Janet's Reading #1, Late Modernism and the Formalist Debate

Sorry to take so long, come to find out I have been posting in the wrong manner...I had to get a little background information on Contemporary Art. I started the reading but felt like I did not see how the different styles of painting fit together...I am still not sure. Some of the reading i.e. Avant-Garde and Kitsch just left me with more questions than answers. So I backed up and purchased a copy of "Why is That Art?"; I am not in Julie McGuire's Contemporary Art Class and really wish that I was. I think it will help to be to understand the overall picture. I enjoyed reading "Art and Aesthetics: Late Modernism and the Formalist Debate", because I see all images in this flatness of shape and space. I am trying to incorporate both into my current body of work this allows me to also play with the figure / ground in a painting as well. I like to think about how the shapes touch the edge of the picture plane and relate them to the edges of the canvas very much like a cropped photograph. I relate more to the Formalist / Aesthetic Theory than making a statement socially or politically. I am not saying that making a statement is not important, but it's just not important in my painting!