1. Postmodernism in Art: an introduction The End of Modernity: 1960s Art and Culture University of Edinburgh Deborah Jackson djackso1@staffmail.ed.ac.uk
3. “Like the concept of God who is everywhere and nowhere, ‘postmodernism’ is remarkably impervious to definition. A term thrown about to describe phenomena as diverse as the Star Wars films, the practice of digital sampling in rock music, television-driven political campaigns and the fashion designs of Jean Paul Gaultier and Issey Miyake, postmodernism seems to permeate contemporary life. And yet there are few outside of academic departments devoted to Cultural Studies who could confidently say exactly what they think it is.” Heartney, E. (2001) Movements in Modern Art: Postmodernism. London, Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd. pp.6-12
6. Introduce Postmodernism as more than just an aesthetic movement – it is both a condition and a way of thinking“We are well past the age when we can merely accept or reject this new ‘ism’; it is too omnipresent and important for either approach. Rather we have to ask about its emergent possibilities, ask ‘What is it?, and then decide selectively to support and criticise aspects of the movement.” Charles Jencks, What is Post-Modernism? p6
7. Gerhard Richter (1986) Blue. Oil on canvas (300cm * 300cm) Jackson Pollock (1952) Blue Poles number 11. (212.9 cm * 488.9 cm)
8. “In the art world, the idea of postmodernism first began to surface in the 1960s, with the emergence of trends like Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptualism and performance. (In retrospect, nascent examples of postmodernism could be detected much earlier in works by artists such as Duchamp, whose readymades spoofed the preciousness of the art object, late De Chirico, who laid waste to the idea of the uniqueness of the artwork by cannibalising his own work, and even Picasso, whose abrupt stylistic changes made a mockery of the notion of signature style). Heartney, E. (2001) Movements in Modern Art: Postmodernism. London, Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd. pp.6-12
9.
10. TO UNDERSTAND POSTMODERNISM, FIRST YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS MEANT MY MODERNITY AND MODERNISM “Part of the difficulty stems from the name. ‘Postmodernism’, as the term suggests, it is unthinkable without modernism. It may be constructed as a reaction against the ideals of modernism, as a return to the state that preceded modernism, or even a continuation and completion of various neglected strains within modernism. But whether the relationship is defined as parasitic, cannibalistic, symbiotic or revolutionary, one thing is clear: you cannot have postmodernism without modernism. Postmodernism is modernism’s unruly child.” Heartney, E. (2001) Movements in Modern Art: Postmodernism. London, Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd. pp.6-12
11. Modernism is related to but not to be confused with Modernity. Modernity relates to the massive changes in culture and society due mainly to the developments brought about by the industrial revolutions and subsequent political unrest within Europe.
12. TO UNDERSTAND POSTMODERNISM, FIRST YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS MEANT MY MODERNITY AND MODERNISM Clement Greenberg (1909- 1904)
13. ‘Modernist Painting oriented itself to flatness as it did to nothing else’ Greenberg’s ‘Modernist Painting’ is a dominant account of modernism, which builds on the formalist theories of key 19th and 20th century writers, who believed that aesthetic experience was art’s predominant aim and value, and explained the development of modern art as a progression towards an increasingly pure abstraction, characterised by a focus on form.
14.
15. Artwork for sale and created for viewing in museums and galleries - Belief in a Universal Truth
16. Clement Greenberg “The task of self-criticism [in modern art] became to eliminate from the specific effects of each art any and every effect that might conceivably be borrowed from or by the medium of any other art. Thus would each art be rendered ‘pure’, and in its ‘purity’ find the guarantee of its standard of quality as well as of its independence.” (Greenberg [1965] 2004, p.775)
26. The consequences of Greenberg’s modernism: “...visual art should confine itself towhat is given in visual experience, and make no reference to anything given in any other order of experience” (Ibid p.777)
27. American modernism Considering American modernism in the early decades of the Cold War, we can trace the combative debate among artists, writers, and intellectuals over the nature of the aesthetic form in an age of mass politics and mass culture.
29. “I believe that here in America, some of us, free from the weight of European Culture, are finding the answer... We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European Painting [...] The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation”. (Newman [1948] 2004, p. 581-2) Barnett Newman (1950-1) VirHeroicusSubliminus[man heroic sublime].
35. Questioning modernism The art practices of the 1960s reflected a broader questioning of the values underpinning society. In art, these questions would be directed against the conventions assuring modern art of it’s “purity”: the autonomy of traditional disciplines (such as painting or sculpture), the separation of art from life or popular culture, the gallery system, the status of artist and role of the spectator, to name but a few.
36.
37. Postmodernism and Aesthetic Theory If truth isn't possible, then true interpretations cannot be a goal of artInterpretation. All value is merely a reflection of historically and culturally informed preferences. There is no essence of art, and no possibility of a clear definition. So there is no clear difference between art and other aspects of life. OUR prejudices about the differences between art and entertainment, or high and low culture, aren't based on real features of the things; our prejudices are simply OURS, meaning that they reflect our cultural traditions.
38. “From a philosophical point of view, postmodernism is associated with the dethroning of Enlightenment ideals of progress, the independent subject, truth and the external world. The dismal outcome of the utopian ideals that opened the twentieth century have played a big role in undermining such beliefs. So have developments in various scientific fields.” Heartney, E. (2001) Movements in Modern Art: Postmodernism. London, Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd. pp.6-12
39.
