Defining "post-modernism" -- WAS--- First define "post-modern"photography, dammit
OK. OK. BECAUSE "Post-Modern" art is a term that gets used so much AND Because I never went to Art School so I never officially learned this stuff AND (mostly) Because it's really easy to think we mean the same thing - just because we're using the same words.... I decided to refresh my memory on what the heck "post-modernism" really is. Caveats: I didn't dig real deep (read: I excerpted from the first source that seemed to make sense to me) I hope Dr. Klages won't be offended by my massive editing and interpreting of her work. Barry ****************** Postmodernism Postmodernism in the arts is hard to define. As a movement it begins in the mid 1980s., Most definitions of “post-modernism” start with a definition of the modernists. “Modernism” can roughly be labeled 20th century (western) art. It is most easily seen in work done from 1900-1930. Some of the major writers who helped radically redefine poetry and fiction are: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Stevens, Marcel Proust, Stéphane Mallarme, Frans Kafka, ee cummings, and Rainer Rilke. Some of the visual artists who helped redefine painting, photography and sculpture are: Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, Alexander Calder, Ben Shahn, Piet Mondrian, Man Ray. Modernism: ? rejected Victorian sensibilities ? Emphasized impressionism and subjectivity. Stream-of-consciousness writing and interior monologue are examples in writing. Cubism and expressionism in painting. ? Rejected objectivity in favor of involvement. (Picasso’s Guernica is an example of modernist painting.) ? Blurred lines between genres ? Rejected the elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs (as in the writings of ee cummings or the paintings of Henri Matisse ? rejected the distinction between "high" art and popular culture rejected formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and discovery in creation. Postmodernism follows most of these ideas ? rejecting boundaries between high and “pop” art ? rejecting rigid genre distinctions ? emphasizing parody, irony, and playfulness ? favors self-consciousness ? favors ambiguity ? favors dehumanized subjects. Finally modernism is fundamentally about using art to create a new sense of order out of the chaos of modern life -- meaning which is missing in (or because of) our industrial age. The 20th century saw the rise of national socialism (Nazism) in Germany, Italy and Spain; and Communism in the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe. These societies had at their core larger-than-life ideas of the “New Man” and the “New Woman.” Socialist Realist art is an example. Postmodernism critiques the grand scale of these social narratives. Postmodernism holds that every attempt to create "order" creates an equal amount of "disorder" and seeks to express this disorder. Postmodernism, embraces fragmentation and incoherence. (‘So what if the world is meaningless? Play with the nonsense!’) Excerpted and adapted from an article titled Postmodernism by Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor, English Department, University of Colorado, Boulder http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html Klages is also author of the book: Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed Continuum Press, January 2007
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