Author(s): Michael Rush

History & Theory

Modern art has radically extended the conventional medium of sculpture and painting. Following on innovative ideas about representation and the free use of materials in Cubism, Futurism and Surrealism - particularly in the work of Duchamp - artists abandoned strict adherence to traditional hierarchies of mediums and embraced any means, including technological, which best served their purposes. Furthermore, especially in the last 50 years, time and duration have reinstated narrative back in art: in filmmaking and video, the narrative theatricality of happening, performance and installation art, digitally manipulated photography and virtual reality