Curvism: Art and Philosophy (1997)
We live in boxes, work in cubicles; we are caged in, rarely getting out to touch the earth and be surrounded by the sky. When we walk, it’s across a paved parking lot. Big city life, suburbia, small-town living. Modern life. How did this happen?
Postmodernism (2007)
Art has lost its significant sacred voice in the past 40 to 50 years, ever since Andy Warhol started producing postmodern art in a factory. Postmodern art reflects our times and has become commercial art, art reduced to business, art made for the marketplace, glorifying the marketplace, a game of the rich, buying and selling art like they buy and sell stocks on Wall Street. Postmodern art is shocking spectacle, glamorous trivia, packaged and commodified diversion, irrelevant and sarcastic fluff.
Curvism: Beyond Postmodernism (2015)
Postmodernism killed and replaced Modernism in the mid-1960s. Postmodernism has been dying since the turn of the century. What comes next? What best describes the changes that are taking place in art and culture?
There are a number of developing art movements occurring that name the post-postmodern age that is emerging. Some of them are summarized below.
Curvism: The Curved Worldview (2017)
The following is a listing of attributes or qualities the square worldview deems inferior:
Nature
Women
The senses
Emotions
The Experiential
Care
Compassion
Cooperation
Intuition
Creativity
Community
Relationships
The arts and humanities
The spiritual.
Curvism identifies these qualities with the curved worldview. Curvism believes these repressed qualities hold the key to the future of the world. This worldview is symbolized by the curve, the circle and the ellipse.
On Metemodernism and Curvism (2021)
Curvism is the word I have been using for over forty years to describe an art concept that takes us into a more hopeful future. Like metamodernism, Curvism is a reaction to both modernism and postmodernism. Curvism, however, goes further back to include an understanding of premodern times, not fully accounted for by metamodernism.
Curvism Concept (2025)
Artist Steve Firkins first began to use the word Curvism in 1978 to describe his art and philosophy. Firkins grew up in Blue Earth, Minnesota. In high school he began photographing nature and the curved great plains landscape. He earned an art degree in college and a master’s degree in psychological counseling. Through the 1980s and the 90s he had regional art shows in the Midwest titled Curvism. He had his first major art show debut in Minneapolis at Flanders Contemporary Art Gallery in January 1998 titled The Theory of Curvism. Since then he has continued to exhibit and expand his Curvism concept and art.
The 20th century and modern art began with Cubism. Firkins spent the end of the 20th century finding and illustrating a way out of the box and the square worldview. Curvism, as conceptualized by Firkins, has been clear and consistent from the very beginning. Firkins has spent the 21st century exclusively exploring the curved worldview.
There have been a number of artists who have discovered the term Curvism and have been using it to describe their art. They too recognize the visual difference between the man-made, cubed world and the curved world of nature.