Postmodern Art

Postmodern Art

Artistic Movements, Periods and Styles in 5 points

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Postmodern Art

Talking about postmodernity is difficult since there is no enough historical perspective: the world has not agreed about certain fundamental concepts as not enough time has passed by. Nevertheless, we will try to highlight in 5 points, highly evident elements so as to appreciate better the art of the last decades. As a humble introduction.

• There is not a clear moment determining the beginning of postmodernity in history, but we can say it is as from the second half of the 20th century, mainly in the 70s “when the great artistic movements are finished.”
• In general, “postmodernity” would be “what comes after modernity.” Dreams are over, there are no big causes, or they have been changed for smaller ones. As a gross example: it was the socialist revolution in the past and “save the whales” afterwards. As we like to say: postmodernity is the end of the well-intended ideas of modernity which have sadly failed.
• In modern art, there were movements (avant-gardes are those of the beginning of the 20th century), that in general expressed their ideas in manifestos, which proposed to revolutionize art and also change the world. They were “collective dreams”; artists joined to defend their ideas and ideals. They started projects and movements to build that new world. Postmodernity, instead, is characterized by individuality. Everybody is interested in their own truth.
• What do we mean by “individuality?” The artist is alone in his own world, does not debate the world with other artists and expresses his own point of view and feelings without hope of being able to change humankind. It is a change of attitude regarding the modern artist. Although not necessarily indifferent, artists are disenchanted.
• Regarding the work of art, specifically, there are some constant characteristics: it seems there is nothing new to do. They can change what exists with an artistic sense. Combining cultures, periods, styles, languages, classical and modern, exquisite and kitsch, good and evil. In a world filled up with “information”, where the viewer is bombarded with thousands of images all the time, the work of art seems to “need” to call for attention. It needs to impact, provoke. As “anything goes”, the viewer has many times the feeling that there is a slim line between what is valuable and what is not, the work of art and the absurdity, the silliness. And once more we arrive to the conclusion: maybe that is the essence of the time we live in, since art is the child of its time.

Image: Jean-Michel Basquiat, the young prodigy of the 80s.

Recommended links:

The “Avant-garde” movements.

Timeline: moments of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Banksy and the Talking Walls.

Andy Warhol and The Factory.

Francis Bacon: “My painting is not violent; it is life that is violent.”

Counterculture.

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