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Contemporary Art

CONTEMPORARY STYLE

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Contemporary
Color:  Purple
Untitled, from the series 'Utatane' – Rinko Kawauchi, Japanese, Lights, Building
Located in Zurich, CH
RINKO KAWAUCHI (*1972, Japan) Untitled, from the series 'Utatane' 2001 C–type print Sheet 101,6 x 101,6 cm (40 x 40 in.) Edition of 6; Ed. no. 3/6 This photograph belongs to the se...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

C Print

"In the Deep" Lavender Large Scale Abstract Color Photograph, Waterscape Wave
Located in New York, NY
Large Scale Limited edition color photograph, 40"x60" depicting an abstract waterscape with a lavender sky. This contemporary landscape photograph has has a painterly feel; the artist has captured a rising cusp of a wave with blue and cool white, against a violet and pink sky. The photographer Danny...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper

The Autumn arrives, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
The Autumn Arrives - Contrasts of colour, contrast of temperatures, contrasts of feelings ... That's Autumn. We love it for the colors and for the odors but we hate it because it's t...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Acrylic

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - Star Jewelry, I am that I am
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor, Wood Panel

Between Them
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Balloon Dog (Magenta)
Located in Santa Monica, CA
Signed and numbered with certificate of authenticity (signature and edition number are fired onto the verso) Dimensions: 10 1/2" x 10 1/2" x 5" Material: Porcelain ©Jeff Koons Produc...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Porcelain

1982 After Franco Costa 'Sail Pool Sweden' Nautical
By Franco Costa
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Paper Size: 37.25 x 27.5 inches ( 94.615 x 69.85 cm ) Image Size: 35 x 27.5 inches ( 88.9 x 69.85 cm ) Framed: No Condition: B: Very Good Condition, with signs of handling or age ...
Category

1980s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

TERRA IN COGNITA #1
Located in Aventura, FL
Lithograph on paper. Sheet size 19 x 12 inches. Hand signed, dated and numbered by the artist. Edition of 300. Certificate of Authenticity Included. Artwork in Excellent Conditi...
Category

Late 20th Century Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph, Paper

Tape Collection, AILA Purple - Contemporary Pop Art Color Photography
Located in Cambridge, GB
AILA Purple, from the Heidler & Heeps Tape Collection - The B Sides. The Heidler & Heeps collaborations are creative representations of Natasha Heidler and Richard Heeps’, personal p...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin

Namaste
Located in Bloomington, IL
"Namaste", is a woodcut printed in an edition of 12. The blocks were carved and printed by the artist on Natsume, a handmade Japanese kozo paper with gampi fibers. The paper has a be...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Woodcut

Reclining Nude (Blue) II /// Contemporary Pop Art Figurative Minimal Screenprint
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Dan May (American, 1955-) Title: "Reclining Nude (Blue) II" Portfolio: Reclining Nudes *Signed and numbered by May in pencil lower left Year: 1983 Medium: Original Screenprin...
Category

1980s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

The Heir - Painting by Salvatore Petrucino - 2020
Located in Roma, IT
The Heir is an original acrylic painting realized by the Italian artist Salvatore Petrucino in 2020. Hand-signed on the lower right. Technique, dimensions, and date are written on ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Acrylic

Brasil
Located in New York, NY
Print #12 from an edition of 30, themed after the colors and ideas from Brasil. Will ship Flat - Inquire for framing options Born in 1979, Denis Meyers is a Belgian urban artist. He studied at the National Superior School of Arts and Visuals of la Cambre, in Brussels, city where he currently lives and works. Denis Meyers is particularly known for his frescoes and stickers in form of faces, which he calls his “perso”, printed and cut out by hand and then spread in the urban space. The artist defines himself as a typographer, a vocation that he inherited from his grandfather, Lucien De Roeck (1915-2002) which created among others the ensemble of the World Expo poster...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper, Offset