40. Postmodernism is not merely a rejection of Modernism but a continuum or a reaction
44. “Postmodernism: does it exist at all, if so what does it mean? Is it a concept or a practice, a matter of local style or a whole new period or economic phase? What are its forms, effects, place? How are we to mark its advent? Are we truly beyond the modern, truly in (say) a postindustrial age?” (Foster: 1983 p.vii)
45. Art & Language (1980) Portrait of Lenin by V. Charangovich (1970) in the Styile of Jackson Pollock II.
46. Gerhard Richter (1986) Blue. Oil on canvas (300cm * 300cm) Jackson Pollock (1952) Blue Poles number 11. (212.9 cm * 488.9 cm)
47. Reading list Listed below is a selection of books and articles relating to the topics covered in the course’s sessions. It is by no means exhaustive; you may find other books in the library useful that are not listed here. You should also not feel compelled to read every item included. Instead it is intended to function as a guide to recommended reading. For those taking credits for the course you are advised to make use of this reading list when preparing your essays. Key texts Heartney, E, Postmodernism (London Tate Publishing 2001) Hopkins, David, After Modern Art (Oxford, 2000) Foster, H, Recodings - Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics (Seattle: Bay Press 1985) Foster, H et al, Art since 1900: modernism, antimodernism, postmodernism, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.) Meecham P & Sheldon, J, Modern Art – A critical introduction’ (London: Routledge 2000) Owens, C, Beyond Recognition (University of California Press 1992)
48. Reckitt, H & Phelan, P, Art and feminism, (NY: Phaidon, 2001) Taylor, B, Art today, (London: Laurence King Pub., c2005) Nairne, S, State of the Art (London, Chatto & Windus 1987) Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood (eds.), Art in Theory 1900-2000 (London: Blackwell Press, 2000, 2nd ed.) Hopkins, D, After Modern Art (Oxford, 2000) pp. 197-233 Connor, S Postmodernist culture: an introduction to theories of the contemporary. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). Pp. 80-100 Featherstone, M, Consumer culture and postmodernism. (London: Sage, 1991.) Foster, H, Postmodern Culture (London Pluto Press, 1985) pp.7-15 Wood, P et. al., Modernism in Dispute, (Yale, New Haven, & London: Yale University Press and Open University Press, 1993) pp. 237-256 Wood & Perry, Inside the Whale in Themes in Contemporary Art (London: Yale and the Open University 2004) pp. 5-45
49.
50. Fried, M ([1966] 2004) Shape as Form: Frank Stella’s New Paintings, in W and Paul 793-5.
51. Greenberg, C ([1962] 2004) After Abstract Expressionism in Harrison, W and Paul Wood (eds) Art in Theory: 1900-2000. Oxford, Blackwell publishing. Pp. 785-787.
52. Greenberg, C ([1965] 2004) Modernist Painting in Harrison, W and Paul Wood (eds) Art in Theory: 1900-2000. Oxford, Blackwell publishing. Pp. 773-9.
53. Hopkins, D (2000) After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
54. Newman, B ([1946] 2004) The Sublime is Now, in W and Paul Wood (eds) Art in Theory: 1900-2000. Oxford, Blackwell publishing. Pp. 580-2.
55. Newman, B ([1952] 2004) Interview with Dorothy Gees Seckler, in W and Paul Wood (eds) Art in Theory: 1900-2000. Oxford, Blackwell publishing. Pp. 783-5.
56. Rosenberg, H ([1952] 2004) The American Action Painters, in Art in Theory: 1900-2000. Oxford, Blackwell publishing. Pp. 589.
Editor's Notes
Thank you all for coming tonight
Now we are all settled, and just before we introduces ourselves there are a few housekeeping things that we are required deal with.Firstly, if the fire alarm sounds make your way to the nearest fire exit immediately and do not stop to collect you belongings.All mobile phones should be switched to silent pleaseStart at 6.30pm, there’s such a lot to get through in each session that its imperative that your seated and ready to start (a bit of grace this week as we all had to find our destination)From next week there will be reading material for you take away, the texts are fairly challenging, however the idea is that the lecture will have framed your point of entry into each particular text.After the lecture, depending on time, if we are still within our 2hour allocation which we should be, we can grab a coffee from the machine and return back here for a brief discussion and seminar session which will be your opportunity to raise points of interest for further discussion, and questions relating to the lecture and readings.The other things to mention are:My contact detailsSlideshare: each lecture will be posted online on slideshare, web address…Okay, I would like to briefly introduce myself to you and then I think it would be productive if each of you in turn could introduce yourselves, and briefly outline what are your rationale is for taking this courses and what your expectations of it are? I can offer a brief academic bio that I think hints at the multitude of positions that I simultaneously consider art theory, practice, and history from. I studied at Glasgow School of Art in 1995 and studied Sculpture, so my background is practice based, I subsequently went on to study a Post Graduate degree here in Edinburgh at the College of Art in Contemporary Art and Art Theory and have recently submitted my PhD thesis in Visual Culture. I have also been involved in various activities, from running an artists-run gallery, and for the past six years I have taught at Edinburgh College of Art as well as being an art writer for art publication amongst other things.INTRODUCE THEMSELVES
Today’s presentation is intended to give you a taste of what we’ll be looking at over the next 11 weeks, while hopefully equipping you with a basic framework –a starting point if you like – with which to start to understand postmodernism in art. The fact that you are here reveals the fact that you’ve heard of Postmodernism, and that you want to enquire and analyse Postmodernism in Art.I think its useful to start with this quote the theoristHeartney who states:“Like the concept of God who is everywhere and nowhere, ‘postmodernism’ is remarkably impervious to definition. A term thrown about to describe phenomena as diverse as the Star Wars films, the practice of digital sampling in rock music, television-driven political campaigns and the fashion designs of Jean Paul Gaultier and Issey Miyake, postmodernism seems to permeate contemporary life. And yet there are few outside of academic departments devoted to Cultural Studies who could confidently say exactly what they think it is.”So, whilst Postmodernism is now evidentlyaworld-wide movement in all the arts and disciplinesI think that quote provokes me tobegin with a caveat, or perhaps a disclaimer. I don’t pertain to be able to offer you an easy definition of