Contemporary Sculpture from a Private Collection
Not so long ago, the history of modern art appeared to move forward in a fairly orderly progression from one movement to another. There was something almost biblical about this progress–Impressionism begat Post Impressionism, Post Impressionism begat Cubism, Cubism begat Surrealism, Surrealism begat Abstract Expressionism, and so on. In this view, art moved forward by extending or reacting against the preceding set of reigning assumptions, yielding a pleasing linear development from one set of influences to the next.
Things began to get more complicated in the1960s and 70s, as art moved through a dizzying series of changes predicated, it seemed at times, on little more than an attitude of negation toward all that had gone before. Still, the dream of order held on through the 1980s, as Neo Expressionism begat Neo Geo and Neo Geo begat Simulationism.