Darkness III, Painting, Oil on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
I enjoy night walks on the beach and the luminosity that a full moon brings with it. This piece is a captured moment from memory. The ocean is just as alive at night as it is durin...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - The Supernova Remnant
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor, Wood Panel

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - Dreaming, Butterfly
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor, Wood Panel

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - Light in the Forest, Rabbit
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor, Wood Panel

French Contemporary Art by Brigitte Mathé - Abstract 15
Located in Paris, IDF
Artwork in acrylic on linen sold with a white frame
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Linen, Acrylic

Eye of the Iris III, Color Photography, Flowers, Floral, Botanical, Purple
Located in Riverdale, NY
Rebecca Swanson, Eye of the Iris III, Limited Edition Photograph, 15x15. It is available with Plexifacemount or white frame as shown. This stunning image is filled purples and a touch of green, yellow and brown. This is an edition of 15. Also available in 30x30. Printing and framing upon placed order. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery Rebecca Swanson’s work is inspired from her childhood in Ohio, growing up with her mother, an avid gardener, and her grandmother, an accomplished china painter. Her work is cultivated by the natural world, with its universal fragility and beauty we share with all plants and flowers. She “paints” with her camera, blending the abstract forms of nature with subtle colors to build intimate portraits of perfect, individual blooms. Her utopia is New York City with its parks, waterfronts, and botanical gardens. Rebecca studied drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture at the Cleveland Institute of Art and moved to New York to work as a textile designer. Rebecca has been exhibiting since 1995 in renown locations including the New York City Leica Gallery. Her photographs can be found in corporate collections including Banana Republic, St. Regis, Marriott and Omni hotels and in hospitals throughout the country. She has photographed gardens...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper

Motel Desert Shores III, Salton Sea, California - American Color Photography
Located in Cambridge, GB
Motel Desert Shores, from Richard Heeps Salton Sea series. This picture has the a vibe of a Southern California American road trip, the colours are so seductive, the palm trees creat...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin

The Rooster - Original Lithograph by Pietro Carabellese - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Hand signed and numbered by artist with pencil. Edition of 100 prints. Very good conditions.
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

Untitled
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
This is a delightful piece of art. It expresses the hope of the common man amidst the everyday experiences that beset him. He is challenged to look beyond the current hardship and vi...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Manifest of Simbari - Lithograph by Nicola Simbari - 1970
Located in Roma, IT
Manifest of Simbari i is an original offset and lithograph realized by Nicola Simbari in 1970. Hand-signed on the bottom center. The artwork represents a woman and two girls playin...
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