Postmodernism. This is because postmodernism isn’t an easy subject to understand. In fact, critical aspects of postmodernism, that is to say theories and texts concerned with Postmodernism,are opposed to (or at least sceptical of) the notion that there is a single way to understand any given thing, and this obviously includes postmodernism itself. Rather than accepting ‘truths’ or ‘authentic essences’ Postmodernism politicises them, and attempts to reveal that they are the products of struggle and repression, the result of powerful discourses rather than eternal, universal values and truths. It will become apparent that postmodernists therefore don’t subscribe to a singular, authorative reading of Postmodernism itself and of Postmodern artworks. In terms of discussing postmodern art, the tactic I will employ is to sit artworksbeside theories, and suggest that there is resonance between them and thatthere are critical postmodern theories that may allow for a point of entry into understanding these artworks further. I am always wary not to circumscribe an artists’ practice within a myopic, art historical rationale. This is because I believe that to do may berestrictive, dishonest, and even unethical. Instead what I hope to do is to provoke analysis, to highlight contradictions and complications of exploring work through the lens of postmodernism.Contextual considerations and ideological rationales will also be explored. And it is my intension reallyto provide you with the tools to engage with these postmodern debates. So as I said, Ican’t tell you definitively what postmodernism is or was. This is not a failing on my part but part of postmodernism’s slippery identity. It is a contested term. Postmodernism is often discussed in terms of its fluidity and open-endedness, because it resists being conveniently condensed into a neat definition. It has been noted that for students of the subject that postmodernism may feel very much like Narcissus’ reflection in the water which disintegrates the moment you reach out to grasp it.It would also be reductive and erroneous to claim to undertake a comprehensive exploration within the limited time that we have. So by its very nature this is course is an introduction to Postmodernism in art wherebyI aim to orient you within the territories of postmodernism.
Aims of this lectureToday what I am going to do is give you an introduction to Postmodernism which I have already alluded to as being a highly contested term by offering you a background in Modernism, specifically High Modernism. In terms of visual art Postmodernism was a term that only emerged in the late 1970s and was one of the most debated topics of its time, even amongst postmodernists themselves, and still today it remains a complex term and set of ideas. This is because Postmodernism is more than just an aesthetic movement - it is both aconditionand a way of thinking. As Charles Jencks states:“We are well past the age when we can merely accept or reject this new ‘ism’; it is too omnipresent and important for either approach. Rather we have to ask about its emergent possibilities, ask ‘What is it?, and then decide selectively to support and criticise aspects of the movement.” Charles Jencks, What is Post-Modernism? P6Before we can contest Postmodernism we therefore need to begin by examining What is it?It is often described as having an identity crisis, but it can be characterised variously as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’, (more of which in a moment), ‘a crisis of cultural authority’ and ‘the shift from production to reproduction’
I’ve chosen to show you these two paintings which I will return to at the end of the lecture. I’ve chosen them because ostensibly they’re quite similar. They are both abstract paintings. They are both made on very large canvases, the front surface of which they cover completely without border or frame. The colours, though admittedly not identical, do seem to share similar functions: the blues or cool greys seem to comprise the background (or underlying layer), while the warm colours appear on the surface, creating a sense of depth or space. The marks themselves, either appearing like drips, or scrapes, or spats, and are suggestive of some kind of intuitive process rather than calculated, premeditated technique. Yet for all these paintings’ similarities, they belonged to two very different discourses on art, two very different ways of understanding what art is. Indeed, we’ll return to this idea towards the end of this lecture.
So this lecture is titled: The end of modernity: 1960s art and culture The title of this lecture is in and of itself rather problematic. It suggests that Modernism ended and was superseded by its successor Postmodernism, and furthermore it pertains to have identified this paradigm shift in the 1960s. On thisHeartney states:“In the art world, the idea of postmodernism first began to surface in the 1960s, with the emergence of trends like Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptualism and performance. (In retrospect, nascent examples of postmodernism could be detected much earlier in works by artists such as Duchamp, whose readymades spoofed the preciousness of the art object, late De Chirico, who laid waste to the idea of the uniqueness of the artwork by cannibalising his own work, and even Picasso, whose abrupt stylistic changes made a mockery of the notion of signature style).”
Modernism is an umbrella term, or general name given to the succession of numerous avant-garde movements in art, design and literature between the end of the 18th century to the mid 20th century. What characterises this period is that modernist artists became less concerned with representing objects, or scenes and people in a ‘believable’ way. Insomuch as they were often less interested in naturalism and perspective that their immediate predecessors had been.
The term Postmodernism itself with its prefix of ‘post’ means after modernism but this is a misnomer. Postmodernism is not Anti-ModernismAs Heartney elaborates:“Part of the difficulty stems from the name. ‘Postmodernism’, as the term suggests, it is unthinkable without modernism. It may be constructed as a reaction against the ideals of modernism, as a return to the state that preceded modernism, or even a continuation and completion of various neglected strains within modernism. But whether the relationship is defined as parasitic, cannibalistic, symbiotic or revolutionary, one thing is clear: you cannot have postmodernism without modernism. Postmodernism is modernism’s unruly child.”Postmodernism therefore presents a set of complex philosophical and theoretical issues. One way to begin thinking about postmodernism is by thinking about modernism, the movement from which postmodernism seems to grow or emerge.
