What is Post-Modernism?

Definition:

"A late 20th Century style and conceptual theory in the arts and architecture, characterized by a general distrust of ideologies as well as a rather 'difficult' relationship with what constitutes art."

It sounds pretty simple. It's only when you start digging and discover sticky concepts like "modernity" (not the same as modernism) and "post-modernity" (different to postmodernism) that your head starts to spin. So let's skip the complex stuff and focus on a few essentials. Art historians, curators and postgraduate students of 20th century contemporary aesthetics, stop here!

Sleeper, by Mark Wallinger, Winner
Of Turner Prize (2007). The 2-hour
film records a performance in which,
over a period of 10 nights, the artist
dressed in a bear suit and wandered
aimlessly around the brightly-lit
entrance hall of Mies van der Rohe's
Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

CONTEMPORARY IRISH ARTISTS
For biographies of contemporary
painters and sculptors in Ireland
see: Contemporary Irish Artists.

NEW FORMS OF ACCESS
For new ways of experiencing
painting, see: Art Jam and Art Party.

WORLD AUCTION RECORDS
For information about the world's
most highly priced works of art
and record auction prices, see:
Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings
Top 20 Most Expensive Paintings

• Bluffers Guide to Post-Modernism
• Post-Modern Art Movements
• Postmodernism Can Produce Fascinating Art
• The Future of Postmodernist Art

Bluffers Guide to Post-Modernism

Before explaining post-modernist art, let's talk about modern art - the style it replaced.

Modernism: Artists Believe Life and/or Art Has Meaning

Modernist art is usually associated with the era 1860-1960s - basically from Impressionism to half-way through the Pop-Art movement. Modernist artists (like all practitioners of modernism) believed in the fundamental scientific laws of reason and rational thought. They also believed that life had meaning - at least until the senseless butchery of World War I. (But see also Dada.) Even afterwards, they still believed that sufficient meaning could be rediscovered by a combination of unprejudiced rational thought and art. (A good example is Surrealism.)

Disillusionment Sets In

Unfortunately, by the mid-1960s, this confidence had wilted under the successive hammer blows of the Holocaust, post-colonial rigidity, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, causing people to become progressively more disillusioned about the inherent meaning and value of life (and art). Of course not everyone, and not all artists, became disillusioned. One group who maintained their faith were those in the upper reaches of the organizational hierarchies of society, including the arts. This naturally led to tension between them and others lower down.

The Virgin Mother. Hirst's most
famous sculpture, a huge work
of a pregnant female human, cut
away to expose the fetus, muscle
and tissue and cranium. Located
in New York City.

EVOLUTION OF FINE ART
For details about the development
of Western painting and sculpture
see: History of Art Timeline.

MOVEMENTS, PERIODS, ARTISTS
For more information, see:
History of Art
Old Masters
Famous Artists.

The Postmodern Era

The post-60s period in the visual arts has been characterized by a number of factors:

• A widespread disillusionment with life, as well as the power of existing value-systems and/or technology to effect beneficial change. As a result, authority, expertise, knowledge and eminence of achievement has become discredited. Artists have become more and more wary about "big ideas." New styles of art have failed to attract them in the way that Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism or Surrealism captured the imagination of earlier generations. Small is now good, so postmodernist schools have tended to be more local.

• New educational priorities, which began to emphasize the pursuit of skills rather than knowledge-for-its own sake. As a result, artists and art students became less interested in absorbing the traditions and craft of their subject, and instead focused on mastering production techniques. Individual creativity and interpretation have become as (or more) important than the gradual acquisition of painterly skills.

• The emergence of new image-based technologies (eg. Television, video, screenprinting, computers, the Internet), which generated a huge wave of film and photographic imagery - of places, events and international celebrities - and lessened reliance on draughtsmanship, in the process. By manipulating this new technology, artists (inc. painters, printmakers, sculptors and others involved in newer forms like installation) have been able to short-cut the traditional processes involved in "making art," but still create something new.

• The growth of consumerism and instant gratification over the last few decades of the 20th century has also had a huge impact on the visual arts. Modern consumers want novelty. They also want entertainment. In response, many artists, curators and other professionals have taken the opportunity to turn art into a "product." For example, installation and video have allowed consumers to experience art in a much more pro-active way. The public's desire to be shocked and stimulated has been met, if not satisfied, by new artistic subject-matter, like dead tiger sharks, huge ice-sculptures, crowds of of nude bodies, demonstrations of dying flies, islands wrapped in pink polypropylene fabric, and so on. Whether these new so-called artforms actually constitute "art" remains a hotly-contested issue. The avant-garde conceptualists say "Yes", the traditionists say "No".

Postmodernism In a Nutshell

To paraphrase Andy Warhol, "anyone can be famous for 15 minutes". This idea, more than any other, sums up the postmodernist age. Faced with a new non-sensical world, the postmodernist response has been:

Okay, let's play around with this nonsense. We accept that life and art no longer have any obvious intrinsic meaning, but so what? Let's experiment, make art more interesting, and see where it leads. Who knows, maybe we can be famous for 15 minutes!

Impact of Postmodernism

The postmodern approach has proved extremely popular with many art students. Suddenly, instead of having to work tirelessly at honing their painterly skills in draughtsmanship, perspective, composition, colour theory and all the other things required by traditional artists, they could dream up a nifty idea, issue a suitably "meaningful" manifesto and Bingo! They were famous. Or at least that's how it seemed.

