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Home , Late modernism, Modern art, Postmodern art

http://www.inosr.net/inosr-arts-and-management/ Marry and Howard INOSR AND MANAGEMENT 6(1): 55-60, 2020. ©INOSR PUBLICATIONS International Network Organization for Scientific Research ISSN: 2705-1668

Late Modernist versus Postmodernist Arts: Review

Martin, Ann Ray, and Howard, Junker

Department of Fine Arts, Lira University, Uganda.

ABSTRACT Terms like 'modern' and 'postmodern' are subject-centered, and not based on any historical or objective phenomenon or personality. Everyone feels that something called '' has happened, but, as regards its true nature and causes, opinion is divided; a few people say postmodernism is a fiction. Late describes movements which arise from, and react against, trends in modernism and rejects some aspect of modernism, while fully developing the conceptual potentiality of the modernist enterprise, while postmodernism in some descriptions is a period in which is completed, whereas in others it is a continuing movement in . Therefore this review will check the comparison between both in the society now. Keywords: Late Modernist, Postmodernist, Arts, Society.

INTRODUCTION refers to the theory, human postmodernism has led to almost five application and physical expression of decades of artistic experimentation with creativity found in human cultures and and new art forms, including societies through skills and imagination , various types of in order to produce objects, environments and , as and experiences [1]. Major constituents of well as computer-aided movements like the arts include (including and Projection art [4]. , ceramics, , Using these new forms, postmodernist filmmaking, , , and artists have stretched the definition of art sculpting), literature (including fiction, to the point where almost anything goes. drama, poetry, and prose), and Unfortunately, most articles on performing arts (including , music, postmodernism are full of complicated and theatre), culinary arts (including words like (not the same as cooking, chocolate making and modernism), and post-modernity winemaking) [2]. Some art forms combine (different to postmodernism), a visual element with performance (e.g. (from, but not part of, cinematography), or artwork with the postmodernism), and Post- written word (e.g. comics). From postmodernism (gimme a break). So prehistoric cave to modern-day instead of using jargon, so simple dress- films, art serves as a vessel for code example can help to understand storytelling and conveying humankind's postmodernist art and how it differs from relationship with the environment. and it‟s even earlier The term "postmodernist art" refers to a predecessor [5]. The first wide category of contemporary art major of art after the created from about 1970 onwards. The was academic art, the classical stuff hallmark of postmodernist art is its which was taught by professors in the rejection of the upon which its Academies. Academic art is the artistic predecessor "modern art" (1870-1970) was equivalent of the traditional suit and based [3]. One of these rejected values is necktie. Next, about 1870, comes modern the idea that art is something special art [6]. This is the artistic equivalent of which should be elevated from popular the shirt and pants or jacket and trousers. taste. Coinciding with a raft of new Next, about 1970, comes , technological developments, which is the artistic equivalent of the

