Postmodernism
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Black POSTMODERNISM STYLE AND SUBVERSION, 1970–1990 TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 1 Black Black POSTMODERNISM STYLE AND SUBVERSION, 1970–1990 TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 Edited by Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt V&A Publishing TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 2 3 Black Black Exhibition supporters Published to accompany the exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970 –1990 Founded in 1976, the Friends of the V&A encourage, foster, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London assist and promote the charitable work and activities of 24 September 2011 – 15 January 2012 the Victoria and Albert Museum. Our constantly growing membership now numbers 27,000, and we are delighted that the success of the Friends has enabled us to support First published by V&A Publishing, 2011 Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970–1990. Victoria and Albert Museum South Kensington Lady Vaizey of Greenwich CBE London SW7 2RL Chairman of the Friends of the V&A www.vandabooks.com Distributed in North America by Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York The exhibition is also supported by © The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2011 The moral right of the authors has been asserted. Hardback edition ISBN 978 1 85177 659 7 Paperback edition ISBN 9781 85177 662 7 Library of Congress Control Number 2011923018 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publishers. Every effort has been made to seek permission to reproduce those images whose copyright does not reside with the V&A, and we are grateful to the individuals and institutions who have assisted in this task. Any omissions are entirely unintentional, and the details should be addressed to V&A Publishing. Front jacket/cover illustration: Jean-Paul Goude and Antonio Lopez, TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 Constructivist maternity dress, 1979. Worn by Grace Jones (detail of pl. 4) Design A Practice for Everyday Life Copy-editor Denny Hemming Index Hilary Bird New photography by Richard Davis and the V&A Photographic Studio Printed in Singapore TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 4 5 Black Black 200 Threads and Rays: Accessorizing Michael Clark CONTENTS Matthew Hawkins 206 Embraced by the (Spot)Light: Ono¯ Kazuo, Buto¯ and Admiring La Argentina Bruce Baird 8 Curators’ Foreword 210 Fashion, Violence and Hyperreality 12 Postmodernism: Style and Subversion Rebecca Arnold Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt 214 Big Magazines: Design as the Message 98 Arch-Art: Architecture as Subject Matter Rick Poynor James Wines 220 Between Words and Images: Simulation, Deconstruction 106 Our Postmodernism and Postmodern Photography Denise Scott Brown Paul Jobling 112 On Bricolage 224 David McDiarmid, Peter Tully and the Ecstatic Space of Victor Buchli the Paradise Garage Sally Gray 116 Kitsch and Postmodern Architecture: Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia Patricia A. Morton 228 Michael Graves and the Figurative Impulse Christopher Wilk 120 Irony and Postmodern Architecture Emmanuel Petit 234 Riding the Wave of Reaganomics: Swid Powell and the Celebrity Architects Elizabeth A. Fleming 126 Civitas Interruptus Thomas Weaver 238 Margaret Thatcher, Postmodernism and the Politics of Design in Britain Jonathan M. Woodham 132 The Presence of the Past: Postmodernism Meets in Venice Léa-Catherine Szacka 242 A Way of Looking at Things April Greiman 136 The Architect as Ghost-Writer: Rem Koolhaas and Image-Based Urbanism 246 Always Already Postmodern? Japanese Design and Architecture in the 1980s Martino Stierli Sarah Teasley 140 Paper Architecture: The Columbaria of Brodsky and Utkin 252 Coming Up for Air: 1980s Spanish Style Cultures David Crowley Viviana Narotzky 144 Photography into Building: The Smithsons and James Stirling 258 Furniture Out of its Mind: Düsseldorf, 1986 Claire Zimmerman Wolfang Schepers 150 Postmodern Angel: Shiro Kuramata 262 True Stories: A Film about People Like Us Paola Antonelli Rick Poynor TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 154 We are All in the Gutter: Retailing Postmodern Fashion 266 Abstract Figural Systems Claire Wilcox Reinhold Martin 160 Making Memphis: ‘Glue Culture’ and Postmodern Production Strategies 270 No Duchamps in Delhi Catharine Rossi Arindam Dutta 166 The Uses of ‘Notes on Camp’ 274 