Art in Transition
- Nathan Olivarez
- Dec 30, 2025
- 3 min read
Our current era of contemporary art is identified by self-expression, multiculturalism, and the internet, encompassing a wide range of subjects and materials. These things allow art to be welcoming to a wider group of people, especially those who have been historically barred from the galleries and ateliers of art history’s past.
Art is also more accessible now than ever. Supplies can be as simple as copy paper and a BIC pen, and even good-quality color pencils and ink can be purchased at your local Walmart. If you are more tech-savvy, there are a lot of ways to make art digitally on your tablet, phone, or computer with little investment outside of a drawing pen. Art tutorials and classes are effectively free to anyone with access to a screen and the internet, with millions of videos on YouTube.
While some art galleries have been slow to catch up to what a lot of young artists are interested in, there is a concerted effort to understand their work in a larger context of what we call “contemporary art.” It is possible that art is being created now more than any other time in history, and that there are more people who call themselves artists, but are we living in a golden era of art, or is time running out for what we understand as contemporary art?
Contemporary art is very difficult to define and pin down, because it isn’t just one movement, but a series of movements that weave in and out of each other. Art and artists are fragmented from subject matter, political views, mediums, aesthetics, and revivals of past movements. While I do think that as long as art is pedaled by the internet’s global influence, that this is largely going to stay the same, but that doesn’t mean that change is not coming. The most pressing concern regarding change, especially for young and commercial artists, is generative artificial intelligence, known as “AI.”
While I don’t think “AI” is an accurate term, it is the one I will use for clarity's sake. AI is capable of generating images using visual material on the internet from prompts input by the user. Many artists, including myself, view this as a form of theft. It isn’t uncommon to find artists, young and old, posting a meme of director Hayao Miyazaki calling AI an “insult to life itself.”
Even if I have my disagreements with it, there is a valid academic argument that incorporates AI as a new tool or medium, like digital art or a camera. As a venture capitalist investment strategy, the future of AI is uncertain, and there is speculation that the bubble will burst on this technology sooner rather than later. Regardless of whether it will be here in ten years or not, it has made conversations surrounding the future of art more nuanced.
While many established local and national artists are mostly going to ignore this dilemma, I think it's very possible that, outside of sociopolitical forces, a lot of artists can lean into “process” as a subject and an active rebellion against AI art, or even a humanist perspective of art. Artists could also ignore AI and focus on other subjects. Philosophically, we are entering an age of anti-empiricism and populism, which could lead to new forms of Romanticism or Expressionism. Either way, the clock is striking twelve on contemporary art, and we are in the middle of a transition. Change, one way or another, is coming.