55 http://www.inosr.net/inosr-arts-and-management/ Marry and Howard INOSR ARTS AND MANAGEMENT 6(1): 55-60, 2020. jeans and T-shirt. In the same way that worn out. Besides, the idea of working for dress codes have become less formal and four years to master the necessary skills more anything goes, so today's artists are of these traditional fine arts was less impressed with the old ideas of what considered retrogressive [13]. It was art should be, and more focused on believed that art should be liberated from creating something (anything) that gets the elite and opened to the public, so art noticed [7]. But informal dress like jeans schools began to turn out a new type of and T-shirts has only become popular graduate, someone familiar with instant because society itself has become less postmodernist-style forms, as well as formal. In the same way, as we shall see basic production techniques. In a postmodernist art is part of a wider nutshell, individual creativity was current of technological, political and considered to be more important than the social change in the West, which has accumulation of craftsman-like skills [14]. introduced many new attitudes and new Use of Technology types of behavior [8]. The full impact of The era of postmodernist art has the Internet, for instance, on the sourcing coincided with the arrival of several new and distribution of artistic imagery, and image-based technologies (eg. television, on the creation of applied art and , video, screen-printing, computers, the has yet to be felt. But since it has already Internet) and has benefited hugely from revolutionized the music industry, its them [15]. The new range of video and effect on the art world is not likely to be photographic imagery has reduced the delayed for long. importance of drawing skills, and by Characteristics of Postmodernism manipulating the new technology, artists Postmodernism is not a movement, it's a (notably those involved in new media, like general attitude [9]. So there is no agreed installation, video and lens-based art) list of characteristics that define have been able to short-cut the traditional "postmodernist art". But we must start processes involved in making art, but still somewhere, so here are a few selected create something new. This is illustrated pointers. by the documentary photography of General Ideology Diane Arbus that focuses on members of Postmodernism reflects a widespread minorities in , and the video disillusionment with life, as well as the art of the Korean-American power of existing value-systems and/or (1932-2006) [16]. technology to effect beneficial change Postmodernist Focus on Popular/Low [10]. As a result, authority, expertise, culture knowledge and eminence of achievement The term is often used by art have become discredited. Artists are now critics when trying to distinguish the high far more wary about big ideas (e.g. all culture of painting and (and 'progress' is good). Most important, other fine arts), from the low popular modernist art was seen not only as elitist culture of magazines, television, pulp but also as white, male-dominated and fiction and other mass-made commodities uninterested in minorities [11]. Which is [1]. Modernists, along with their why postmodernism champions art by influential supporters like [8], considered Third World, Feminist and Minority low culture to be inferior to high culture. artists. However, critics say that despite By contrast, postmodernists who favour a its supposed rejection of big ideas, the more democratic idea of art see high postmodern movement seems to have lots culture as more elitist [10]. Thus Pop-art, of big ideas of its own. Examples include the first postmodernist movement made all types of art are equally valid, art can art out of ordinary consumer items be made out of anything. (hamburgers, tins of soup, packets of Art Educatin soap powder, comic strips) that were Postmodernism changed the educational instantly recognizable by Joe Public. Pop- priorities at numerous art colleges [12]. artists and others went even further in During the 1970s, the art of painting (and their attempts to democratize art, by to a lesser extent sculpture), was seen as printing their art on mugs, paper bags,

56 http://www.inosr.net/inosr-arts-and-management/ Marry and Howard INOSR ARTS AND MANAGEMENT 6(1): 55-60, 2020. and T-shirts: a method which incidentally bodies, buildings that appear to be exemplifies the postmodernist desire to in motion, a collection of 35,000 undermine the and terracotta figures, islands wrapped in authenticity of art [13]. pink polypropylene fabric, painted Mixing of Genres and Styles bodies, spooky projected imagery on Ever since Neo-, postmodernists public buildings, and so on - have have enjoyed mixing things up or provided spectators with a range of new injecting novel elements into traditional (sometimes shocking) experiences [7]. forms to create new combinations and Whether these new so-called art forms pastiches. creates actually constitute art remains a hotly- primitive style paintings of obese figures; contested issue. The postmodern paints upside-down conceptualists say “Yes”, the traditionists figures. combined camera say "No". art and painting in his photo-paintings of Focus on Spectacle the 1970s, while Jeff Koons combined In the absence of any real meaning to life consumerist imagery (balloon shapes) especially when we are bombarded day with highly finished sculptural techniques and night by radio and TV advertising to create his Balloon Dog pop- while at the same time being forced to (1994-2000). Meanwhile Andreas Gursky listen to politicians explain that two plus combines photography with computer two equals three. Postmodernists have generated imagery to create works like preferred to focus on style and spectacle, Rhein II (1999, MOMA, New York), while often using advertising materials and Jeff Wall uses digitally processed techniques for maximum impact. This in his postmodernist approach is exemplified by the pictorialist creations [14]. commercial printing methods, billboard- Postmodernist Multiple-Meanings style imagery and primary colours of Pop- Postmodern artists have junked the idea artists like and James that a work of art has only one inherent Rosenquist [11]. This focus on surface is a meaning. Instead, they believe that the reoccurring feature of postmodernist art, spectator is an equally important judge of and sometimes goes over the top with meaning [7]. 's surrealist melodramatic, dazzling, even shocking photography, for instance, highlights the imagery. See, for instance, the fashion idea that a work of art can be interpreted photography of Nick Knight and David in a variety of ways. Indeed, some artists LaChapelle. Since 1980, the use of such as the performance artist [15] even computer and other technologies has permit spectators to participate in their revolutionized art (e.g. art works, or even require intervention by animation), and has created specific spectators in order to complete their opportunities in areas like architecture work. and projection mapping. The importance Meeting Consumer Needs that postmodernism places on getting the The growth of and instant attention of the audience is perfectly gratification over the last few decades of illustrated by the shock-tactics of a group the has also had a huge of Goldsmiths College students - known impact on visual art. Consumers now as the in London want novelty [16]. They also want during the late 1980s and 1990s [9]. Made entertainment and spectacle. In response, famous by three exhibitions [8] [9], both many postmodernist artists, curators and curated by an unknown student called other professionals have taken the Damien Hirst, and Sensatio, the YBAs were opportunity to turn art into an lambasted for their shocking bad taste, entertainment product. The introduction and yet several (Rachel Whiteread, of new types of art, for instance such as Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon, Gillian Performance, and Wearing, , Steve McQueen, Mark installations along with new subject Wallinger) went on to become Turner matter including things like dead sharks, Prize-winners, while others (Jake and dying flies, huge ice-sculptures, crowds of Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn

