Where is avant-garde art headed?
August, 20; 2026. By Arscodex
Today we're going to delve a little into the path that Art—yes, with a capital A—is taking; avant-garde Art, that is, the latest and most innovative directions this discipline is exploring today.
And to do so, we'll take a look back to the beginning of the 20th century. The stage was set for a painter, Picasso, to seize modernity and catalyze this atmosphere ripe for change, like a surfer riding a wave. This painter acted as a hinge for modernity, opening Pandora's box of art, and from then on, anything was possible.
We continue our journey and, after various stages and artistic advances that occurred in architecture, sculpture, and of course painting during the 20th century, we arrive approximately at the middle of that same century and the emergence in the USA of Jackson Pollock, the leading exponent of abstract expressionism, which, in the opinion of this publication, is the final link towards the artistic nothingness that modernity represented. It should be noted that this movement was predated by more than two centuries by the Chinese painter Shitao, who, around the second half of the 17th century, painted his work, 10,000 ugly inkblots.
So far, so good; a progression is evident, which is broken in the 1980s and 90s with the emergence of the British artist Damien Hirst and the American Jeff Koons; the former conceived the idea of preserving a shark in formaldehyde and the latter of creating dogs out of giant golden balloons.
Therefore, art abandons its abstract path, redirects itself, and returns to figuration, but in a way that seeks transgression and the conceptual, especially in the world of sculpture.
We continue and turn our attention to something a bit more Mediterranean, pausing to consider the work of Jaume Plensa, also sculptural, and his giant busts of women that have been installed in various iconic cities around the world.
As we can see, the prevailing transgressive conceptualism has recently manifested itself through sculpture. But in recent times, we can mention two artists who have taken advantage of the possibilities of two-dimensional visual art: Banksy (the graffiti artist) and, on a more Hispanic level, Berta Jayo (yes, the artist specializing in photomontage).
We practically won't even mention Banksy since his art is illegal; It is based on the technique of graffiti, and, as we know, in the opinion of this publication, we do not want to promote it, as we find it ugly and out of place.
But after this, we can mention, as we have already done, the Santander-born artist Berta Jayo, who, taking advantage of the current state of technology and excelling primarily in the world of photomontage (although she also creates other types of art), has cleverly come up with the idea of making various modifications through photography, such as heart-shaped hot air balloons, or changing the color of European Gothic cathedrals; these modifications, as we have already mentioned in this publication, are at the pinnacle of art today.
Therefore, this is the moment we find ourselves at. What will be the next shift in art? Will it be figurative? Will it be abstract? From this publication's perspective, we believe that the aforementioned abstract art reached its dead end with Abstract Expressionism. Therefore, we don't think the path forward begins at that point, which has already been surpassed. In other words, if an artist comes to us with four smudges on a canvas, we're sorry to say, but that's no longer avant-garde.
Even the author, an artist himself as the reader knows, could propose new paths for art... Who knows? And so, we end this article as we began: Where is avant-garde art headed?
And to do so, we'll take a look back to the beginning of the 20th century. The stage was set for a painter, Picasso, to seize modernity and catalyze this atmosphere ripe for change, like a surfer riding a wave. This painter acted as a hinge for modernity, opening Pandora's box of art, and from then on, anything was possible.
We continue our journey and, after various stages and artistic advances that occurred in architecture, sculpture, and of course painting during the 20th century, we arrive approximately at the middle of that same century and the emergence in the USA of Jackson Pollock, the leading exponent of abstract expressionism, which, in the opinion of this publication, is the final link towards the artistic nothingness that modernity represented. It should be noted that this movement was predated by more than two centuries by the Chinese painter Shitao, who, around the second half of the 17th century, painted his work, 10,000 ugly inkblots.
So far, so good; a progression is evident, which is broken in the 1980s and 90s with the emergence of the British artist Damien Hirst and the American Jeff Koons; the former conceived the idea of preserving a shark in formaldehyde and the latter of creating dogs out of giant golden balloons.
Therefore, art abandons its abstract path, redirects itself, and returns to figuration, but in a way that seeks transgression and the conceptual, especially in the world of sculpture.
We continue and turn our attention to something a bit more Mediterranean, pausing to consider the work of Jaume Plensa, also sculptural, and his giant busts of women that have been installed in various iconic cities around the world.
As we can see, the prevailing transgressive conceptualism has recently manifested itself through sculpture. But in recent times, we can mention two artists who have taken advantage of the possibilities of two-dimensional visual art: Banksy (the graffiti artist) and, on a more Hispanic level, Berta Jayo (yes, the artist specializing in photomontage).
We practically won't even mention Banksy since his art is illegal; It is based on the technique of graffiti, and, as we know, in the opinion of this publication, we do not want to promote it, as we find it ugly and out of place.
But after this, we can mention, as we have already done, the Santander-born artist Berta Jayo, who, taking advantage of the current state of technology and excelling primarily in the world of photomontage (although she also creates other types of art), has cleverly come up with the idea of making various modifications through photography, such as heart-shaped hot air balloons, or changing the color of European Gothic cathedrals; these modifications, as we have already mentioned in this publication, are at the pinnacle of art today.
Therefore, this is the moment we find ourselves at. What will be the next shift in art? Will it be figurative? Will it be abstract? From this publication's perspective, we believe that the aforementioned abstract art reached its dead end with Abstract Expressionism. Therefore, we don't think the path forward begins at that point, which has already been surpassed. In other words, if an artist comes to us with four smudges on a canvas, we're sorry to say, but that's no longer avant-garde.
Even the author, an artist himself as the reader knows, could propose new paths for art... Who knows? And so, we end this article as we began: Where is avant-garde art headed?
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