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One of the curious things about contemporary art is that its name is something of a misnomer. The word ‘contemporary’ denotes something made in the present, or at least something that's very recent, but in an art world context ‘contemporary’ could easily refer to a work of art that was made forty years ago. To most people that’s not ‘contemporary’, that’s old. Contemporary art more properly refers to a certain kind of art, with particular subjects and themes, made in a familiar range of media, informed by a particular philosophy. In essence ‘contemporary art’ is a genre of art making.