Originally posted by Curdis
And it 'actually' means? - Curdis !
OK--you asked for it! This will be a rather long post.
To understand Post-Modernism, you have to understand Modernism. I'll try to be as brief as possible.
Modernism came out of the ideals of the Enlightenment. Voltaire summarized these as:
1. autonomy of reason
2. perfectibility and progress
3. confidence in the ability to discover causality
4. principles governing nature, man and society
5. assault on authority
6. cosmopolitan solidarity of enlightened intellectuals
7. disgust with nationalism.
19th C. Modernism
Academic/Conservative Modernist Beliefs
--Art should improve the world.
--Images should contain or reflect good moral values, examples of virtuous behavior, inspire Christian sentiment, serve as role models.
--Preferred gradual over radical change.
--Looked to the past.
Progressive Modernist Beliefs
--Believed in goodness of mankind and that this goodness had become corrupted by industrialization.
--Some believed that man had become vicious and competitive b/c of capitalism
--Idealized Nature
--Concerned with depicting political/social issues (exp. poverty) that the bourgeoisie preferred to ignore
--Belief in freedom of expression and freedom of choice in style (e.g., brushstroke, color)
--Art For Art's Sake Movement--claimed that art should be produced for art's sake, not the public's. This deliberately affronted the bourgeoisie who demanded that art should instruct, delight or moralize. (Biggest proponent: James Whistler)
--Saw academic modernists as supporting the status quo. and their view of the future as a continuation of the present.
--Concept of the avant-garde--looked to the future.
--Critical of institutions, both political and religious as restrictive of individual liberty.
--Challenged authority and bourgeois values.
Formalism
--Art For Art's Sake Movement backfired
--Late 19th c. critics and art historians begin discussing art in formal terms only. This removed the question of meaning and purpose from consideration and effectively neutralized disruptive art.
--A notion emerges that art is an isolated phenomenon that is separate from the materialistic world and the mundane affairs of ordinary people. The visual artist, via special gifts, is privy to a purely visual understanding.
--Criticism is concerned only with: (1) Does it derive from, sum up or challenge earlier stylistic developments? (2) Does it lay stylistic bases for the next artist or period?
--The Formalist System, hand-in-hand with the art market (which cared only about money not meaning) absorbed all attempts at subversion and revolt into neutral, mildly offensive art history.
--Painting and sculpture remain central to their idea of what constitutes High Art.
Abstraction
--Artists go in search of "true" art.
--Art is more than images and can be many things. Whatever this art thing was--it was universal. (Like the scientific "truth" of the Enlightenment)
--Kandinsky strips away distracting elements such as recognizable objects
--Mondrian reduces the non-recognizable to the most basic elements--color and line.
--Both believed that abstraction would be a guide to the spectator and rekindle in him/her the spiritual dimension which they felt had been lost in the materialistic modern world.
20th C. Post-Modernism
--WWI is a huge blow to Progressive Modernist ideals.
--Dadaism begins with the belief that modernism has failed.
--WWII deals a mortal blow to Progressive Modernism. After Auschwitz, Theodor Adorno asks if any art has a right to exist.
"It became necessary to destroy art in order to save it."
Deconstructive Post-Modernism
--Has an Anti-Modern stance
--Rejects the supremacy of reason, the notion of truth, belief in perfectability of man, and the idea that we can create a better or perfect society
--Deconstructionism literally takes apart the values/ideals of Modernism to reveal what composes them.
--Shows that ideals such as equality or liberty are not natural, but are human intellectual constructions.
--Questions are often raised about who was responsible for these contructions. Who do these contructions serve?
--Decontructionism seeks to destroy or eliminate the central beliefs seen as necessary for a modern worldview (God, Self, Purpose, Meaning, Real World, Truth, etc.)
Constructive Post-Modernism
--Does not reject Modernism. Seeks to revise it.
--Erases boundaries, undermines legitimacy and logic of modernism
--Rejects the scientific approach in which only the data of science is allowed to contribute to the construction of our worldview
--Seeks a return to pre-modern ideas of cosmic meaning and enchanted nature
--Accepts non-sensory perception
--Wants to replace modernism, which it sees as threatening life on earth
Overall--
Post-Modernism
--Avoids classification
--Accepts ambiguity, uncertainty, insecurity, doubt
--Is open, unbounded and process-oriented (not results-oriented)
Post-Modern Artists
--Are self aware
--Involved in thinking about him/herself and society in a deconstructive manner
--Demasks pretensions
--Aware of cultural self in history
--Sensitive to cultural, ethnic and human conditions
Conceptual Art
--Impossible for formalism to absorb
--Placed art beyond all limits/definitions
--Broke the stranglehold of formalist critics, art historians and dealers.
--Process of creation more important than result.
--Examples:
----Temporary Art (Christo) (Performance Art)
----Art that could not be placed in a gallery (Earth Art)