57 http://www.inosr.net/inosr-arts-and-management/ Marry and Howard INOSR ARTS AND MANAGEMENT 6(1): 55-60, 2020. and Jenny Saville) also achieved meaning, relevance and progression of considerable fame and fortune [10]. art, especially and architecture. The Challenge of Postmodernism Following in the footsteps of Leonardo Postmodernism is a dangerous term, used and Michelangelo, they believed in high in dismissive tones and with increasing art which elevates and inspires the abandon by political analysts to refer to cultivated spectator rather than low art work they regard as all too keen to which merely amuses or entertains the embrace the limits of a science of the masses. They adopted a forward thinking political [2]. In this sense it has tended to approach, seeing art as something that become a term of exasperation at the should constantly progress, led by a work of others rather than a badge of self- leading group of avant-garde artists [11]. identification. Within the political World War II and the Jewish Holocaust analyst‟s lexicon, and like structuralism, turned everything upside down. was functionalism and relativism before it, abruptly replaced by New York as the postmodernism is now principally capital of world art [8]. In the wake of employed as a term of abuse. Thus while Auschwitz, all representational art except many authors are declared Holocaust art appeared suddenly „postmodernist‟ by their critics, few irrelevant, so modern painters turned openly embrace the term themselves. It is instead to (albeit packed with then important that if we are to do any emotion, or animation) in kind of justice to the positions which order to express themselves [14]. might be labelled „postmodernist‟ we are Amazingly, during the 1950s, the New extremely careful in specifying what the York School featuring 's term implies and what it does not imply paintings as well as the calmer Colour [13]. What is certainly clear is that while Field painting of the themes with which this volume has spearheaded a temporary recovery of art been principally concerned have come to on both sides of the Atlantic. These avant- acquire certain kudos in contemporary garde painters succeeded in redefining political analysis that respect has not the envelope for abstract paintings, but been extended to postmodernism. Yet of they remained within the confines of all approaches to the analysis (and the modernism. They believed in creating limits to the analysis) of the political, it is authentic, finished works of art with perhaps postmodernism which has most important content. But the modernist era consistently addressed itself to such was drawing inexorably to a close [12]. issues, albeit in a manner distinctly The widening revelations of the Shoah, discomforting to the mainstream. the testing of Atomic bombs, the Cuban Modern art Missile Crisis (1962) and the Vietnam War Modern art is usually associated with the (from 1964), caused people to become century 1870-1970 roughly from more and more disillusioned about life to Pop-Art. Despite several (and art). Already, in the mid-50s, Jasper global catastrophes, The Great War (1914- Johns and had 18), The Influenza Pandemic (1918-19), produced the first post-modern style the Wall Street Crash and the Great works of Neo-Dada and Pop. Soon, Depression (late-1920s, 1930s) which mainstream Pop-art would usher in undermined many of the moral certainties postmodernism proper, as American TV of the era, modern artists generally networks focused on the 1968 Tet retained a belief in the fundamental Offensive and the chaotic Democratic scientific laws of reason and rational Convention in . It is noted that in thought [9]. Broadly speaking, like most 20th century architecture, the situation Westerners of the period they believed was slightly different. Modern building that life had meaning; that the scientific design was influenced by a desire to progress was automatically good; that the create a brand new style for modern man. Christian West was superior to the rest of Modernist architects wanted to eliminate the world; that men were above women all historical references and create [15]. Modernists also believed in the something entirely fresh. (So no Greek

