one thing that many people are not familiar with and never bother to ask is what are modern art or modernism and contemporary art. Most importantly people don't know the difference between these two. A view that many people hold is that modern art and contemporary art are the same thing. However there are differences. These differences are based on the periods for which art historians, curators, art critics, and institutions among others categorize for modern art and contemporary art where they usually argue that modern art ended around the 1960's and anything after that period should be considered contemporary art. Of course like with many other things, there's no clear cut definition or categorization for these two forms of art. But this is probably the main difference. There are other differences as well however.

Another difference between modern vs contemporary art at Moco Musuem

Other than the broad difference that I talked about above there are other differences that art historians and critics mention between modern as opposed to contemporary art. One of the reasons they call modern art "modern" is because it did not necessarily have anything to do with the art that came before it. It did not build or rely on art that came before it. But other than the difference in the date periods that these art forms have been created, it is really quite hard to distinguish between the two. Because contemporary art is the art that is created at the present time. But one could argue that modern art was also contemporary art at its time. But maybe one thing that set contemporary art apart from modern art was the focus on the underlying concept of the art work rather than the mere physical and aesthetic beauty of the work.

Some examples of contemporary art you can see at Moco Musuem

Performance art, Virtual reality art and conceptual art are some examples of contemporary art that are heavily focused on the concept rather than the aesthetic beauty of the art work. This is something that was never seen before during the modern art era. In these kinds of art work the process itself which may even require the participation of an audience, is much more important than the end result.