Art Was Always Trendy

 

The interesting thing about the so-called New Aesthetic movement was that it wasn't necessarily concerned with Aesthetics per se, but rather how aesthetics (as an aspect of cognition) affect behaviors. As artists typically give us alternate ways of seeing, contemporary artists give us new ways of awareness of all things as being subject for artistic treatment. Art can still be simply about beauty and/or decoration as well. It is never an either/or situation, and in fact can be done at all levels by a single artist, such as Gerhard Richter who was able to slip between representation and conceptualism quite easily. For me that answers all aspects of the question. “What is music?” can be asked with somewhat of a similar answer.