58 http://www.inosr.net/inosr-arts-and-management/ Marry and Howard INOSR ARTS AND MANAGEMENT 6(1): 55-60, 2020. columns, Gothic style arches, or any other therefore, represents a contradiction of reminders of 'past' styles.) This led to the the value of art of our times [1]. One International style of architecture (1920- compact definition offered is that while 70), a minimalist idiom of boring post-modernism acts in rejection of regularity, leavened with some truly awful modernism's grand of artistic Brutalism (concrete apartment blocks with direction, and to eradicate the boundaries tiny windows). Mercifully, from about between high and low forms of art, to 1970, postmodernist architects began to disrupt genre and its conventions with re-humanize 20th century architecture by collision, and fragmentation [9]. designing structures with interesting Post-modern art is seen as believing that features, taken from and all stances are unstable and insincere, and from more traditional styles. therefore , and humor are Differences between the only positions which cannot be and postmodernism overturned by critique or later events. Late modernism describes movements Many of these traits are present in which arise from, and react against, modern movements in art, particularly trends in modernism and reject some the rejection of the separation between aspect of modernism, while fully high and low forms of art. However, these developing the conceptual potentiality of traits are considered fundamental to post- the modernist enterprise [8]. In some modern art, as opposed to merely present descriptions post-modernism as a period in one degree or another. One of the most in art is completed, whereas in others it is important points of difference, however, a continuing movement in contemporary between post-modernism, and art. In art, the specific traits of modernism, as movements in art, is modernism which are cited are generally modernism's ultimately progressive formal purity, medium specificity, art for stance that new works be more forward art's sake, the possibility of authenticity looking and advanced, whereas post- in art, the importance or even possibility modern movements generally reject the of universal truth in art, and the notion that there can be advancement or importance of an avant-garde and progress in art per se, and thus one of the originality. This last point is one of projects of art must be the overturning of particular controversy in art, where many the myth of the avant-garde [16]. This institutions argue that being visionary, relates to the negation of what post- forward looking, cutting edge and structuralist philosophers call progressive are crucial to the mission of [13]. art in the present, and that postmodern CONCLUSION Radical movements in Modernism, well as techniques such as collage and art Modern art, and radical trends regarded forms such as cinema and the rise of as influential and potentially as reproduction as a means of creating precursors to late modernism and artworks. Late Modernism shades into postmodernism emerged around World Postmodernism, modernism was no War I and particularly in its aftermath. longer revolutionary for the late moderns. With the introduction of the use of Instead, they worked to give physical industrial artifacts in art, movements form to big business and big government. such as , Dada and as REFERENCES 1. Baroni, R. (2017). The Garden of Berkeley: University of California Forking Paths: Virtualities and Press, p. 54. Challenges for Contemporary 3. Jameson, F. (1992). arratology. Emerging Vectors of Postmodernism, or The Cultural Narratology, 57, 247. Logic of Late Capitalism (Post 2. Craig, O. (2011). Beyond Contemporary Interventions). Duke Recognition: Representation, University Press. Power, and Culture, London and

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