... (my closing statement in my previous post) because artists today live and work in today's environment. They are confronted with the things that happen around them, each one in their own (very individual) environment. An environment that is very different now from what it was 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 ... years ago.
Therefore, the work they make today is going to be/needs to be very different from what it was 5, 10, 20 ... years ago. Art moves on because society moves on, and because artists work in response to their environment, be it social, physical/environmental, political ...
Ai Wei Wei makes the Art that he makes because of the situation he is in, as he explains in the video below:

Ai Wei Wei

I make the Art that I make because of my situation: where I live, the life and experiences I have and have had, the thoughts I have in response to what happens around me in my close environment and in the world as a whole. This includes what is happening in the world of Art today.
So, why did I say, in my post of 16 July, 'my soap is a sculpture'? To me it is Art because: it came about through happenstance; it has no (artificially imposed) monetary value; it explores the boundaries of what Art is and questions what Art is through its material and the process by which it came about; it is aesthetically pleasing. (That's enough to get on with for the moment).

- Happenstance: some artists call it accident(s), chance, coincidence. (Cathy Wilkes, see below, speaks of mysteries (of the mind), not knowing why ... ). Happenstance is paramount in my work - and excites me in other people's work - because I see it as an essential constituent of creativity itself. By continuously being open to happenstance you give creativity a full free rein, which, to me, is what creativity and Art are about. Seizing the moment, opportunities, possibilities whenever they arise during the work process, and, very importantly, creating a mindset, an environment in which these can arise. This 'work process' is continuous, in that it exists within the studio as well as outside of it. My work is constantly in my mind, as is Art itself. It is part of an artist's mindset, indeed I think it is the artist's mindset. It means I see beauty and interest all around me, and I therefore see the potential for 'Art' all around me. So, when I see a piece of soap that has changed over time into something 'interesting', i.e. beautiful AND questioning, I am in wonderment of it and am excited by it. And I embrace it as part of my work and work process.
- Monetary value: artificially imposed by the 'art world' (and consequently the art market, particularly the secondary art market) it distorts and ultimately wrecks Art and kills the creative process.
Furthermore, the material - soap - is not considered a 'noble' or 'rich' material in conventional art terms (how can it not be noble? It cleanses and purifies); it is considered an 'everyday' material - a 'poor' material as in 'povera' in Arte Povera - so the monetary value of the material itself is ... well, no very much. And that's the very reason why it is noble to me. It takes it away from the staid predictable, with simplicity, and brings vitality to the concept of Art.
- Questioning and exploring boundaries, because it is a bar of soap and I have used no 'artist's skills' to make it. Very importantly though, my sensibility as an artist did enable me to tune in to the moment that the soap had stopped being simply a bar of soap and had become something else.
Another way of questioning is by taking the 'uncomfortable' to the extreme in order to show/highlight the point, and, for fear of expanding too much here, I plan to go into this more closely in a subsequent post.
- Aesthetically pleasing: the subject of aesthetics fascinates me and I need to learn much more about it (why we feel it is 'pleasing') but at the moment I see it as either you go with it or against it as an artist. I feel I personally find greater expression in the aesthetically pleasing. It is what I naturally look for in every form/shape I see emerge during my work process; that is part of who I am as an artist. My interest in 'form' shapes my thinking and feeling on the subject - as my 'form-finding' pieces illustrate (posts dated 23/04, 17/04, and previous posts as cross-referenced) - but there is the equally valid artistic viewpoint that your questioning can resonate equally clearly - if not more so - by going completely against it. The latter then of course fits in very strongly and explicitly with my point about 'questioning'.

Both texts below illustrate some of the points I have made immediately above. They also illustrate very well my point about Art belonging/fitting into its time, and consequently, Art moving forward.

Cathy Wilkes

“Uncompromisingly introspective” sculpture

Cathy Wilkes, Untitled -Possil, at last-, 2013 (Detail) - Tate Purchased 2014 - Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute-Toby Webster Ltd - photo Cristiano Corte

Cathy Wilkes transforms ensembles of everyday objects into theatrical installations to create a surreal, uncanny effect. The narrative moments add up to a strong emotional pull, while focusing on art’s capacity to overcome the limits inherent to language.

“I know that it's impossible to be objective- I have concluded that over time. And being non-objective brings all the mysteries of my mind into my work. I think these parts are very important to any artwork: not knowing why something is exactly as it is or why it's there at all.

I want to show these mysteries in an expanded way, but I am not interested in being confessional.”

Cathy Wilkes, Installation view 'The Encyclopedic Palace', Venice Biennale, 2013 - Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute, Toby Webster Ltd - photo Cristiano Corte

Recurring motifs in Wilkes’ work are shop window dummies, cooking utensils, ladders, tiles and textiles. These motifs serve to anchor the alleged dramas in the domestic terrain. Wilkes’ unmistakable formal language establishes a powerful bond that links her to art history, while her themes are shaped by family references and personal experiences.

Best known for her imaginary environments which recall poetic visions, her installations evoke places of loss or transformation.

Her work is occupied by beings, often of unspecified gender: infants, elders and animals. It includes collections of objects and treasured ingredients accumulated from daily life, for example cloths, towels, cups and plates and biscuits.

Cathy Wilkes, Untitled, 2013 (Detail) - Private Collection, Courtesy of the artist, Xavier Hufkens and The Modern Institute-Toby Webster Ltd

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz presents the most comprehensive display of work to date by the artist. The exhibition conceived by Cathy Wilkes and curated by Francesco Manacorda (Tate Liverpool) with Stella Rollig (Lentos Kunstmuseum), brings together more than a decade of the artist’s work, including several of her large-scale sculptural installations alongside paintings, works on paper and archive materials.

The works shown include Untitled (Possil, at last), originally exhibited at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, which remembers in its title the Glasgow district of Possil, where Possil Pottery was located during the nineteenth century before its closing in 1942; and Untitled (Biggar), 2013 which in turn alludes to a small former mining town in South Lanarkshire. In these works the displacement of geographical and temporal conditions and the frailty of existence are set in counter relation to a sense of infinite and unbreakable time continuum.

...

CATHY WILKESUntil 4.10.2015
Lentos Kunstmuseum
Linz, Austria

And
Lustwarande '15

Rapture and Pain – Or a status quo in contemporary sculpture

Kevin Van Braak Shards, Nuclear Weapons, 2012

From 29 August to 25 October 16 artists from around the world present recent and new works specially created for Lustwarande ’15.

Under the title of Rapture & Pain, the fifth edition investigates the social critique conveyed by contemporary art works and relates them to the zeitgeist. The exhibition deals with contemporary notions of progress in which expressions of hope, ecstasy and utopia alternate with manifestations of doubt, fear and degeneration.

Lustwarande ’15 does not so much aim to show new trends but rather to present a specific status quo in contemporary sculpture in which different forms, including technologically innovative and architecture related, as well as performative sculpture, are addressed.

Folkert de Jong, Neolithic Skyline, 2015

All works are related, intentionally or unintentionally, to the location and to the time in which they have been conceived, mapping a wide range of current social issues and themes.

However diverse these themes at first glance may seem, at a more global level and from a current perspective, they are bound by the social critique they articulate: either belief or doubt. Rapture & Pain addresses contemporary thoughts on progress, where expressions of hope, ecstasy and utopia are interspersed with expressions of doubt, fear and decadence, diverging and converging on a gliding scale.