Art History in Contemporary Art

It is a common place to think contemporary art is created as an independent art without relationship with its history. However, art has always related not only with its own history but with historical facts of humanity.

David Hockney is one of the most important contemporary artists at least from the 70s to now. He is not the only reference to talk about this issue, but his practice is a good example to have an approach for why contemporary artist are interested in creating links with art history.

In the Secret Knowledge, Hockney analyses how classic art is related with contemporary painting. There are some, signs, traces and elements that remains in art beyond the time, geography or culture. At least in Western culture, we haves some reference that appears constantly in art from the Renaissance or the 2022 art.

But why artist have been so interested in recap the art from the past:

1. It is a way understand and analyze the reality from another perspective

2. By looking to our past, we can create connections with the present

3. Art History is not a lineal history, it is always related with different times