Or…
Things Fall Apart… When they are forcibly disassembled
The modernists went as far as they could go, they proved the thesis of Modern Art – art didn’t have to have subject matter, it could be a “pure” creation, subject matter and the materials used to make it were one and the same.
In the 1950s, a couple of upstarts thought that was boring, and did something different, and they drew (no pun intended) subject matter from ordinary, daily things. Flags, numbers, soup cans, and shoes. Pop Art was invented.
It’s hard to explain how Pop Art was a radical departure from modernism, but the main departure was to say, “art isn’t some hoity toity, amazing thing, a reflection of ‘high’ culture; anything can be art”.
And then all hell broke loose.
Honestly, it is hard to write this entry of my “short, irreverent” history, because so much happened in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s that was so different from anything that had previously been called art, it doesn’t fit into a linear narrative as well as Modern Art does. It was an explosion that went in many directions at once.
There was performance art, installations, pop art, assembelage, video, conceptual art, digital art, and other bizarre ways to make art. Art addressed gender, nature, consumerism, space and environment, kitsch, and religion.
A lot of art from this time was “shocking” (link is NSFW), and a lot of people would say, just plain strange or uncalled for (another not quite SFW image). Often, when people see post-modern art, the response is, “how is this art?”
It seems like art became random in the post-modern era, but I think there was a common thread, just like there was a common thread in the Modern era. The thesis of Post-Modern art is that there isn’t a distinction between art and life. Anything can be art, if attention is brought to it as art, and anything that was art could be part of life.
Art wasn’t a “thing” to be “made” that would sit in a gallery or museum to be looked at when someone wanted to “experience art”, it was something that happened all around us, all the time. Life is art, and art is life, it has the meaning that we give it, and it obtains meaning when we draw attention to it.
The wall between art and life was brought down. Post-Modern art disassembled the meaning of art, each movement and method unravelled the meaning of art in a different direction.
That’s pretty damn cool.
The problem is that it leaves art completely deconstructed, completely disassembled, lacking any definition and structure. This sucks for artists now.
There are a whole lot of pieces laying all over the floor now that the post-modernist are through with it. It is the morning after a raging, drunken party, and we wake up, the house is trashed, and we have the mother of all headaches.
Up next, the fallout, and where we are now.
Tags: art history, contemporary, deconstruction, post-modern
I am not an artist just an art lover. My take on art in the 60’s and beyond is that it was crap- seductive crap, but crap none the less. Those were my college years and art as well as virtually everything else important was devalued including my college degrees. I never gave much thought to what this might mean to someone who makes art. I guess from my jaded perspective and questionable personal integrity I would ask what people will pay for and make it.
.-= Ralph´s last blog post ..How being certain you are right can cause a big problem =-.
@Ralph, I think that what happened in the 60s and 70s in art was necessary, it allowed art to move forward *past* what was being done at the time, to get us where we are now. Artists have a lot more freedom of methods now, but I think at the same time, there is a responsibility to use those methods well, to make *really good* art.
Catenate these articles into a PDF and you have a nice little bribe for newsletter signups.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog post ..Content Strategy – Olympic Blogging Part II =-.
I think Frank Zappa said it best:
“The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively—because, without this humble appliance, you can’t know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a ‘box’ around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?”
This period is characterized by artists moving the frame and calling previously normal parts of our life “art”. While in the modern period artists deconstructed the materials, post-modernism deconstructed the question “What is Art?”
While this question has left art and artists with quite a hangover, I think the awesome part is the sheer volume of techniques we have available due to all of these past artistic innovations.
.-= Tiven´s last blog post ..Welcome- =-.
It’s funny you say that Tiven, because what you said about the sheer volume of techniques we have available is almost exactly what I wrote last night for part 5 of this series, which I am gonna publish right about…
Now.
.-= Sean´s last blog post ..A Short and Irreverent Art History- Part 5 =-.