I’ve seen a clear theme emerging in a lot of stuff I’ve read in the last couple months on contemporary art photography and contemporary art in general. It is that people now increasingly believe that the age of contemporary art/ photography that ramped up in the 60’s and 70’s and ran strong through the 80’s and 90’s is now on the wane if not actually over, and that something else must be moving onto the stage, even though it’s totally unclear what it is.

And maybe more interestingly, they seem to be realizing, some more than others, that the main reason that contemporary art/ photography has gone on as long as it has and is still limping along is that the ideas that lie at its foundation – especially the ideas of conceptualism and intentionality – became institutionalized in the art establishment and the art schools and became things that critics and theoreticians talked about and teachers taught and students learned as a matter of course without anyone really questioning them or subjecting them to critical examination. This began maybe thirty years ago and is still continuing today.

People seem a bit reluctant to point specific fingers, but this is not, to me at least, surprising. The reason is that they themselves are responsible. Why? Because they all got teaching jobs during the big expansion of art programs in the 70’s (especially), and have become middle aged and complacent in their positions. You can’t blame them for this, but you can’t trust them either, to point the way to the future. They are too secure, too armchair, too invested in the status quo, however much they make a show of trying to shake it up.

If you really want to figure out what’s going to happen, forget about these people and pay attention to the under thirties, the unemployed (or working crappy day jobs), the entrepreneurs, the crazies, the geniuses. They’re the ones who are going to actually make the future. – John Legweak

“In a world where the 2 billionth photograph has been uploaded to Flickr..” [HCSP]