[Contemplation about 'Contemporary Art' and its latest value]

A banana sticking on a wall, a bucket full of sand, a glass of water named an 'oak tree'; 

Contemporary art has been writing a new history in the art industry uniquely and somewhat daringly. And by that, controversies and arguments surrounding this new wave of art are always vigorous. 

Can contemporary art truly be acknowledged for its value as 'art' and successfully settle in our life as a culture of novelty?

To figure out the answer, we should get to know the basic logic of contemporary art, and the beauty it pursues. The biggest feature of contemporary art is that the artworks get their worth by the meaning the artist tried to express through the work, not the piece's visual characteristics such as the use of colours or ratios of a sculpture. There are no fixed standards or regulations of expression, thus the artworks don't get locked up on a canvas in the field of contemporary art. Michael Craig-Martin’s artwork ‘An Oak Tree’ is also a piece justified as art by the same logic. If Michael had no intentions of putting a glass of water in the middle of the exhibition hall, the object would have been considered nothing but a random water glass. But since he had his philosophy about conceptual art and scholasticism connoted in the object, the water glass could be a piece of contemporary art about non-essential property. 

The problem is that some people started to abuse the ‘unconventionality’ of contemporary art, and treat those artworks as meaningless displays pretending to be fancy. Since these erroneous thoughts spread, fake artists began to work under the name of ‘contemporary artists’ and sell their hollow works at auction. The rich who wanted to lessen their property tax started to buy expensive contemporary artworks at auction and resell them when they needed extra money, and the whole industry of contemporary arts gradually deteriorated into an upper-class culture which is only about money and wealth.

Since the very first civilization of humanity, art has been changing and developing through centuries. In the modern days where the unseen philosophical values of artworks and the individuality of artists are emphasized, it would be desirable for art to evolve, ensuring it continues to contribute to cultural history, without regressing into a mere means of gratification and financial gain. A lot of attention to modern and contemporary art at the moment would be required more than ever to make an idealistic progress in the whole arts industry.