It is also important to make clear the distinction between Modernity and ModernismWHAT IS MODERNITY?The project of modernity is one with that of the Enlightenment: to develop spheres of science, morality and art according to their inner logic. It was dependent on the belief in universal laws and truths, and the idea that knowledge is objective, independent of culture, gender, etc. Modernity was posited on the notion that progress is based upon knowledge, and man is capable of discerning objective absolute truths in science and the arts. Modernity refers to a period extending from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (in the case of Europe) to the mid to late twentieth century characterized by the growth and strengthening of a specific set of social practices and ways of doing things. It is often associated with capitalism and notions such as progress.Modernity is fundamentally about order: about rationality and rationalization, creating order out of chaos. The assumption is that creating more rationality is conducive to creating more order, and that the more ordered a society is, the better it will function.Thus modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between "order" and "disorder," so that they can assert the superiority of "order." In western culture, then, disorder becomes "the other"—defined in relation toother binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational, (etc.) becomes part of "disorder,” and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society.Modernism as a term is typically associated with the twentieth-century reaction against realism and romanticism within the arts. ThereforeModernism can be thought of as the self-conscious response in the arts to the experience of modernity.A radically altered aesthetic form and perspective: the modernist stress upon art as a self-referential construct instead of as a mirror of nature or societySo clearly then we have identified how the term Modernism is related to but not to be confused with Modernity. This is because modernity relates to the massive changes in culture and society due mainly to the developments brought about by the industrial revolutions and subsequent political unrest within Europe, namely WW1 and WW2.
So if postmodernism in art implies some ‘going beyond’ modernism, or establishing a critical dialogue with it [which is our preferred definition], then it seems appropriate that we start with the question: What was modernism? And in order to find an answer to this question we must start by exploring the work of Clement Greenburg, a very influential American art critic after the second World War.Clement Greenberg was an important proponent of High Modernism.High modernism is a particular instance of modernism, coined towards the end of modernism.Modernism valorizes personal style.This presupposes a unique individuality - a private identity or self (subject) - that generates his or her own style according to a personal vision.This individualism is put into question in High Modernism. HIgh Modernism is situated at a time of Social turmoil, increasing nuclear threat, the technologization of the workforce under multinational capitalism, and the breakdown of religious belief that led to a kind of nihilism and anxiety about the future.After World War II - Negative effects of the war were offset temporarily by the economic prosperity & postwar reconstruction which took place during the ‘50s. However there were Cold War Tension between the Soviet Union and the United States, the strain of a nuclear buildup offset the psychological effects of the post-War economic prosperity.There were domestic tensions: Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Movement, Environmentalism, Viet Nam, political assassinations (JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X).Before the outbreak of World War II, Social Realism provided the dominant artistic style, representing and reflecting the tumultuous political and social climate of the Depression. During this time artists were influenced from a number of different directions, initially by Marxism - which stressed the importance of socially relevant art - and later by Freudian psychoanalysis, Cubism and Surrealism. Throughout the early 1940s many artists began to experiment with abstraction, and by the end of the decade the Abstract Expressionists were experiencing their most important breakthroughs. During this time critics such as Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg developed theoretical justifications for the new styles, and, by the mid 1950s, critical debate was focussed around the ideas Greenberg put forward in his essay "American-Type Painting," and those launched by Rosenberg in "The American Action Painters." During the early part of the period, many moved further away from the political beliefs they had held in the 1930s, while some began to embrace Existentialism.
The most prominent and lingering ideas expounded on Modernism as we will see are those of the critic Greenberg who stated in his essay on Modernist Painting in 1960 that ‘Modernist Painting oriented itself to flatness as it did to nothing else”Greenberg’s ‘Modernist Painting’ is a dominant account of modernism, which builds on the formalist theories of key 19th and 20th century writers, who believed that aesthetic experience was art’s predominant aim and value, and explained the development of modern art as a progression towards an increasingly pure abstraction, characterised by a focus on form.
