2000s

1. Three "Currents" of Contemporary Art Smith identifies a "Transnational Turn" in which artists engaged directly and indirectly with geopolitical forces — decolonization, the rise of new nationalisms, and the impact of globalization — against which some sought open internationalism, and other artists, a broader cosmopolitanism. 

2. Globalization & "Contemporaneity" The rise of contemporary art since the 1990s enables a thinking about a state of contemporaneity — a coevality of difference across geographies and states of duration — corresponding to the vast inequalities and irreconcilabilities of global life, the ontological and material strata by which capital implicates human beings across nations, times and spaces. 

3. The Art Market Surge The early 2000s saw a surge in the number of commercial art galleries and art fairs and the emergence of art as a financial asset in which the booming class of "ultra-high-net-worth individuals" could sink their surplus wealth. Following closely on these developments was a surge of art-related degree programs — from curatorial and museum studies to arts administration and art business. 

4. Technology as Transformative Force Technology was a major influence, inspiring artists in new forms of expression. Multimedia artists pushed their work further into the digital realm, while interdisciplinary artists expanded the format across architecture, installation, and performance — not without risk. 

5. Globalization of the Exhibition World In the early 2000s, art historians driven by theorizations of the end of universal and national art histories forwarded the proposition of a world and global art history — curatorial projects introduced the concept of "global art" into art discourse as a way of going beyond postmodern internationalism. 

6. Feminism, Identity & Race The National Museum of Women in the Art's 2008 exhibition WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution — the first such retrospective of feminism in art — showcased pioneers like Judy Chicago, Lynda Benglis, Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois, and Faith Ringgold, with more than 120 artists from 21 countries. 

Gagosian, The Cage Paintings