Barco Violeta II. Mix media painting on Canvas
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Barco Violeta II, by Sergio Bazan Mix media on Canvas Image Size: 50 H x 50 W cm Unframed Signed by artist _______ Sergio Bazan was born in Buenos Aires in 1962. He was artistical...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Winter
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Winter - 2001, 20x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne Projection is a form of apparition that is characteristic of our human nature, for what we imagine almost invariably transcends the reality of what we live. And, an apparition, as the word suggests, is quite literally ‘an appearing’, for what we appear to imagine is largely shaped by the imagination of its appearance. If this sounds tautological then so be it. But the work of Stefanie Schneider is almost invariably about chance and apparition. And, it is through the means of photography, the most apparitional of image-based media, that her pictorial narratives or photo-novels are generated. Indeed, traditional photography (as distinct from new digital technology) is literally an ‘awaiting’ for an appearance to take place, in line with the imagined image as executed in the camera and later developed in the dark room. The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised. The stability comes only at such time when the images are re-shot and developed in the studio, and thereby fixed or arrested temporarily in space and time. The unpredictable and at times unstable film she adopts for her works also creates a sense of chance within the outcome that can be imagined or potentially envisaged by the artist Schneider. But this chance manifestation is a loosely controlled, or, better called existential sense of chance, which becomes pre-disposed by the immediate circumstances of her life and the project she is undertaking at the time. Hence the choices she makes are largely open-ended choices, driven by a personal nature and disposition allowing for a second appearing of things whose eventual outcome remains undefined. And, it is the alliance of the chance-directed material apparition of Polaroid film, in turn explicitly allied to the experiences of her personal life circumstances, that provokes the potential to create Stefanie Schneider’s open-ended narratives. Therefore they are stories based on a degenerate set of conditions that are both material and human, with an inherent pessimism and a feeling for the sense of sublime ridicule being seemingly exposed. This in turn echoes and doubles the meaning of the verb ‘to expose’. To expose being embedded in the technical photographic process, just as much as it is in the narrative contents of Schneider’s photo-novel exposés. The former being the unstable point of departure, and the latter being the uncertain ends or meanings that are generated through the photographs doubled exposure. The large number of speculative theories of apparition, literally read as that which appears, and/or creative visions in filmmaking and photography are self-evident, and need not detain us here. But from the earliest inception of photography artists have been concerned with manipulated and/or chance effects, be they directed towards deceiving the viewer, or the alchemical investigations pursued by someone like Sigmar Polke. None of these are the real concern of the artist-photographer Stefanie Schneider, however, but rather she is more interested with what the chance-directed appearances in her photographs portend. For Schneider’s works are concerned with the opaque and porous contents of human relations and events, the material means are largely the mechanism to achieving and exposing the ‘ridiculous sublime’ that has come increasingly to dominate the contemporary affect(s) of our world. The uncertain conditions of today’s struggles as people attempt to relate to each other - and to themselves - are made manifest throughout her work. And, that she does this against the backdrop of the so-called ‘American Dream’, of a purportedly advanced culture that is Modern America, makes them all the more incisive and critical as acts of photographic exposure. From her earliest works of the late nineties one might be inclined to see her photographs as if they were a concerted attempt at an investigative or analytic serialisation, or, better still, a psychoanalytic dissection of the different and particular genres of American subculture. But this is to miss the point for the series though they have dates and subsequent publications remain in a certain sense unfinished. Schneider’s work has little or nothing to do with reportage as such, but with recording human culture in a state of fragmentation and slippage. And, if a photographer like Diane Arbus dealt specifically with the anomalous and peculiar that made up American suburban life, the work of Schneider touches upon the alienation of the commonplace. That is to say how the banal stereotypes of Western Americana have been emptied out, and claims as to any inherent meaning they formerly possessed has become strangely displaced. Her photographs constantly fathom the familiar, often closely connected to traditional American film genre, and make it completely unfamiliar. Of course Freud would have called this simply the unheimlich or uncanny. But here again Schneider almost never plays the role of the psychologist, or, for that matter, seeks to impart any specific meanings to the photographic contents of her images. The works possess an edited behavioural narrative (she has made choices), but there is never a sense of there being a clearly defined story. Indeed, the uncertainty of my reading here presented, acts as a caveat to the very condition that Schneider’s photographs provoke. Invariably the settings of her pictorial narratives are the South West of the United States, most often the desert and its periphery in Southern California. The desert is a not easily identifiable space, with the suburban boundaries where habitation meets the desert even more so. There are certain sub-themes common to Schneider’s work, not least that of journeying, on the road, a feeling of wandering and itinerancy, or simply aimlessness. Alongside this subsidiary structural characters continually appear, the gas station, the automobile, the motel, the highway, the revolver, logos and signage, the wasteland, the isolated train track and the trailer. If these form a loosely defined structure into which human characters and events are cast, then Schneider always remains the fulcrum and mechanism of their exposure. Sometimes using actresses, friends, her sister, colleagues or lovers, Schneider stands by to watch the chance events as they unfold. And, this is even the case when she is a participant in front of camera of her photo-novels. It is the ability to wait and throw things open to chance and to unpredictable circumstances, that marks the development of her work over the last eight years. It is the means by which random occurrences take on such a telling sense of pregnancy in her work. However, in terms of analogy the closest proximity to Schneider’s photographic work is that of film. For many of her titles derive directly from film, in photographic series like OK Corral (1999), Vegas (1999), Westworld (1999), Memorial Day (2001), Primary Colours (2001), Suburbia (2004), The Last Picture Show (2005), and in other examples. Her works also include particular images that are titled Zabriskie Point, a photograph of her sister in an orange wig. Indeed the tentative title for the present publication Stranger Than Paradise is taken from Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title in 1984. Yet it would be dangerous to take this comparison too far, since her series 29 Palms (1999) presages the later title of a film that appeared only in 2002. What I am trying to say here is that film forms the nexus of American culture, and it is not so much that Schneider’s photographs make specific references to these films (though in some instances they do), but that in referencing them she accesses the same American culture that is being emptied out and scrutinised by her photo-novels. In short her pictorial narratives might be said to strip films of the stereotypical Hollywood tropes that many of them possess. Indeed, the films that have most inspired her are those that similarly deconstruct the same sentimental and increasingly tawdry ‘American Dream’ peddled by Hollywood. These include films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990) The Lost Highway (1997), John Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1994) or films like Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise with all its girl-power Bonny and Clyde-type clichés. But they serve no more than as a backdrop, a type of generic tableau from which Schneider might take human and abstracted elements, for as commercial films they are not the product of mere chance and random occurrence. Notwithstanding this observation, it is also clear that the gender deconstructions that the characters in these films so often portray, namely the active role of women possessed of a free and autonomous sexuality (even victim turned vamp), frequently find resonances within the behavioural events taking place in Schneider’s photographs and DVD sequences; the same sense of sexual autonomy that Stefanie Schneider possesses and is personally committed to. In the series 29 Palms (first begun in 1999) the two women characters Radha and Max act out a scenario that is both infantile and adolescent. Wearing brightly coloured fake wigs of yellow and orange, a parody of the blonde and the redhead, they are seemingly trailer park white trash possessing a sentimental and kitsch taste in clothes totally inappropriate to the locality. The fact that Schneider makes no judgment about this is an interesting adjunct. Indeed, the photographic projection of the images is such that the girls incline themselves to believe that they are both beautiful and desirous. However, unlike the predatory role of women in say Richard Prince’s photographs, which are simply a projection of a male fantasy onto women, Radha and Max are self-contained in their vacuous if empty trailer and motel world of the swimming pool, nail polish, and childish water pistols. Within the photographic sequence Schneider includes herself, and acts as a punctum of disruption. Why is she standing in front of an Officers’ Wives Club? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - Jewel Tree, Bambi
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor, Wood Panel

