Methodological problems of contemporary art history: historical background and socio-cultural realities

Abstract

The article touches upon the issues of topical methodological problems of modern art history, including domestic, considers the historical background of their emergence, analyzes the concepts of scientists regarding the criteria of artistry, artistic creativity andassessment of works of contemporary art. The newest tendencies and factors influencing the formation of contemporary art are revealed,such as: digitalization, virtualization, commercialization, blurring the boundaries between elite and mass art, loss of integrity, polystylism,liberation from any norms of regulation, departure from the classical understanding of artistry. It was found that when evaluating worksof contemporary art, such non-artistic criteria as fashion, relevance, popularity of the author, investment attractiveness, and commercialsuccess began to play an important role. These criteria lead to the fact that the artistic evaluation of works of art is subjective, contributeto a departure from understanding art as an expression of certain universally significant and valuable meanings. The purpose of the work is to understand the current methodological problems of contemporary Russian art history, which arise bothat the theoretical and practical levels in relation to those artistic processes and practices that exist in contemporary art. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research was such philosophical and general scientific approaches, principles andmethods that allowed us to consider the methodological problems of modern art history from different perspectives: the principle oftransdisciplinary allows us to reveal the essence of modern art as a complex phenomenon; the method of generalization made it possibleto determine the place of contemporary art in the ideological paradigm through the analysis of ambiguous formulations and statementsregarding works of contemporary art, art practices and performative practices that were presented in various sources.