So to offer a pre-Greenbergiancontext for Modernism, it can be seen to emerge around the 1860s, and this is of course the period of the Industrial Revolution; when we can identify major shifts. from agriculture to industry, from peasant to mass production, from landowner to business man, the factory, the engine, the automobile, urbanisation and the crowds, the city streets…and so onSo, the term Modernism is used to describe the style and the ideology of art produced from around the 1860s up to the 1960s (with recent art production called either Contemporary art or Postmodern art). The terms modernism and modern art are generally used to describe the succession of art movements that critics and historians have identified since the Realism of Courbet, culminating in abstract art and its developments up to the 1960s. By that time modernism had become a dominant idea of art, and a particularly narrow theory of modernist painting had been formulated by the highly influential American critic Clement Greenberg. As an art movement, modernism sought to engage with modernity by capturing the images and sensibility of the age rather than its superficial appearances.Modernism was also marked by the introduction of the camera in widespread use. The camera allowed artists the freedom to explore new subjects and also provided an alternative to painting to record history. So it was no longer important to represent a subject realistically, that is to say that the invention of photography made this function of art obsolete.Artists’ were attempting to capture contemporary life and so essentially Modernism was an urban style, pastoral modes were replaced by subject matter and a style that took it’s substance from the new, angular, constructed, technological environments of the modern city. The autonomy of the work of art was of paramount importance, the images were frequently abstracted, seen as autonomous objects not pictures of something else. That is to say, that Modernism called attention to the artwork as artwork - the fact that all painting is paint on a flat surface, before it is a person, bowl of fruit, etc. Or, as Greenberg put it, ‘Modernism used art to call attention to art’. High modernism is a particular instance of modernism, which was coined towards the end of modernism. High modernism is exemplified in the writings of Greenberg, who developed and promoted an opposition between "avant-garde" art and what he dismissed as "kitsch". Avant-Garde and Kitsch is the title of a 1939 essay by Greenberg in which he claimed that avant-garde and modernist art was a means to resist the 'dumbing down' of culture caused by consumerism. Characteristics of Modernism include• Formalism • Narrow in practice and theory • Each movement builds and improves on the previous, alluding to progress• Cult of the Avant-Garde and Originality • Artwork for sale and created for viewing in museums and galleries • Belief in a Universal Truth
In an essay called “Modernist Painting” Greenberg offered an explanation for the developments of modern art. He wrote “The task of self-criticism [in modern art] became to eliminate from the specific effects of each art any and every effect that might conceivably be borrowed from or by the medium of any other art. Thus would each art be rendered ‘pure’, and in its ‘purity’ find the guarantee of its standard of quality as well as of its independence.” This explanation reveals a lot about the way he thought art should be produced and understood. For Greenberg, crucial to modernism was the capacity of an individual discipline to criticise itself. In the case of painting therefore, Greenberg pictured an internal process of criticism to generated by the act of painting itself. So in line with Greenbergian thought, Modernism "defined itself through the exclusion of mass culture and was driven, by its fear of contamination by the consumer culture burgeoning around it, into an elitist and exclusive view of aesthetic formalism and the autonomy of art". So clearly if there is one thing that especially distinguishes postmodernism from modernism, it is postmodernism's relation to mass culture. There are a few general characteristics of Modernist Art:Firstly it engaged with the modern world, engaging with the frenetic urban lifestyle and landscapeIt was modern in both its themes and in its treatment, exploring new subject matter and painterly valuesAs the Modernist critic Greenberg stated, ‘Modernism called attention to art’, by this he means that it called attention to the fact that all painting is paint on a flat surfaceIt was no longer important to represent a subject realistically since the invention of photography and camerasWhist Greenberg believed that to retain their integrity, the arts had to protect themselves against the onslaught of consumerism and mass culture we will see that Postmodern works are not afraid to renegotiate "the different possible relations (of complicity and critique) between high and popular forms of culture".
Greenberg is considered a formalist critic - his assessment of the value of an artwork lay in its formal characteristics. Believed that although form was not the total of art, it provided the only firm basis on which to make judgements on both the quality and character of different works of art, as it was too easy to make contradictory assertions about subject matter.Greenberg:Concrete aesthetic encountersSure of its own objectivityForm over contentPurist media categoriesAn evolving linear progression abstracted from artists’ lives and historic eventsAgainst the subjective nature of aesthetic judgement
Greenberg proliferated the idea that:‘The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline, to criticise the discipline itself’This self-critical tendency, according to Greenberg, had been guiding modern art (i.e. Painting) towards what he termed ‘flatness’. For painting to be distinct from sculpture it had to give up its preoccupation with representing (three-dimensional) objects. This development is traced back in “Modern Painting” through a number of centuries. More recent examples of this tendency offered by Greenberg are: Cezanne, Manet, Monet and Mondrian, among others.
Of this example Greenberg states: “Manet’s became the first Modernist pictures by virtue of the frankness with which they declared the flat surfaces on which they were painted.” What this purely formal reading misses is any significance the content of this painting might have. For your interest: that the subject of this portrait Berthe Morisot, who was one of the few female artists to exhibit in the Paris Salon and with the Impressionists.
Monet’s contribution to the ‘critical’ progress of modern painting towards flatness was deemed to be his ‘all over’ painting, it’s apparent freedom from the constraints of the frame.Modernism reasserts the two-dimensionality of the picture surface. It forces the viewer to see the painting first as a painted surface, and only later as a picture. This, Greenberg says, is the best way to see any kind of picture. A flat picture plane – which was a result of the artists no longer trying to represent 3D objects, necessary as it showed the artist was accepting the overriding fact of the medium.For example, since sculpture is inherently three dimensional, it is absolutely necessary that modernist, i.e. pure, painting eschew any illusion of three-dimensionality. It must do this in order to sustain its autonomy. This is the real rationale for abstraction; not simply to avoid representation, but to avoid the impurity and inauthenticity of representing three dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. A painting is to be looked at, not looked into. Its space is to be travelled through with the eye alone. According to Greenberg, this sort of resistance to sculptural effects is very much a part of, and can be found in, the historical tradition of painting in the West.
I hope it’s fairly clear now why Greenberg would champion an artist like Jackson Pollock. Pollock’s (ostensibly) radical departure from figurative representation, epitomised in his infamous drip paintings, were seen to be the pinnacle of a radical, avant-garde art – the culmination of modern arts ‘progress’. They seemed to typify a ‘pure’ type of painting, alluding only to painting itself.
Greenberg’s status as an critic essentially helped to propel the artists he promoted, while also spawning like minded critics. However, his formalist approach, in other words his sole emphasis on the aesthetic and technical innovations of particular key (western artists), and his emphasis on purity neglected the often contradictory, political and social dimensions of the artist’s work. I’ll offer here a few examples and discuss some of the broader issues at stake in ‘Abstract Expressionist’ painting.Abstract Expressionism was a branch of American art that received the most direct European influence - but it also embodied something of the mythical American initiative, rugged individualism, and so on. It was, in other words, a highly suitable sign for the propagandist idea of the unity of the United States and Western Europe - but unity under American leadership.
American modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.Considering American modernism in the early decades of the Cold War, we can trace the combative debate among artists, writers, and intellectuals over the nature of the aesthetic form in an age of mass politics and mass culture.Although it started in the 1950s, the rift between the United States and the Soviet Union began during World War II.The United States believed in democracy. They adhered to the policy of free enterprise, voting to choose leaders and freedom of expression. The Soviet Union on the other hand, adhered to the doctrine of Communism. Stalin and the Soviet leaders believed that the masses were incapable of choosing their leader. Therefore, ruling with an iron fist was necessary.This ironclad rule would extend to its satellite countries. The Soviets would install leaders in Romania, Hungary and other Eastern European nations that were loyal to the USSR. They were also of course, Communists.It could be said then that, American Modernism was an attempt to bring order to the disordering forces of modernization
The label ‘abstract expressionism’ became synonymous with the ‘modern painting’ Greenberg had promoted, but actually included a diverse range of artistic approaches and outlooks, some of which were subsumed by political pressures.Greenberg was connected to the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, a CIA initiative reflecting the domestic policies in the United States during the cold war. In this context ‘Abstract Expressionism’ was hailed as the great expression of American liberty, diametrically opposed to the constraints of Communist countries who enforced socialist realism. This is ironic given that key figures in this movement (including Pollock and Mark Rothko) actually harboured socialist sympathies. (Pollock had also had an interest in Jungian psychoanalysis and ‘primitive’ symbolism, though that seemed to be edited out of his later works.)In the example provided here, which provides a striking visual contrast to the work of Pollock, Robert Motherwell loads his work with symbolic meanings and references. This piece is part of a series of works called Elegies to the Spanish Republic, a nod toward the fight against fascism in Spain. According to the art historian David Hopkins (Hopkins 2000, p.24), there are also allusions here to the work of various Spanish artists such as Goya, Velasquez and Picasso, as well as the shapes constituting a particular innuendo – a close up of a bull’s genitals featured in a certain Spanish poem.
So the actual complexity of the ‘Abstract Expressionists’ work seems to belie Greenberg’s conception of ‘purity’, and reveal such a notion to be based upon careful selection, or more strongly, exclusion. Throughout the writings of these artists – and critics such as Greenberg – there is evidence of a certain sense of cultural superiority. Indeed, New York, the base for these writers and critics, had surpassed Paris as the hub of cultural power. Barnett Newman wrote, in the essay from which this painting takes its name, “I believe that here in America, some of us, free from the weight of European Culture, are finding the answer... We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European Painting [...] The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation”. (Newman [1948] 2004, p. 581-2) In addition to this, there is also an implicit “masculinity” apparent in the posturing some of the Abstract Expressionists. Newman’s statements represent the way that the power of the art to represent the inner feelings of the artists was largely naturalised. Newman said in and interview, for example: “I start each painting as if I had never painted before. I present no dogma, no system, no demonstrations. I have no formal solutions... I work only out of high passion”. (Newman [1962] 2004, p. 783) Perhaps one feature connecting the Abstract Expressionist was the belief that their work really tapped into to underlying (in some case the term ‘primitive’ was used) human essence. [Newman’s The First man was an Artist]
Greenberg’s conception of modernism, at its most influential in the 1950s, seemed to hold together relatively well, despite the contradictions implicit in ‘Abstract Expressionism’. In fact, Greenberg’s writings, coupled with the patronage of the American cultural policies were widely disseminated. A travelling exhibition called The New American Painting organised by the Museum of Modern Art 1959 was accompanied by an essay by Alfred J Barr, a long time affiliate of the museum and a strong advocate of the idea that ‘Abstract Expressionism’ was a sign of America’s liberalism. In the 1960s however, the emergence of Minimalism would add extra strain to the meticulous formal rules laid out by Greenberg, threatening the ‘purity’ and coherence of modern art ‘from within’. Frank Stella’s work, for example, seems to continue Modern Paintings’ internal process of self reflection, while pushing it to its limits. A critic called Michael Fried, who was close to Greenberg, offers some incite into one of the aspects of Minimalism that would cause it to break with the Modern paradigm. Though he’s essentially an advocate of formalist criticism, he writes (when discussing the work of Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski) that “All judgements of value begin and end in experience, or ought to...” (Though he qualifies this by saying that this can be an informed judgement) (Fried [1965] 2004, p. 787). Here is a hint then of the part played by the spectator, the ambiguity of objects subject to interpretation.Elsewhere Fried wrote ofStella’s work, “It is as though depicted shape has become less and less capable of venturing on its own, of pursuing its own ends; as though useless, in a given painting, depicted shape manages to participate in – by helping to establish – the authority of the shape of the support, conviction is aborted and the painting fails.” (Fried [1966] 2004, p.795) What seems to be at stake here is the status of the work as an object. (If you look at your reading materials, those by Roland Barthes might offer significant incite here into the way that intellectuals were trying to better account for the object’s complex relationship to meaning – see Semantics of the Object.) In passing, Stella’s works have also been compared to corporate logos.
Though Donald Judd would continue to cite the influence of Pollock, Clifford Still, and BarnettNewman, his work constitutes a departures from their practice. Significantly like a number of minimalists, this included a transition from painterly abstracts to sculptural forms (a transgression of Greenberg’s insistence on the separation of different disciplines). In addition to this, his work would often be manufactured by various companies, dramatically changing Judd’s relationship to the work relative to the ‘Abstract Expressionists’, whose (‘existentially heightened’) relationship to the production of the work seems all important. Interestingly, you’ll see how suddenly representations of this work start to feature the space of the gallery too – perhaps another sign that the spectator was starting to be considered.Judd also tried to avoid the type of aesthetic decision making typified by the artists representative of Greenberg’s modernism, and instead he suggested that objects simply be placed in some systematic fashion, one next to the other. This relates to the work of certain conceptual artists (such as Sol LeWitt) but firmly emphasises materiality.