Untitled-173, Acrylic on Canvas by Contemporary Indian Artist "In Stock"
Located in Kolkata, West Bengal
Sandesh Khule - Untitled-173 - 24 x 48 inches (unframed size) Acrylic on Canvas , 2022 ABOUT ARTIST : Painting has a spiritual dimension in its purest ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

East Hampton Beach with Dramatic Clouds, Color Photography, Clyfford Still
Located in Miami, FL
A single house juts out into a vast sky and sea of Long Island. The image takes inspiration from the epic 19th-century paintings and the American West with vast unending sky and untamed landscapes. Yet the composition is quite radical and evocative of the simple shapes of Color Field painter Clyfford Still...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

BACK TO EARTH Signed Lithograph, Abstract Landscape, Zebra, Crescent Moon, Grass
By Margo Humphrey
Located in Union City, NJ
BACK TO EARTH is an original hand drawn lithograph by the American woman artist printmaker Margo Humphrey printed using hand lithography methods on archival Arches printmaking paper ...
Category

1960s Contemporary Art

Materials

Lithograph

Whitewashed Sage (2022), gray white concrete face sculpture, metal wire, earthy
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Whitewashed Sage (2022), gray and white concrete abstract face sculpture, metal wire, earthy Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, shelf sculpture or tabletop s...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Concrete, Wire

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - Jewel Tree, Rabbit
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Wood Panel, Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor

