How to Appreciate Contemporary Art?

I often hear people say,

"I don't like contemporary art. I can't understand it."

Well, say no more! I'm here to help.

Disclaimer: I'm not a specialist in contemporary art, but my education in literary theory (which is not so different from fine arts theory) and my work experience in Paris helping with an art history program, as well as my close following of the Setouchi Triennale since its inception, give me some credentials on the issue, even if my source can sometimes be: "Trust me, bro."
Note that this is not an academic article. I wrote it as it came to me, so there may be a few mistakes and approximations. However, the gist is correct, so you'll have to trust me despite the lack of sources.

Before we begin, here is some terminology to keep in mind: modern art and contemporary art are not interchangeable terms.

Modern Art roughly began in the 1860s with the Realist and Impressionist movements, and especially the transition from one to the other. The advent of photography also played a major role in the emergence of modern art.
There is disagreement about when modern art ended, but it was sometime between 1945 and the 1970s. Regardless of its end date, modern art has ended.

Contemporary art starts... well, sometime between 1945 and the 1970s. Many factors gave birth to it. In no particular order, these factors include the democratization of mass media, globalization, the emergence of computers, and postmodernist theory. However, its first iterations are much older. One could consider Duchamp's art and Dada the prehistory of contemporary art.

In any case, it's complicated. We don't have time for a full lesson on the topic. Just know that today's art is "contemporary," not "modern."

All right, now that we've cleared that up, let's discuss and answer the question: "Do we need to understand contemporary art to appreciate and enjoy it?"

The short answer is no.

The long answer begins with another question: "What does it mean to understand contemporary art?"

Does it mean knowing its history? Its main artists? Its main theories? Its main techniques? Or something else? Maybe.
Do you need to know these things to understand contemporary art? Probably.
Kind of.

Do you need to know them to appreciate contemporary art?
No.

Those who disagree with me usually do so because they want contemporary art to remain elitist, whether consciously or not.

If they want you to believe that you need to know all of these things, it's because they know you don't, and they want to keep it inaccessible to you and the rest of the masses.

Typical bourgeoisie.

This is also typical of the impostors who gravitate toward contemporary art circles. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them, and some have become world-famous (hi, Jeff).

Sadly, the opposite is also true at times. Some people don't want to try to understand contemporary art because they think it's elitist and bourgeois, and they don't want anything to do with it.
However, they are beside the point because, as I mentioned before, you don't need to understand contemporary art to appreciate it.

Another thing people mean when they talk about understanding contemporary art—or any other kind of art, for that matter—is that they feel they need to understand the artist's intent and the message behind their work.

Most of the time, when people talk about not understanding art, they don't think about the class warfare aspect of the dominant group weaponizing contemporary art to control the cultural canon. They mean that they don't understand the artist's message.

However, they also rarely understand the intent of artists from older eras. They just think they do, probably because classical art is more figurative and easier to understand, in their opinion.

If only they knew...

Spoiler alert: In my opinion, classical art is more difficult to understand than contemporary art. Beyond artistic factors, we need to consider historical, social, and religious backgrounds. Most people have a high school level of knowledge about these topics at best. Let's not even get into older art.

Most people don't understand art in general. They don't know the intentions of today's artists, but they know even less about the intentions of classical artists, and yet they have no problem appreciating classical art.

Why is that?

One thing is education. If you're over a couple decades old, there's a good chance you received an education in classicism. Even though it ended in the 19th century, it was dominant for so long that it is still seen as the "canon" by many people today.

Contemporary art is simply too new to be part of the mainstream of their national culture. These things take time.

I've mentioned the author's intent a few times already. It's not by chance, either. With a population whose perception and education are rooted in classicism, it's only logical that their knowledge of cultural analysis is also rooted in that time.

Enters Sainte-Beuve!

Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869) was a French (failed) poet and (very successful) literary critic. He was also a senator, a historian, and a friend of Victor Hugo. He was probably the original archetype of the failed artist turned critic. He became renowned and very influential as a critic, in part because he invented a new way to analyze literary works. This approach became mainstream for the next century and beyond. As I mentioned earlier, literary and fine arts analysis are similar and related fields. I learned his approach to art studies in junior high school, more than a century after his death. I don't know if this is still how things are taught, but I know it's still the mainstream approach for those who haven't delved into literary and art analysis beyond high school.

What is that way? To try to find the... way for it... author's intent! To do so, he used various methods, including using any metatext and paratext the author may have written as well as the author's biography itself.

This method had some value in his time, especially with movements of his era, such as Romanticism (a movement he was part of, alongside Hugo), but not so much with modern and contemporary arts. You may have noticed that he died just a few years after the beginning of modern art. I'm not sure what his opinion of Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe was. If I'm correct, he had become a politician by then.

I think this is the source of the "rift of incomprehension" between contemporary art and the general audience.

As contemporary art became more abstract, conceptual, and non-figurative, it became increasingly difficult to understand the artist's intent, making it harder for non-specialists to appreciate such art.

But, dear readers, do not despair, for we have a savior.

Roland Barthes for the Win!

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a French (extremely successful and renowned) literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His influence on contemporary thought is immeasurable, and the world is a better place because of him. I won't write his biography here; it's unnecessary to understand his importance in making contemporary art accessible to all (take that, Sainte-Beuve).

Why am I only mentioning French thinkers? Come on! You English speakers constantly talk about French philosophers and thinkers as the epitome of intellectualism, yet you find it strange when I mention not one, but two? If I had more time, I'd give you a few more examples (Who do you want? Genette? Derrida? Lyotard maybe?).

In any case, among the many things that Roland Barthes did to advance humankind, he killed the author!

In one of his most influential books, The Death of the Author, Barthes states that to understand and appreciate art, we don't need to care about the author's biography or intent. Even with the best of intentions, we cannot know the author's intent. After all, we're not in their mind. No one knows the author's intent when they're creating a work. Sure, the author has a conscious intent, but can we be sure that subconscious factors weren't at play as well?
The author may have written a statement, given interviews, or spoken about their art, but can we trust them completely? Even if they're being honest, those words were written or spoken after the work was created. They're a narration of the intent; they're not the intent itself. There may be self-censorship at play or simply an organization of thoughts that wasn't present while the work was created. The author's explanation is a work about the work. It is not the "essence" of the work. It's not the intent.

In other words, the author's intent is irrelevant when experiencing a work of art. We shouldn't care about it.

So, what should we care about?

Did you notice that I used the verb "experience" a few lines above? This is the important part: It's the viewer's (reader's or listener's) experience of the work of art that matters.

What does this art tell you? How does it make you feel? Does it remind you of something from your own life? How does it speak to you?

Experiencing, understanding, and appreciating contemporary art is essentially having a dialogue with the artwork itself, not its author.

There is no right or wrong way to do it; there are no right or wrong answers. Contemporary art seems elitist and inaccessible only because some social classes want you to believe it is.

Contemporary art is for everyone!

Regardless of your age, social class, or education level, you can appreciate contemporary art. All you need to do is stand in front of a piece and let it speak to you. All you need to do is listen, putting your prejudices and fears aside.

Don't be afraid. Step inside a museum or gallery and experience it for yourself.

What do you think Yayoi Kusama intended by creating this giant pumpkin and placing it at the end of a pier? What was her intent?
Why do you care?
What you should care about is how it makes you feel. (To be totally honest, you need to see it in person; a picture won't suffice.)

To sum it all up in one sentence, appreciating contemporary art is not about thinking; it's about feeling.

And when it comes to thinking about contemporary art, it's about the thoughts that come to you while experiencing it, not the thoughts you were told to have.

Thank you for reading.