It was a decade of unprecedented cultural diversity, economic speculation and continuing spectacle. Everything artwise seemed bigger, gaudier and more outrageous, yet the sum of creative innovation was essentially a reworking of previous themes from previous decades. The dominant duo of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons continued to work the memes of mortality and anxiety into desirable objects, with Hirst’s diamond skull the signature of excess and meaninglessness which continues to define this art era. Dreamy, indistinct, formally conservative painting asserted itself in the marketplace, as Doig, Rauch, Tuymans and Dumas played with figures in a neo-romantic style reminiscent of Klimt and Schiele. These were easy pictures to market to the rich, but, ultimately, very minor points on the historical arc of painting.
From “Nought For the Aughts” by Charlie Finch via Artnet, a short-but-sweet summation of the last decade of art.
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