Concepts and vocabulary that will help you survive your next gallery opening.

• Abstract Art: Big blobs and squiggly lines. Color and form are used in ways that don’t directly translate to a subject.
• Abstract Expressionism: The kind of abstract art that began in the 50s in the US. It emphasized planned spontaneity on large canvases (think: splatter paint). Household names include Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.
• Aesthetics: The artist’s style, his/her concept of beauty and application of it in their work.
• Collaborative Piece: A work of art created by several artists.
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• Conceptual Art: This idea appeared in the 60s with one basic credo: idea over media. Conceptual artists focus on a message, question or idea—not on making pretty things.
• Contemporary Art: As the name suggests, something of this day and age. In many museums, it could refer to anything post-World War II, but generally refers to post 60s art.
• Curator: The head honcho at any gallery or museum. Ask this person if you have questions about, or can’t understand, an artist.
• Experimental Art: The artist challenges traditions and institutions by exploring new artistic goals or media (at the risk of being impossible to understand by the general public).
• Impressionism: With the invention of photography in the 19th century, artists began to paint what they felt, their impressions, rather than realistic representations of the world.
• Installation: This tends to be more ephemeral, interactive, experimental or just plain bigger than traditional sculptures.
• Medium: How the artwork is communicated to the audience. For example: oil on canvas, print, neon and plywood or even a performance.
• Mixed-media: Mixing and matching more than one medium.
• Minimalism: Less is more. Yves Klein’s paintings, for example, are just blue canvases.
• Modern Art: The modern era began in the 19th century. Modern and contemporary art overlap but the 60s roughly marks the transition to contemporary.
• Postmodern Art: A reaction to modernism.
• Multimedia Art: Art that vitalizes technology such as video, sound or computer animation.
• Performance Art: Daring, often shocking (self-mutilation, excrement launchings) one-off “exhibits” where the artist performs in front of, or with the public. In “Cut Piece,” Yoko One sat on a stage and invited her audience to come up with scissors to cut her clothes off until she was naked.
• Pop Art: Crash! Boom! Bang! In the 60s, Andy Warhol proved that pop culture icons (like Marilyn Monroe and Campbell soup cans) could be art, too.
• Realism: What you get is what you see.
• Surrealism: Imaginary scenes made up of realistic elements, as in a dream.
• Video Art: Video art, unlike cinema, often forgoes traditional narrative devices.
  —Prayer Trairatvorakul