"If you can say it... Why paint it?" A review of the key concepts of Contemporary Art

1. Groups are often classified on the basis of characteristics which are easy to identify for the viewer such as sex or ethnicity.
2. a specific set of attributes is ascribed to the whole group of people.
3. the set of attributes is ascribed to any individual member of that group, which means that individuals belonging to the stereotyped group are assumed to be similar to each other, and different from other groups.

A common stereotype which is associated with contemporary art is that it is art reserved for an elite (“Art is the noblest and the most sophisticated way to consolidate social level, power and money” (Serge V. 1990)), that it is pure provocation and finally, as it is no more attached to aesthetic or technical skills, that everybody could create it. For this reason Walker (1999:34) argues that "It appears that people got an attitude of hostility and indifference towards the contemporary art forms”.

Yves Klein.Blue Monochrome. 1961. Dry pigment in synthetic polymer medium on cotton over plywood, 195.1 x 140 cm.

The way we process information is influenced by our stereotypes, meaning that we tend to retain favorable information emitted by members of our ingroups and to defend unfavorable information from members of an outgroup (Hewston and Gilles,1986). The information process is “biased in the direction of maintaining the preexisting belief systems... These processes, then, can produce the cognitive confirmation of one’s stereotypical beliefs”(Hamilton et al., 1992). Therefore, the way we interpret incoming messages emitted by the artist through an artwork is dependant on the stereotypes we hold about contemporary art, the artist, the content of the message emitted and on every environmental factor associated with the artwork (e.g. if it is displayed here, in the Tate, it is necessarily a masterpiece)

Let me give you an example: Frida Kahlo’s or Diego Rivera’s paintings have often been and remain introduced as Mexican artists, producing Mexican art rather than being presented within the context of a specific art genre for example. In this way a stereotypical view of Frida Kahlo’s and Diego Rivera’s art is reinforced as their art is reduced to the category of “being Mexican”.

• Hamilton, D., Sherman, S. And Ruvolo, C. (1992) Stereotypes based expectancies. In W. Gudykunst and Y. Kim (Eds.), Reading on Communicating with Strangers. New-York: Mc Graw-Hill. (Originally published in in Journal of Social Issues, 46(2), 35-60.
• Hewston,M. and Gilles, H. (1986). Stereotypes and Intergroup Communication. In
  W. Gudykunst (Ed.), Intergroup communication. London:Edward Arnold.
• McLean I., (2004). On the Edge of Change? Third Text, Volume 18, Issue 3 2004Walker, J. (1999) ART & OUTRAGE Provocation, controversy and the visual arts, Sterling: Pluto press