Post-Modernism Comes of Age Christopher Breward Charles Jencks 170 Tomorrow’s Been Cancelled due to Lack of Interest: Derek Jarman’s The Last of England 282 The End of Style? Oliver Winchester Paul Greenhalgh 174 Unsettled Images: From TV Screen to Video-Wall and Back Again 286 Post-Script Mari Dumett David Byrne 178 Sampling and the Materiality of Sound Ulrich Lehmann 289 References 182 Buffalo: Style with Intent 302 Select Bibliography Carol Tulloch 304 Contributors 186 Dressing Viciously: Hip-Hop Music, Fashion and Cultural Crossover Zoe Whitley 306 Acknowledgments 192 What is ‘Post’ about Global Hip-Hop? 307 Lenders Sujatha Fernandes 308 Picture Credits 196 Klaus Nomi: Astral Countervoice of The New Wave Susanne K. Frantz 311 Index TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 6 7 Black Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt It may seem strange or even perverse for a large public institution our venture might well be seen as a fool’s errand. The assertive like the V&A to tell the story of postmodernism. After all, this title we have chosen, with fixed and tidy dates appended to it, ‘style’ and the ideas that gave rise to it were explicitly antago- certainly does not seem to be getting into the spirit of the thing. nistic to authority. Postmodernism’s territory was meant to be Why begin in 1970 when many of our protagonists (Robert the periphery, not the centre. Its artefacts resist taxonomy, and Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Tadanori Yokoo, Ettore Sottsass) its episodic cadence defies the orderly impulse of the historian. had made their key ‘departure’ works before that date (works Yet exhibitionism was also a defining characteristic of post- that are found in the book and exhibition anyway)? Why close modernism. Postmodern objects were often designed with their in 1990, years before the substantial impact of postmodernism own mediation in mind, and circulated rapidly through had manifested itself upon vast swathes of China, India and the magazine covers, music videos and mainstream feature film. Gulf States? Singapore, Beijing and Dubai are arguably more Alessi’s production of limited edition silver tableware in the postmodern now than Milan and London ever were. 1980s, for example, was in part aimed at curators. The collection So the choice of our 20-year span may be artificial. But was sold directly to institutions eager to present the roll-call it is also deliberate. By attending in detail to this fast-paced of postmodern architects through exhibition-friendly objects.1 period of time, we can assess the phenomenal range and Postmodernism was often made with its own museumification penetration of postmodern practice. Milan and London in the in mind, and was supremely self-regarding in its methods, 1970s – not to mention New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Berlin often circling back on its own tracks (pls 1 and 2). In reproducing and Sydney – would not have recognized their 1990s selves. postmodernist objects in this book, and placing them on The boom-bust turbulence of the postmodern moment left exhibition plinths under hot lights for the viewing pleasure society, industry and even individuals’ sense of selfhood of thousands, we feel we are making them right at home. fundamentally changed. From the ‘years of lead’ (as the 70s Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970–1990 follows recession was known in Italy) to the ‘designer decade’ of the several other major V&A exhibitions that have tackled the 80s, the economic policies and effects of late capitalism (to ‘grand narratives’ of twentieth-century style: Art Nouveau, use a more specific nomenclature, Reaganomics and Thatcherism) Art Deco and Modernism amongst them.2 Yet we consider our were in a way the engines of postmodernism. But it was also project to be unique within this series; given the slippery nature powered by radicalism and resistance, which were established of postmodernism and the toxicity still associated with that word, before inflationary culture took hold. Right: 1 CURATORS’ Tadanori Yokoo, A la Maison de M. Civeçawa (To the Shibusawa House), poster for the Garumella Company, 1968. Silkscreen. V&A: E.43–2011 FOREWORD Far right: 2 Tadanori Yokoo, TJ254-3-2011 IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm 175L 130 Stora Enso M/A Magenta(V) 130 Stora Enso M/A 175L IMUK VLX0270 Postmodernism W:247mmXH:287mm TJ254-3-2011 The Great Mirror of the Dance as an Immolative Sacrifice, poster for the Garumella Company, 1968.