Meanwhile those painters and sculptors who had acquired those painstaking traits, were iced by an arts establishment who embraced postmodernism with Stalinesque rigour. Thus for example in Britain, in 2002, when the prestigious Turner Prize was won by Keith Tyson for his creation of a large black monolithic block filled with discarded computers, not a single painter had been considered as a possible recipient of the prize.

This cocktail of experimentation, focus on instant process, and enhanced communication facilities, has led inexorably to a huge shift in the way art is perceived, produced and promoted. Conceptualism is now a dominant force, and its advocates within the arts establishment are now in a position to determine what constitutes such important things as "innovation", or "outstanding art". One can't help feeling that the "meaning" of an artwork has now overtaken its aesthetic qualities, thus relegating the notion of craftsmanship to a second division form of art. This has significant implications, not just for art students seeking to acquire skills, but also for professional artists competing for public commissions and exhibition space.

Post-Modern Art Movements

So far, there have been no great international art movements during the postmodernist period. Instead, the era has been characterized by a number of national movements along with several brand new artforms. In addition, there have been dozens of artistic splinter groups, as well as one or two anti-postmodernist schools whose members have endeavoured to produce the sort of art that Michelangelo or Picasso would have been proud of. Here is a brief list of the main post-modern movements, with explanatory comments.

• Conceptualism (1960s onwards). See also: Conceptual Art.
Original objects of art are boring: it's the idea that counts.

• Performance (Early 1960s onwards). See: Performance Art and Happenings.
A new way to make art accessible to the masses.

• Installation (1960s onwards). See also: Installation Art.
A new way to draw spectators INTO the artwork.

• Video (1960s onwards). See also: Video Art, and Animation.
Art becomes dynamic, more absorbing, more exciting.

• Minimalism (1960s onwards)
A refuge of intellectual painters and sculptors anxious about "purity" in art.

• Photo-Realism (1960s, 1970s)
Copying photographs is easier and more fun than learning how to pain portraits.

• Earthworks (mid-1960s)
No greedy commercial galleries involved. See also: Land Art.

• Supports-Surfaces (c.1966-72)
Experimental shock tactics to gain fame.

• Post-Minimalism (1971 onwards)
A fun way to create objective art that deteriorates.

• New Subjectivity (1970s)
A halfway-house between classical art and postmodern anarchy. Fabulous works!

• Graffiti Art (1970s onwards)
Ultimate postmodernist movement: instant painting, instant fame.

• Neo-Expressionism (1979 onwards)
Renaissance art strikes back! An anti-post-modernist movement.

• Young British Artists/ Britart (1980s)
Combination of breathtaking business-savvy opportunism and shocking ideas. An explosion of extreme bad taste dressed up as art. The public loved it.

• Neo-Pop Art (late 1980s onwards)
Huge plastic sculptures of children's toys and lots more in the same vein.

• Stuckism (1999 onwards)
Stuckists hate YBAs. Another anti-postmodernist tendency.

• New Leipzig School (c.2000 onwards)
East German centre of traditional excellence in painting and sculpture. No real connection with postmodernism.

Postmodernist Splinter Art Groups

In keeping with the contemporary post-modern idea that most 20th century ideological systems are flawed, if not actually bankrupt, and that salvation (if it exists at all) lies in "local" rather "global" schools of painting, sculpture and other artforms, contemporary artists have tended to associate in small groups. Information on the individual styles of these mini-postmodernist movements can be hard to come by, but if you want to research them here is short list, in approximate chronological order:

Copy Art, Eat Art, Neo-Geo, Mail Art, Equipo Cronica, Mec Art, Groupe Zebra, BMPT, Cooperative des Malassis, Lowbrow, East Village, Panique Szafran, Appropriation Simulation, Bad Painting, Demoscene, Pittura Colta (Anacronismo), Massurrealism, Pluralism, Relational Art, Figuration Savante, OuPeinPo, Sound Art, Superflat, Massurrealism, Artefactoria, Toyism, Lowbrow, Tiki Art, Bitterism, Thinkism, Funism.

Postmodernism Can Produce Fascinating Art

Lest you get the impression that (eg) all art since the mid-1960s has been a load of rubbish, or that all Britart is complete nonsense, I should emphasize that a good deal of avant-garde art has been well-received by the general public - as interesting, stimulating and innovative - and bears comparison with a lot of stuff produced by earlier masters, including Picasso. This is especially true in the field of video, animation and installation, and in the fine arts of painting and sculpture. Also, one should not forget that the earlier modern era produced its fair share of flakes and fruitcakes, as well as such gobsmacking masterpieces as "Fountain" (1917) - a relica of a public urinal - by the legendary Frenchman Marcel Duchamp.

The Future of Postmodernist Art

In its present "conceptualist" form, post-modern art will no doubt continue to produce arresting works to satisfy the public. After all, we live in an age dominated by TV programs like Big Brother, endless TV Soaps, and a host of foods that are injurious to our health. Against this background, I'm sure that contemporary artworks featuring dead sharks, platinum diamond-encrusted skulls and crowds of naked subjects, will do very nicely. Whether these creative gems constitute art: whether they can be legitimately regarded as "aesthetic": whether they are capable of maintaining the varied traditions of previous artists like John Singer Sargent, Ansell Adams, or Jackson Pollock - let alone Rembrandt or Vermeer: and whether they are capable of inspiring younger generations - these are all very different questions, which require answers from someone much cleverer than myself.

• For more contemporary art in Ireland, see: Irish Visual Arts.
• For information about painters and sculptors, see: Famous Irish Artists.
• For information about modern artists, see: 20th Century Irish Artists.

• NOTE: To update this review of Postmodernism, click here.