Winter Afternoon Sun by Gordon Hunt, Contemporary painting, Original art
Located in Deddington, GB
Winter Afternoon Sun by Gordon Hunt Original and hand signed by the artist Oil on canvas Sold unframed Image size: H:60cm x W:60cm Complete size of unframed work: H:60cm x W:60cm ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Lucid Dreams - Polaroid, Color, Women, 21st Century, Nude
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Lucid Dreams - 2020 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-942. Not moun...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Field Painting September 18 2020, Lilac Flowers, Yellow Green Grass, Trees
Located in Kent, CT
A peaceful outdoor scene of a delicately painted field beneath a tree with olive green leaves, beautifully capturing the idyllic feel of a field of wildflowers and tall grass in Sept...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

Perfect Love (2022), figurative, woman, flower, figure drawing, contour line
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Perfect Love (2022), figurative, sitting woman, flower, figure drawing, contour line, tulip, leaf, leaves, foliage, garden "Perfect Love" by Rebecca N. Johnson Limewash, pigment ink...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Pigment, Pastel, Ink, Archival Paper

Untitled
Located in Bloomington, IL
This print is a mixed-media monotype. In addition to paper and ink the artist has incorporated synthetic mesh, creating a layered, tactile surface Known for incorporating unusual materials into his prints, Carlos Andrade approaches the monotype medium fluidly and intuitively, ignoring many of the conventions of printmaking. He has utilized industrial fabrics...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Mixed Media, Monotype

Arctic Tundra (2019), oil painting, ecosystem, animals, pastels, polar fauna
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Arctic Tundra (2019), oil painting, ecosystem, animals, pastels, polar fauna "Arctic Tundra" by Alexis Kandra. Figurative oil painting with holographic foil on wood panel. Arctic tundra ecosystem, animals of Tundra biome, Arctic Circle, North Pole, South Pole, Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Antarctica, fauna. Arctic hare, polar bear, caribou, Arctic fox, Arctic tern...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Foil

Life and Death - Original Screen Print by Paolo Pasotto - 1976
Located in Roma, IT
Life and Death is an original Screen Print realized by Paolo Pasotto in 1976 Hand-signed. Artist Proof.
Category

1970s Contemporary Art

Materials

Screen

Sunrise Tunnel (2022), oil on canvas, earth tones, greenhouse, farm landscape
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Sunrise Tunnel (2022), oil painting on canvas, earth tones and pastels, outdoor greenhouse, farm landscape, silos and green hills in background, skyscape, sunrise colors "Sunrise Tunnel" by Delilah Ray...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Defiance II
Located in Ibadan, Oyo
Painting Ships in a well-protected tube from Nigeria This work is unique, this is not a print or other type of copy. Signed on the front side and accompanied by a Certificate of Auth...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Untitled - Painting by Mauro Bellucci - 2020
Located in Roma, IT
This beautiful painting Untitled - from the Series Industrial Pollution was realized by the Italian artist Mauro Bellucci in 2020. Water enamel paint and resin on canvas from the se...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Enamel

The Chestnut And The Moon - Contemporary Figurative Nature Oil Painting, Trees
Located in Salzburg, AT
Born 1979 in Warsaw. Works in painting and photography. Between 2001and 2006 she studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Professors Jaroslaw Modzelewski and Grzeg...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Body Painting Alalgura" Aboriginal Acrylic Painting on Linen by Maisie Bundey
Located in London, GB
Maisie Bundey has been painting since 1989 and has always strived to have a different style to her sisters who paint the same country and story. Her painting is always linked to her ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Linen, Acrylic

"Big Yellow Duck", contemporary, duck, dots, yellow, acrylic, oil, painting
Located in Natick, MA
Anne Sargent Walker’s “Big Yellow Duck”, a 40 x 40 inch oil and acrylic painting on wood panel, is one of a series of toy duck paintings completed after Hurri...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Acrylic, Wood Panel

Replay 3
Located in Bloomington, IL
"Replay 3" is a unique hand-painted monoprint. The artist's ink drawing made on translucent film was etched into a copper plate using the technique of photogravure. The plate became ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Acrylic, Photogravure

