Moving Past Visual Monoculture: Why Many Perspectives Matter in Contemporary Art

Charlotte Wensley
Oct 3
6 min read

It is a privilege to be chosen for inclusion in the Circle Foundation for the Arts Art Ideal: Volume 5, especially as the curator's essay and purpose of gathering these artists together resonate deeply with me at this moment in time.

Tunberg's essay explores the theme of 'polyphony', which refers to the simultaneous combination of several parts, each with its own melody, yet harmonizing together. This offers a timely perspective on the contemporary art world.

She also discusses the significance of experiencing art in person and the challenges artists face in maintaining unique creative voices amidst the rise of social media, where the development of a visual monoculture can lead to over familiarity with imagery and a perception of art becoming 'disposable'.

This collection features works by artists from around the world, working in various mediums and styles, from hyperrealism to abstraction, showcasing personal perspectives and responses to today's world.

Three art magazines on a gray surface. One is open, showing black-and-white photos. The closed one has a colorful cover with "Art IDEAL" text. — Art Ideal: Volume 5, curated by Myrina Tunberg Georgiou

| A Note from the Curator

'Welcome to the fifth volume of Art IDEAL, an exploration of contemporary aesthetics. This edition brings together a wide spectrum of voices from across the globe, each presenting their practice with conviction, imagination, and originality.

Within these pages, painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, mixed and digital media coexist in dialogue, revealing not only the richness of form but also the multiplicity of perspectives that shape contemporary art.

What emerges is not a singular theme but a polyphony of concerns that feel especially vital today. Many artists explore abstraction as a way to process rhythm, gesture, and materiality, while others ground their work in the close observation of nature or the investigation of human psychology. Across these approaches, the works confront pressing issues of identity, memory, environment, and technology. Their significance lies not only in their beauty but also in their ability to act as mirrors and interlocutors, allowing us to see both the external world and our inner selves anew.

As John Berger reminded us in Ways of Seeing, art alters not only what we look at but also how we look. That proposition feels urgent today, when attention is so often consumed by the velocity of images and external distraction.

Contemporary theorists like Hito Steyerl have extended this inquiry into the digital sphere, asking us to consider how images circulate, mutate, and shape our sense of truth and reality.

To look at art now is therefore not simply to appreciate beauty but to participate in an act of cultural and personal reflection, a reorientation of perception that can be both critical and restorative.

This book affirms the role of art as a cultural force: it gives voice to artists, provides a space for contemplation, and invites viewers into encounters that can be transformative. The diversity of practices demonstrates that contemporary art is not one voice but many, layered, resonant, and open to discovery. I invite you to leaf through the pages of this book, pause, disconnect from the noise, and let the art connect you back to yourself.

Any time spent with art is time well invested. And when a piece speaks to you, consider keeping that connection alive by collecting it, allowing art to become part of your own life and experience.'

Man with pink skin and floral designs sits in a colorful jungle setting, wearing a white jacket. Text: "Art IDEAL." Mood: surreal.

| View the Book

| Read the Curator's Essay

'Against Monoculture:

Few moments in history have given art the level of visibility is enjoys today. With a single post, a painting can circulate across continents within seconds, entering the feeds of thousands who may never step into the artists studio or the gallery that first hosted it. This unprecedented access reshapes how we encounter art and how artists imagine their audiences. The results are both exciting and troubling. On the one hand, the possibilities for discovery have never been greater. On the other hand, the same channels that expand visibility can also standardize taste, encouraging artists to repeat what trends online rather than explore what might be unique, local or quietly resistant.

In current discourse, theorists such as Nicolas Bourriaud (Relational Aesthetics) and Hans Ulrich Obrist emphasize the importance of multiplicity, dialogue and the unfinished. Polyphony, borrowed from musical language, suggests not simply coexistence but resonance; voices and visions that overlap, challenge and enrich one another without collapsing into a single dominant tone. When art trends move too quickly through global circuits of Instagram feeds, TikTok aesthetics or Pinterest mood boards, the risk is a form of visual monoculture. As cultural theorist Hito Steryl warns, the over circulation of images does not equal depth; instead it can lead to an accelerated cycle of consumption in which art becomes instantly familiar and therefore disposable.

This issue extends beyond aesthetics to the lived experience of art. While sharing work online is now almost expected of artists, the ubiquity of digital access has changed how audiences engage with exhibitions. Attendance at physical shows can suffer when a viewer feels they have 'already seen it' through documentation. But what is overlooked in this assumption is the irreplaceable encounter of being present with the work, its scale, texture, materiality and the unrepeatable conditions of viewing. Walter Benjamin's much invoked concept of the 'aura' of the artwork, once endangered by mechanical reproduction, resurfaces in this digital context. To stand before a painting or a sculpture, or walk through an installations to experience what no screen can fully mediate. The challenge is not to retreat from the digital but to find balance; to let online presence serve as a threshold, not a substitute, for lived encounters with art.

Why Polyphony Matters in Contemporary Art

Polyphony, then, is not only about artistic styles but also about how we experience, distribute, and discuss art. In this regard, the role of printed press and anthologies like this one in which this essay appears remains vital. Unlike the fleeting rhythms of the feed, print offers a slower, more reflective space where ideas can be developed and preserved. Books catalogues and journals extend discourse beyond the ephemerality of scrolling, becoming archives that safeguard multiplicity for future readers. Printed publications invite depth, encourage careful reading, and resist the disposability of online trends by situating art in a lineage of thought and dialogue.

It is worth remembering that polyphony is not always comfortable. When divergent aesthetics, cultural traditions, or political positions come together. friction is inevitable. Yet this tension is precisely what makes contemporary art meaningful. Difference fosters dialogue, and disagreement generates new perspectives. In resisting homogenization, the art world does not simply preserve variety for its own sake. It protects the conditions under which art can surprise, unsettle and expand our ways of seeing.

What, then, does it mean to value art in a time when the distinction between the real and the simulated no longer feels essential? For centuries authenticity was central to artistic worth, yet today images circulate so quickly that their reality often matters less than their shareability. As Jean Baudrillard suggested in his writings on simulacra, we now move in spaces where the copy can feel more powerful than the original. Should this trouble us, or should it be seen as part of a new cultural landscape? Can polyphony endure when the conditions of reality itself are uncertain? These questions may not have answers, but they remind us that contemporary art matters most when it resists sameness and keeps the space for dialogue open'.

By Myrina Tunberg Georgiou, October 2025.

Art Ideal: Volume 5

Circle Foundation for the Arts

ISBN: 979-10-980264-0-9 9791098026409