Heterogeneity and Historicity: On What Makes Art Contemporary

Contemporary art is a category that can admit art made in any medium, form, genre, and style. However, this unprecedented heterogeneity can make it difficult to understand what makes contemporary art distinct from other kinds of art. In this article, I aim to provide an account of what makes art contemporary. I develop my position by focusing on the philosophy of contemporary art emerging from the so-called analytic tradition. I argue that, though these philosophers have reckoned with many of the puzzles posed by contemporary art’s heterogeneity, they fail to provide compelling theories of what makes art contemporary. In response, I propose that the best way to understand what makes an artwork contemporary is understanding how it attempts to grapple with the issues of its own historical condition of ‘contemporaneity’.