When centering method, the artwork says, “I’ve discovered a way to make art.”

When not centering method, the artwork says, “I’ve discovered an artwork.”

Can artists work without method?

Is it method to decide you’ll do things any which-way? 

Is it method to say you’ll use whatever comes to hand to do whatever comes to mind?

Methods can be compelling in Contemporary art. But they’re not meaningful the way they were during Modernism. 

In Modernism, method meant using surface flatness, or letting the subconscious express itself, or using surface as stage upon which the artist performs, or using industrial and graphics-arts processes, or removing all artist idiosyncrasy, or using graffiti materials and expressions, etc etc etc.

The meanings of individual Modernist works are nearly always split between method and content. Method and content harmonize or react dissonantly one with the other. The sense was of a kind of progression, a kind of ongoing human discovery of method. 

Modernism ended when that sense of discovery ended.

In Contemporary art, method is often used to invoke Modernism. This is done sincerely, ironically, and/or blindly. In many of these situations method keeps the artist locked in Modernism’s orbit. Even where contemporary use of method doesn’t invoke a well-known Modern artist or movement, it often invokes Modernist popular culture. See for example the many figurative paintings that invoke illustrations from popular magazines of the 1950’s and 60’s, and popular cartoons from the same period.

These vintage invocations make for fun, colorful imagery. But we have to ask ourselves at some point, Is our era only or primarily backward-looking? When do we begin to invent the relevant, affective art of our time?