What Is Contemporary Art?

Let MoMA be your guide with this free weekly newsletter course.

Contemporary art can feel like a puzzle, but it doesn’t have to be puzzling. Artists working today offer an essential lens on the material, social, political, and technological shifts of our time.

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Course Benefits

  • Seek out contemporary art with confidence wherever you are
  • Learn directly from artists about their materials, processes, and sources of inspiration
  • Hone your creative instincts with weekly prompts
  • Earn a certificate of completion

Your 4-Week Art Journey

Week 1: Materials & Making

Learn where artists find inspiration—and how they let materials take the lead.

Week 2: Claiming Space & Questioning Borders

Discover artists raising questions about displacement, permanence, and the meaning of home.

Week 3: From the Internet to AI

From video games and desktop icons to AI, artists have made works with, about, and inspired by technology.

Week 4: Agency & Power

See how artists use their work as a form of action—and a way to claim or reclaim power.

MoMA’s Educational Mission

Support is provided by The William S. Paley Fund for Media.

The Museum of Modern Art connects people from around the world to the art of our time. We aspire to be a catalyst for experimentation, learning, and creativity, a gathering place for all, and a home for artists and their ideas.
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