In its most basic sense, the term contemporary art refers to art—namely, painting, sculpture, photography, installation, performance, and video art—produced today. Though seemingly simple, the details surrounding this definition are often a bit fuzzy, as different individuals’ interpretations of “today” may widely and wildly vary. Therefore, the exact starting point of the genre is still debated; however, many art historians consider the late 1960s or early 1970s (the end of modern art, or modernism) to be an adequate estimate.
Famous Contemporary Artists
Heimo Zobernig
Heimo Zobernig, born in 1958 in Mauthen, Austria, is an Austrian painter living and working in Vienna, Austria. Zobernig works in various media such as installation, sculpture, film, video, and architectural intervention but is best known for his painterly practice.
Zobernig interrogates the formal language of modernism, exploring ideas of Minimalism, the monochrome, the grid, or color theory. Zobernig has earned his place in our list of The 20 Most Famous Painters Today.
For further reading, we highly recommend the monographic publication Heimo Zobernig.
William Kentridge
William Kentridge, born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, is a contemporary artist working and residing in the Gauteng province, South Africa. Kentridge is best known for his printmaking, drawing, and animated films, although also being occupied with painting, performance, and sculpture. The highly rated draughtsman discusses post-apartheid in South Africa. His expressionist and virtuoso visual language in various media are characterized by black and white compositions and narrative quality.
For further reading on William Kentridge, we highly recommend William Kentridge by the Phaidon Contemporary Art Series.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol was one of the most prolific and popular artists of his time, using both avant-garde and highly commercial sensibilities.
Who Was Andy Warhol?
Andy Warhol was a successful magazine and ad illustrator who became a leading artist of the 1960s Pop art movements. He ventured into a wide variety of art forms, including performance art, filmmaking, video installations and writing and controversially blurred the lines between fine art and mainstream aesthetics. Warhol died on February 22, 1987, in New York City.
Early Life
Born Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928, in the neighborhood of Oakland in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol’s parents were Slovakian immigrants. His father, Andrej Warhola, was a construction worker, while his mother, Julia Warhola, was an embroiderer. They were devout Byzantine Catholics who attended mass regularly and maintained much of their Slovakian culture and heritage while living in one of Pittsburgh’s Eastern European ethnic enclaves.
At the age of eight, Warhol contracted Chorea—also known as St. Vitus’s Dance — a rare and sometimes fatal disease of the nervous system that left him bedridden for several months. It was during these months, while Warhol was sick in bed, that his mother, herself a skillful artist, gave him his first drawing lessons. Drawing soon became Warhol’s favorite childhood pastime. He was also an avid fan of movies, and when his mother bought him a camera at the age of nine, he took up photography as well, developing film in a makeshift darkroom he set up in their basement.
Alighiero Boëtti
Alighiero Boëtti was an Italian Postwar & Contemporary artist who was born in 1940.
His work is currently being shown at multiple venues like MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna. Numerous key galleries and museums such as Whitechapel Art Gallery have featured Alighiero Boëtti’s work in the past.
Alighiero Boëtti’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from 15 USD to 8,827,100 USD, depending on the size and medium of the artwork. Since 1998 the record price for this artist at auction is 8,827,100 USD for Mappa, sold at Sotheby’s New York in 2022.
Alighiero Boëtti has been featured in articles for ArtDependence Magazine, Frieze Magazine and The National. The most recent article is Contemporary Week at Dorotheum Featuring Modern and Contemporary Art, Jewellery and Wristwatches written for ArtDaily in November 2022. The artist died in 1994. Artist’s alternative names: Alighiero Boetti, Alighiero e Boëtti, Boetti
OLY. B
“With each painting, I tell a different story of my feelings, the people I meet, and the phrases I say. I take a portion of my life and soul and leave them on the canvas,” OLY admits in her interview.
Creative and visionary artists can easily recognize the combination of certain colors and original patterns made in the author’s technique.
OLY.B’s canvases decorate the homes and places of celebrities and influencers.
Her favorite material is acrylics.
Two of her more well-known and prominent paintings are named “Pervaded” and “Jenga”.
OLY. B is an innovative artist from Los Angeles. She combined several popular trends and created her unique style.
OLY. B paints with a closed plot but an open ending. The central image is a woman personifying unity. She is powerful, expressive, sensual, frank, and erotic. Wise as nature, naive as a child.
According to the author, all of her works are personal episodes, conveying not only a stunning picture but also the events she had experienced in her life.
