In fact, when we talk about contemporary art, we are entering a rather slippery path, because now there is a lot of art. If before there was always one direction, for example, baroque, and leading artists wrote in this style, now there is no such stream direction. And every person, an artist, tries to express himself in a special way. He is trying to do something that has not been done before.
I think that now two areas can be distinguished: these are artists-researchers (this is exactly what appeared after the 70s of the 20th century), who study social processes, and they show the results of their research in their work. And to understand this direction of art, you need to know the theoretical basis. The author expresses some idea, usually it is somehow justified, and this idea needs to be known in order to understand the essence of what is happening.
And the second direction is those artists who express their emotions, themselves, their feelings, experiences. And here there is no longer any theoretical basis. Everything here is designed for emotions, i.e. how a person perceives it not with his brain, but with his senses. Art for art’s sake.