What is Postmodernism? Post_ modern_ ism Post – after, a reaction to modernism

1. What is Postmodernism? • Post_ modern_ ism • Post – after, a reaction to modernism • 2. Modern_ism – “ism”, being modern is elevated into a belief, an ideology, a value to be embraced e.g Buddhism, Commuism, Capitalism… • 3. What is modern then?

2. The power of looking: Modern, Modernism Let’s us not worry about defining Modernism. It is enough that we know it has a lot to do with being modern. Since we use the term “modern” all the time in our daily life we actually already know the meaning of the word “modern”. It is because we know when and how to apply this word.—The meaning of the word can be grasped in looking carefully at how we use the word in life. A lot of times using a word is like using a tool such as a hammer. When someone uses a hammer to drive a nail into the wall, we say this person understands the meaning of hammer. When someone points to an object and says “ it is modern”; and we agree with him, we only need then to look carefully at the distinctive features of the said object to understand what is meant by “modern”.

3. Which one of these costumes would you call “modern” and why?

7. Modern, Modernism • When we use the term “modern” in everyday situation, such as when we are describing the character of a chair, a dress or a painting, we generally mean: • The object is “contemporary”. It is different from a “traditional” object. There is something about the object that indicates its timeliness; that it belongs to our time and not in the past. • The object is streamlined. There is no superfluous element that distracts the object from its function or essence. • The object is “good”. This means 1 and 2 are embraced as values to be desired. Being modern---breaking from the past and tradition (painting should not be tied to the past; should invent new ways to express and describe the world; should be paired down to its essence (painting should be about painting) • If 1 and 2 are values to be desired, they are also imperatives.– One must be modern… it is not a choice… if artists want her work to be good, her work must be modern.

8. Surely, the term “modern” existed before modernism. It existed in the Baroque period. But modern (point 1 and 2) was not embraced as “imperatives” in other historical periods. The consciousness to be modern as a categorical imperative constitutes the core value of Modernism as an ideology. This new consciousness emerged in the late 19th century. Arthur Rimbaud 1854-1891 “One must be absolutely modern”

9. Clement Greenberg American Art Critic 1909-1994

10. Clement Greenberg was an influential art critic who supported the work of the Abstract Expressionist (1940’s – 1950’s). The Abstract Expressionists was a group of American painters that included Jackson Pollack, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and others. Greenberg also supported a type of painting by a later generation of painters called Post-Painterly Abstraction (1960’s – 1970’s), this group of painters included Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis and others.

11. Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956). Lavender Mist, 1950, Oil and enamel on canvas, (7 ft 3 in x 9 ft 10 in).

12. Barnett Newman (1905-1970 American,). Who is Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue II, 1967, acrylic on canvas, 305 x 259 cm.

13. Morris Louis (American, 1912-1962). Floral V, 1959-60. Acrylic and magna on canvas. 98 3/8 x 137 13/16 in.

14. In Greenberg’s well-known essay Modernist Painting (published in 1961), the critic defines Modernism as… “ The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” “ Each art had to determine through its own operations and works, the effects exclusive to itself.” (this roughly means: painting should examine what it does best using its own language and properties i.e. paint, 2-dimeniosnality, its unique pictorial space, etc.) “ Thus would each art be rendered “pure,” and in its “purity” find the guarantee of its standards of quality as well as of its independence. “ “It was the stressing of the ineluctable flatness of the (painting’s) surface that remained, however, more fundamental than anything else to the processes by which pictorial art criticized and defined itself under Modernism.” “For flatness alone was unique and exclusive to pictorial art.”

15. How does Greenberg’s theory work out as a “description” of the evolution of Modernist Painting? We will examine the development of Piet Mondrian, one the most celebrated painters in the first half of the 20th century Piet Mondrian (1872-1944, Dutch). Self-Portrait, 1918, oil on canvas, 305 x 259 cm.

16. View from the Dunes with Beach and Piers, Domburg, oil and pencil on cardboard painting, 1909 Wind Mill in Sunlight oil on canvas, 114 x 87 cm 1905

17. The Grey Tree,1912. Oil on canvas. 78.5 x107.5 cm Apple Tree in Flower. 1912 Oil on canvas. 78 x 106 cm Trees in Blossom,1912. Oil on canvas.65 x 75 cm Composition No.10 (Pier and Ocean), 1915 Oil on canvas. 85 x 108 cm

18. Composition No.10 (Pier and Ocean), 1915 Oil on canvas. 85 x 108 cm Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow. 1937–42 Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 55.4 cm