Robert Morris did not accept the significance of the ‘Abstract Expressionists’ in the way Judd did. Rather he was more interested in a European tradition related to the Constructivists. His works effaced personal traces (i.e. Distinct colour or shape) and pushed towards anonymity (again distinct from the idiosyncratic tendencies of Willem de Kooning or Franz Kline). More importantly perhaps, his work evoked a sense of theatricality. Each piece became a type of actor, in space. Again this seems like an ‘incestuous’ notion that crucially emphasises the role that the viewer had in completing the work of art – i.e. Walking round, under things, next to things. (Again Barthes’ texts might be useful reference, see The Death of the Author).
I hope this is giving you an indication of how Modernism was stating to decay – loose coherence – from within. I hope it’s apparent too, that Greenberg’s particular reading of ‘Modern Art’, which gained so much momentum, essentially neglected, or to use a stronger term ,represseda whole gamut of experiences and possibilities for art. This is just as apparent in his readings of the work he felt typified modernism as it is implied by the artistic practices he omitted from his account of art. One such example can be noted by looking at the writing of art critic Harold Rosenberg: he wrote “At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act... What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. (Rosenberg [1952] 2004, p.589) Neglected in Greenberg’s account was the performance, the body, the ritual of certain painters. To him the object was important because it was aesthetically complete, to the next generation of artists it would be the action of Pollock’s work that would be considered – of which the painting is really just an incidental outcome.Rosenberg once likened one of Frank Stella’s paintings to a closed door. To play upon this metaphor: for the rest of this presentation, before I return to the two paintings introduced at the beginning, all I simply want to do is open this door. To reveal the clamouring, messy, exciting world knocking to get in.
The 1960s was a highly politicised decade, while also seeing a dramatic rise in consumerism and popular culture (what Greenberg pejoratively termed ‘kitsch’). Though it would absurd to suggest that postmodernism had a clear beginning, 1968 is often seen to be important (though highly contested). In France, events culminated in a student demonstration, linked to an avant-garde art movement called Situationism, which objected to the spectacularisation of society and it’s divorce from real life. The philosopher Michel Foucault has also suggested that 1968 marked a repositioning of academic understanding, a turn towards culture and everyday life. Coupled with the ongoing struggle for civil rights, this move might be seen part of a broader questioning of fundamental values (including identity and subjectivity). A year earlier saw the publication of two major texts by Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference and Of Grammatology. These works similarly question underlying values by placing an emphasis upon the way that meaning is constructed in language. The importance attributed to these works signifies a turn towards considering language as being a prime mediator in all social interactions, what mounted in intellectual terms to what Barthes called The Semiotic Challenge.Artists in the 1960s would explode the concepts of modern art, proliferating an intoxicating range of different practices and approaches to making art. That which had been repressed by Greenberg’s version of modernism (and perhaps more accurately the structures that sustained them) was about a make a dramatic return (if indeed it had ever been away!).
The art practices of the 1960s reflected a broader questioning of the values underpinning society.In art, these questions would be directed against the conventions assuring modern art of it’s “purity”: the autonomy of traditional disciplines (such as painting or sculpture), the separation of art from life or popular culture, the gallery system, the status of artist and role of the spectator, to name but a few.ACTUALLY, WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE HISTORY OF WESTERN INTELLECTUALISM AND ARTYou are in the midst of this revolutionWHERE MOD AND POMO BEGINS AND ENDS IS FUZZYPOSTMODERNISMContinuation of modernist viewDoes not mourn loss of history, self, religion, centreA term applied to all human sciences —anthropology, psychology, architecture, history, etc.Reaction to modernism; systematic scepticism Rejection of all master narrativesAll “truths” are contingent cultural constructs/Shift from universal histories. History and identity politics: who can write? for whom? from what standpoint?Scepticism of progress; anti-technology biasSense of fragmentation and decentered selfMultiple conflicting identities/Multiculturalism, competing views of history and tradition.Mass-mediated realityPostmodernism evolved into an assault on the Greenbergian dogma and its insistence that modernist art constituted an autonomous, self-referential field of human activity.
MODERNISMPeople are the same everywhereThere are universal laws and truthsKnowledge is objective, independent of culture, gender, etc.Language is a man-made tool that refers to real things / truthsI, the subject, speak languageI have a discernible selfThe self is the center of existence POSTMODERNISMLanguage is a social construct that “speaks” & identifies the subjectKnowledge is contingent, contextual and linked to POWERTruth is pluralistic, dependent upon the frame of reference of the observerValues are derived from ordinary social practices, which differ from culture to culture and change with time.Values are determined by manipulation and domination
PoMoPostmodernism and Aesthetic Theory If truth isn't possible, then true interpretations cannot be a goal of art Interpretation.All value is merely a reflection of historically and culturally informed preferences. There is no essence of art, and no possibility of a clear definition. So there is no clear difference between art and other aspects of life. OUR prejudices about the differences between art and entertainment, or high and low culture, aren't based on real features of the things; our prejudices are simply OURS, meaning that they reflect our cultural traditions.Anti-essentialism—many of the notions previously regarded as universal and fixed (gender identity, individual selfhood) are actually fluid and unstable. These are socially constructed or contingent categories rather than absolute or essential ones. All thinking and investigation is affected by prior ideological commitments. There is no disinterested enquiry.Postmodernists also distrust grandiose words like authenticity and expression, and concern themselves with gender, politics, and new media. Postmodernist made visible the economic, political, gender, and colonizing hegemony inherent in western "objectivity" and "universality.”DEATH OF THE AVANT GARDE?So, what went out of the window with postmodernism was the idea of originality; the ‘original’ new was rejected and replaced by the concept of ‘reference’ and ‘quotation’. So to be ‘post-modern’ means, in one respect, the end of the new. Postmodernism has been declared to be the death of the avant garde.Avant Garde, on first glance may seem obvious and simple: Derives from a French term, meaning in English, vanguard or advance guard (the part of an army that goes forward ahead of the rest). Applied to art, means that which is in the forefront, is innovatory, which introduces and explores new forms and in some cases new subject matter.
