being contemporary

- She places the term 'contemporary' against other art movement which did help my understanding of it even if it was only a by a little. (Modernism is generally based upon a utopian vision of human life and society and a belief in progress. It aimed to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms, artists instead negating the subject and experimenting with technique and processes in order to find a way of purely and simply understanding and reflecting the modern world. Post-modernism advocates that individual experience and interpretation of our experience is more concrete that abstract principles and is the best way of understanding and responding to reality. It is a movement that is self conscious of previous styles and conventions,  anti-authoritarian by nature and refuses to recognise the authority of any single style or definition of what art should be.)

- 'Contemporary' seems to suggest that there is a certain time frame which is constantly changing, contrary to the 'periodization of the contemporary' that she mentions, stating that some consider it to be synonyms with "post-war" therefore denoting any work of art after 1945 as contemporary. (Modernism is the projection towards the future and is constantly changing whereas contemporary has a time frame?)

- Is to be contemporary to be in or with time? If so then will works of art judged as contemporary now not be considered contemporary in the future because modern society as we experience it now will be different to the society that future generation will experience in the future? I guess Bishop does say that contemporary works of art transcends that of those that simply 'tread water in the here and now' but I find that a really difficult concept to grasp especially when the text is full of contradictions that become really hard to follow sometimes.

- It's not enough to be in the here and now but you have to be aware of the now

- Is being contemporary over-romanticised? Is this all that we can hope to achieve or strive for as an artist in the 21st century? What does contemporary even look like? Is there a difference between work that is contemporary and being contemporary? One is to do with physical objects and the other is do do with the artist's practice.