Flora Full Circle (Gold & Indigo Blue Cyanotype of Botanical Mandala, Framed)
Located in Hudson, NY
Figurative Still Life painting of pale blue and gold flowers on an indigo cyanotype background "Cyanotype Painting (Gold Flora Full Circle), made by Hudson Valley artist, Julia Whitney Barnes in 2021 Watercolor, Gouache and Cyanotype on Cotton Arches Paper 30 x 23 inches unframed, 33 x 26 inches in a custom frame Handmade maple frame with splined joined corners, finished in a gold lacquer on the face and natural waxed maple sides. Artwork is floated on archival museum board and glazed with UV filtering and anti-reflective Museum Glass. Excellent condition and ready to hang as is. Comes with two hanging options (wire and French cleat) This still life painting was made by Hudson Valley painter, Julia Whitney Barnes, in 2022. The painting is made using a camera-less cyanotype photography...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper

Memory Season
Located in Westport, CT
This nature based work is by Cara Enteles. Her work is motivated by a fascination with nature and a concern for the environment. She splits her time between NYC and rural northeast P...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Plexiglass, Screen, Oil

ATARI Imperatore - conceptual photograph of iconic video game in epic nature
Located in San Francisco, CA
ATARI Imperatore (2019) by Frank Schott from a series of photographic observances capturing conceptual signs in nature 48 x 74 inches / 122cm x 188c...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée

LINEAR MOVEMENT I - Night in NYC / Cityscape / Neon lights / Unique Perspective
Located in New York, NY
Original oil painting by Alexandra Pacula
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Japanese Contemporary Art by Minako Asakura - Squirrel in the Forest
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & watercolour on marouflaged paper with wooden panel
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor, Wood Panel

NOMAD IV (Film Rebate), New York - Conceptual Architectural Color Photography
Located in Cambridge, GB
'NOMAD IV (Film Rebate)', New York. Richard Heeps has photographed the iconic Empire State building in the mist. The NOMAD sequence of photographs capture the art deco architecture i...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin

Agora
Located in Spetses, GR
Zachariadis' 'Agora' is comprised of two conjoined 100x120 panels that combine to create a phenomenal wide angle complexion of a classic European marketplace...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

Night Stalker - Contemporary Figurative Animals Oil Painting, Magical Realism
Located in Salzburg, AT
Aleksandra Bujnowska born 1979 in Warsaw. Works in painting and photography. Between 2001and 2006 she studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Professors Jaroslaw ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Replay 8
Located in Bloomington, IL
"Replay 8" is a unique hand-painted monoprint. The artist's ink drawing made on translucent film was etched into a copper plate using the technique of photogravure. The plate became ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Art

Materials

Acrylic, Photogravure

Tape Collection, AILA Lilac - Contemporary Pop Art Color Photography
Located in Cambridge, GB
AILA Lilac, from the Heidler & Heeps Tape Collection - The B Sides. The Heidler & Heeps collaborations are creative representations of Natasha Heidler and Richard Heeps’, personal pa...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin

Story Teller With Cat and Mouse, painting by Melanie Yazzie, Navajo, Denver
Located in Santa Fe, NM
Story Teller With Cat and Mouse, painting by Melanie Yazzie, Navajo, Denver Yazzie was asked by the Denver Art Museum to select several items from its collection that were immediatel...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Acrylic, Wood Panel

LINEAR MOVEMENT II - Neon Lights / Contemporary Cityscape / New York
Located in New York, NY
Original oil painting by Alexandra Pacula
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Las Chicas
Located in New York, NY
Vibrant, Picasso-style piece. About the artist: Born in 1963 in Cali, Colombia, Diego Velez is a self-taught painter who began painting at the age of 6 years old. Velez is always ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media

Contemporary art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Contemporary art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, purple, orange, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Stefanie Schneider, Tyler Shields, Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde, and Richard Heeps. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Paper and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Contemporary art, so small editions measuring 0.02 inches across are also available.

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