Discuss our current post-medium contion.

First, lets look at the definition of post-medium. It is not 'after' medium as we might initially assume, but instead the breakdown of media. Traditionally we have 3 catagories of medium; drawing, painting, and sculpture. Much of contemporary art today does not fit in to one of these three catagories, instead it might fit in to 2, or even all 3, or perhapps none at all. Lets look at Damien Hirst's 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'. The work is a shark carcass, preserved in formaldehyde solution, and displayed in galleries as a 'sculpture'. Is this traditionally what we would deem a sculpture? No, it is not. So why have we labelled it so? It is because of our post-medium condition that this can take place. We have no way of placing Hirst's work in any of our traditional catagories, as such we throw it a label for the one that fits best. It is work like this that embodies our post-medium condition, pushing the boundries of what contemporary art can be, and blurring the lines of mediums.