The past thirty years of art history have been symptomatic of crisis of cultural authority. In the modern period, works of art claimed to represent some authentic vision of the world based on universal truths. Postmodern work attempts to undermine the reassuring stability of modernism’s master narratives. The breakdown of binaries has allowed for the emergence of a more encompassing art world, with the presence of voices and materials previously denied by modernism. Artwork being produced now comes directly out of postmodernism, and in many cases works that are distinctly postmodern are placed under the banner of contemporary. The problem with this combination is that it extends the term contemporary to art of the past thirty years. The ICA Boston faces a similar problem by thematically placing work from the 1970s along side work produced several years ago. In our fast-paced society, cultural institutions are unable to stay up to date with the mass amount of works being produced, consequently many contemporary collections rely on artists and mediums that have already been canonized instead of taking genuine risks.
This fall on display at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston is the fourth exhibition of the permanent collection, entitled In the Making, which offers “an in-depth look at how artistic approaches to medium transform familiar subjects into resonant images and experiences” (ICA Website). Each gallery in the exhibition focuses on a single medium, either photography, painting, sculpture, or video. However, the only practice that is well represented in the show is photography, which accounts for seven of the twelve artists whose work is displayed. Even so, there is a strong female presence in the exhibit, which features the contemporary art veterans Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and Marlene Dumas, as well as recent recruits to the museum circuit Tara Donovan, Rineke Dijkstra and Cornelia Parker.
Sherman and Dumas are members of the recently termed Pictures Generation, whom found their subjects from photographs culled from newspapers and magazines. Their work is symptomatic of postmodernism because both seek to undermine traditional, master narratives by ambiguously displaying the female body in a variety of imagined environments. Sherman and Dumas’ works are essential to understanding the immediate history of contemporary art, however, the work itself can no longer be described as contemporary. Since the 1970s, Cindy Sherman and Marlene Dumas have had very successful and noteworthy careers and are no longer really cutting edge. Their work has been canonized and is represented in many public and private collections. They have their own market and are safe investments for an institutions such as the ICA. Furthermore, their highly refined critiques of the social constructions of gender and sexuality, feel very characteristic of 1980s postmodern art. It is hard to divorce these objects from their cultural context and connect them to the present. As well, they do not speak to the technology driven contemporary era.
While Cindy Sherman and Marlene Dumas’ work feels static in the collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Tara Donovan’s sculptures are more representative of contemporaneity. However, these works are connected by their denial of traditional narratives and modernist myths. Sherman, Dumas and Donovan similarly use alternative means, such as household objects and subjects from popular culture, to confront the viewer. In order to understand the progression of contemporary art and the relevance of Tara Donovan, it is necessary to be familiar with the work of Cindy Sherman and Marlene Dumas.
Overall, the ICA's permanent collection provides a good introduction to the changes that have occurred in the art world over the past thirty years, as a result of postmodernism, and its effect on younger artists. However, the collection has failed (like many other institutions, particularly the MoMA) to address the current condition of art (globalism, "festival culture", multiculturalism). Ultimately, the collection is trapped by its limited, Western conceptions of art that view the contemporary as a continue of modernism.
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