Re: Defining "post-modernism" -- WAS--- First define "post-modern"photography, dammit
Judy wrote:
Of course "science" also leaves holes -- I picked up a New York mag
in the gym for an article about why New Yorkers live longer than
anybody else... In sum, because we walk fast, it says... The author
cites a study where senior citizens were told to walk as fast as
they could for x meters. Once. And sure enough over the next 10 or
20 years, the slowest ones were the first to die. That they were
already the weakest and vice versa did not enter this genius's
calculations...
I can't let this statement go unchallenged, though it's not crucial
to the main point. The above isn't science, it's an egregious
confusion of correlation with causality, which scientists are warned
against from their earliest methods courses. It's true that a lot of
"research" is done by people who aren't scientists, and eaten up by
media who can't tell the difference, but to cite unscientific
"research" as a reason to indict science itself, is hardly reasonable.
One of my favorite examples of poorly done research (I used to
collect them for my research methods courses) is similar; some
"genius" (I'll use your word) asked people how well they feel, and
then followed them over time and found that the people who said they
didn't feel well died sooner than the ones who said they felt great.
So far so good, but then the conclusion drawn was that having a more
positive attitude about your health will make you live longer. These
"researchers" deserve a place of special torment in the afterlife,
but one should never mistake them for scientists.
As for postmodernism, I find this all rather amusing. I've searched
for years for a good definition of postmodernism, and all I've found
is lists of things that might characterize it, lists that tend to
contradict each other when lined up side by side. I get the feeling
that postmodernism is anything anybody wants it to be. In which case
one can't fault anyone's list of postmodernist photographers, even if
many of them don't seem to qualify by one's own understanding of what
"postmodernism" means.
Katharine
On Nov 13, 2007, at 8:33 AM, Barry Kleider wrote:
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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