Postmodernism

Postmodernism

What is Postmodernism?

Postmodernism is effectively after the modernism movement. So roughly from the 1960’s on wards. It has a lot of movements in it such as.

Conceptualism

Performance

Installation Art

Video Art (animation is included in here)

Minimalism

Photo Realism

And the list goes on. Andy Warhol made a great quote and in paraphrase is “anyone can be famous for 15 minutes”. This has somewhat been how postmodernism artists work. They take the nonsense and experiment with it. So postmodernism is art that hasn’t had a great amount of thought put into it but still has a meaning…sometimes.

For example. In Britain in 2002 when Keith Tyson won the Turner Prize for his creation of a large black monolithic block filled with discarded computers. Not a single painter had been seen as possibly winning the prize.

Although art has always been some sort of entertainment it never has been entertainment as it is today as part of postmodernism. Due to the growth of consumerism and the love of TV and instant satisfaction people tend to want to be entertained quickly. Art has moved with this ideal and is shown in the form of video art, and shock tactics eg. UnAustralain by Azlan Mclennan, which was simply a burnt flag. Something to grab the audience’s attention and draw them in as quickly as it can.

Key factors in Postmodernism is:

Relativism

no universal narrative

social constructivism

Key Artists are:

Andy Warhol

Barnett Newman

Roy Lichtenstein

Andy Warhol was made famous by his Campbell’s soup can series that was shown at the Ferus Gallery in L.A in 1962. He became an icon of pop art until he was shot dead in 1968. Although he had a short career his artworks forged away forward in the new art movement of Postmodernism. It was quick and drew attention. Almost to simple that some argued that it wasn’t art.

Barnett Newman’s paintings come across as simple paintings. Gernerally bars and tones of colors, nothing more nothing less. He was well known for “opening” the doors to what painting could be. His paintings gernally represented something for example his piece “adam” is a representation of man’s intimacy with the earth. As the Hebrew words adom (red) and Dam (blood) are close to those of Adam who is labelled as the first man of mankind. You can see by its simplistic approach and its lack of detail and narrative how his work fits into postmodernism.

Finally Roy Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein has been compared to the great Andy Warhol with his bright pop art style of paintings. Know most for his comic book style paintings which came from his son, picking up a comic with Mickey mouse on it and saying, “I bet you couldn’t paint as well as that”.