Initially, postmodernism was a movement in architecture that rejected the modernist, avant garde, passion for the new. Modernism was an exploration of possibilities and a perpetual search for uniqueness and individuality. Modernism's valorization of the new was rejected by architectural postmodernism in the 50's and 60's for conservative reasons. They wanted to maintain elements of modern utility while returning to the reassuring classical forms of the past. The result of this was a collage approach to construction that combines several traditional styles into one structure. As collage, meaning is found in combinations of already created patterns. Other defining characteristics of Postmodernism include a loss of faith in upward progress. Postmodernism, born after World War II, it is very much a product of the "lost" era, disillusionment in religion, and in the qualities of life taken for granted in the past. Where modernism boasted the human's ability to solve questions regarding meaning and life, postmodernism makes no such claims. Therefore “from a philosophical point of view, postmodernism is associated with the dethroning of Enlightenment ideals of progress , the independent subject, truth and the external world. The dismal outcome of the utopian ideals that opened the twentieth century have played a big role in undermining such beliefs. So have developments in various scientific fields.”
Although the term "postmodernism" is continually undergoing interrogation and redefinition, one constant that emerges from the critical discourses surrounding it is a sense that postmodernism involves a radical rethinking of representational strategies, and with this a questioning of our underlying assumptions about how "meanings" are produced. So to summarise thus far, Postmodernism is not merely a rejection of Modernism but a continuum or a reaction. Postmodernism embraced an expansion of media. It is multi-cultural and can be defined as more “hybrid” than “pure”. Post Modern MUSIC is characterised by a pastiche of different styles all rolled into one, as is Post Modern FASHION, LITERATURE, TELEVISION, and ARCHITECTURE.Significantly, Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal. Post-modernism has nothing to do with a period or an epoch. Post-modern is not what exists after modernity. Post-modernism is a term that implies certain intellectual or cultural tendencies.We have seen how the term modernity was developed alongside the development of the capitalist state. Modernisation is a diverse unity of socio-economic changes generated by scientific and technological discoveries. Modernity was born by what are called grand narratives in the jargon of the post-modernists. In simple language, Grand Narratives are big ideas which give sense and direction in life. Such ideas are truth, reason, tradition, religion, morality, ideology, etc.The post-modernists argue that these notions, grand narratives, do not live up to scrutiny, hence are meaningless. According to the post-modernists, all worldviews that claim absolute notions of truth — religion, science, Marxism, etc — are artificial constructions that are totalitarian by their very nature.
In 1979 the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote The Postmodern Condition and stated that the ‘grand narrative’ that had informed the West since the Enlightenment (in other words since the 18thc, when European philosophers such as Kant and Rousseau had laid the intellectual foundations for modernism) could no longer sustain credibility. These abstract systems of thought, by which social institutions validated themselves, were infused with ideas of ‘social perfectibility’ or ‘progress’. In terms of modern art Greenberg’s aesthetic Modernism might be considered a ‘grand narrative’ of sorts. Lyotard in his book the postmodern condition, clearly articulated the view that postmodernism is about pluralism and fragmentation. The modern period is bankrupt he said, because the meta narratives of the past assume a progression toward social enlightenment and emancipation, meta narratives being Marxism and Freudianism and all forms of Enlightenment reason.Postmodernism was seen to pay closer attention to other worlds and voices which had been silenced by these dominant meta narratives. So grand narratives are inherently ideological in their own right, postmodernism seeks to de-stabilise these narratives by replacing them not with another grand narrative but with a series of micro or mini narratives, little stories that explain smaller practices or local events rather than huge scale universal global concepts.
“Postmodernism: does it exist at all, if so what does it mean? Is it a concept or a practice, a matter of local style or a whole new period or economic phase? What are its forms, effects, place? How are we to mark its advent? Are we truly beyond the modern, truly in (say) a postindustrial age?”
It could be argued that postmodern art politicises visual imagery, critically highlighting the power structures implicit in its meaning. Perhaps it could equally be argued however (al la Julian Stallabrass) that the eclecticism of much postmodern art was simply the result of a restructuring of political and economic systems. A question worth considering over the next number of weeks, and one which will be left open, might be, “does postmodern art critically reflect upon consumerism or merely reiterate its diffuse, eclectic strategies?”
To conclude I’ll point out the differences in the way these paintings are considered [Handout: Hal Foster’s The Expressive Fallacy from Recodings] This is to emphasise the cultural (linguistic) turn central to postmodernism. Where the Pollock piece can represent authentic immediate feelings – emanating from ‘modern man’ – the latter is viewed as being the product of signs. Additionally, the ‘purity’ of Pollock piece (which actually contains semi-figurative elements and has a history that complicates Pollock’s role in making the work, suggesting that friends began it with him on a drunken night) is difficult to determine in Richter’s work: the squidgy made marks, and softer edges, seeming to be endlessly evocative of his photo realist works. Where the first was able to attach to a notion of purity, or authenticity, the latter is part of critical perspective that denies that we can transcend the language we habitually deploy, while attempting to promote an art which makes such conventions apparent.
