How to Get the Public Engaged with Contemporary Art

In the age of artificial intelligence, there is no greater currency than the ability to draw people’s attention. With the endless amount of AI slop in the form of automated texts and images filling our personal and professional spaces, how does the artist thrive amidst a sea of crap? Well first of all, the artist should not be too hard on themselves because historically what draws the attention of the masses rarely turns out to be great art. Being able to click-bait mass attention does not turn someone into a prolific artist. In such a regard, art has always been only truly understood by the enlightened elite. Throughout the ages, who the elite are has varied but typically they entail individuals with status and education. In the contemporary era, these would be ‘PMC’s’ or the professional managerial class. The people who hold positions which exert great influence over others, such as an executive director, writer, curator, educator, or entrepreneur. Anyone who has a job which shapes contemporary discourse in some shape, form, or way can be regarded as a PMC. In essence, the PMC’s are the people who inform the rest of us on why art matters, because the general public cannot be trusted to make these determinations on their own. Why? Because the masses usually have a poor track record in terms of judging what has meaningful influence in terms of the arts regarding civilizational, conceptual, social, historical, and narrative impact. 

photographic assemblages with unedited photography by Michael Hanna

If the masses were in charge of what is good art, your daily social media feed would determine what constitutes high art. However, from time to time, the elite need to be ‘corrected’ or changed in order to calibrate art towards improved interests of civilization. As someone who writes professionally about contemporary art, I find the notion of the likes of Banksy, Ai Wei Wei, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter, Jenny Saville, and Damien Hirst to be regarded as the greatest visual artists of our times to be laughable. Why? Because most of the artists in my catalogue and various other publications create much better work but are not as big of names as them. When you buy and support art from artists like these, you are inherently purchasing or subscribing to a name, a brand. A type of commercialization of the high art market. They are in essence the kitsch of the non-kitsch, if such a notion were to make any sense. 

Sometimes in rare occurrences, what the masses like but the elite do not turns out to be good art. For example, the installation titled Regular Animals by the artist Beeple during Art Basel Miami 2025 contained robot dogs with ultra-realistic heads of tech billionaires and famous artists from the 20th century ‘pooping’ out digital prints and roaming around a playpen. Many critics absolutely hated the work, such as Hyperallergic and the Financial Times with their scathing reviews. However, this conceptual installation creates a clever conceptual commentary on the absurdity of tech oligarchy currently running rampant in the world. The pieces in essence draws us to the ridiculousness of these figures and has us ask if the art market and corporate power structure is really just a form of feudalism rather than one based on merit and capitalism. Perhaps the reason why the piece was so controversial with critics but loved by the masses was because the art was too critical of the elite and power structures. Hitting too close to home for some. 

So, how do you get the public engaged with contemporary art? One of the reasons why artificial intelligence is so unpopular according to studies is because the content does not contain a narrative. When researchers bring out images to test subjects and ask them why they do not like the work after learning the piece was created with artificial intelligence, respondents always give the same answer: because there is no story, no narrative, no struggle, and no origin behind the work. The idea of art being automated is completely unacceptable to most people because they want to understand the process and origin of the work. One of the reasons why unedited and analogue photography has such a small but loyal following is because the process makes up a significant portion of why the final outcome appears a certain way. So to answer the question, without further delay, individuals can draw the public towards contemporary art by encouraging them not to seek out venues and platforms which push familiarity. You are much more likely to learn about current contemporary avant-garde art around the world by reading the catalogue by Point Pleasant Publishing than you are by reading all the articles on much more popular platforms such as Hyperallergic or Artnet. Why? Because our publications are heavily research-based while theirs is based on selling an agenda, a particular point of view, or an opinion. Every artist we write about, whether in the catalogue, journal, or Shoreline Voice, is based on extensive research on why this art matters and what the work is communicating conceptually. 

Same with galleries, the venues you are most likely to find the most relevant contemporary art are not the ones turning a huge profit. Many of the most cutting edge artforms are not marketable, such as video, performance, and installation, so you will be hard-pressed to find these types of revolutionary mediums in heavily commercialized, albeit successful, galleries. In the arts, bigger is not always better, brand name and recognition does not equate to better quality. If you find a small, independent gallery putting out excellent conceptual art, appreciate the venue, even if not located in a top tier zip code. Likewise, if you find a publication or platform which you feel has taught you to engage with art on a deeper level, appreciate them despite not having big name recognition. Information is the most sacred commodity, and in the age of mass-production and the digital era of nihilism, you will often find the most valuable input from the least likely of places.