In a series of monthly blogs, Paul Hobson reflects on current developments in contemporary art.
‘We live in a consumer culture and it is not surprising that contemporary artists are interested in reflecting back and critiquing the values, strategies and formats of consumerism.
Exposure to forms of popular visual production generated through the latest consumer technologies is part of an everyday experience for most of us in the West. For artists, this culture embraces new references, surfaces and platforms for their artistic practices.
In many ways this is a development seen in Modern art’s celebration of popular culture and consumerism which reached its peak during the Pop art movement and has retained an enduring influence and presence as an idea in diverse forms of Postmodern art since the 1960s.
Some artists – like the artist currently exhibiting at Modern Art Oxford – Debora Delmar Corp. – even go so far as to adopt the name and behaviour of a corporate structure in order to literally enact the increasingly collapsed relationship between individual and corporate identity in the 21st century. It is likely that these forms of examination, opposition and exploitation will continue to be a defining attitude in contemporary art well into the future.’