Postmodernism

Presentation from the session.



Notes

Task Four  

According to Photography: A Cultural History by Mary Warner Marien, "the concept of the Postmodern or Postmodernity predated what has become know as the Postmodern era"(2010). However the historical period commonly associated with the Postmodern is that of the 1960's onwards.

There are a number of key features in this particular period common to all area's of art and design. Perhaps the most prevalent is that of the breaking of Modernist rules. Within his book The Postmodern Condition, Jean-François Lyotard argued that Postmodernism's "fertile chaos would feed a new freedom from the oppression and authority of scientific knowledge" (Marien, 2010). Marien also states that "in art circles, Postmodernism came to mean a rejection of themes and subjects that interested Modernist artists" (2010). The loss of an original is another prime aspect of the Postmodern period. Oliver Wendell Holmes "realised that the mass trade in images would change our relationship to originals; making them, indeed, little more than the source of representation" (Wells, 2010, p 22). Other key features include a re-interpretation of history, refusal to provide a narrative, a depiction of a character who appears to be cut off from reality and a tendency for artists to work outside of a singular art form.

The image below is from the series entitled After Walker Evans by American photographer Sherrie Levine. The series consists of images re-photographed from the Walker Evans exhibition catalogue. The work is typically Postmodern in that her recycling of images underlines "the ubiquity of the copy and the insignificance of the original" (Marien, 2010).  

Mary Warner Marien, 2010. Photography. 3rd Revised edition Edition. Laurence King.

Liz Wells, 2009. Photography: A Critical Introduction. 4 Edition. Routledge.