PostmodernisPostmodernism in Post-m in Post-

World War II World War II and Post-and Post-Vietnam Vietnam

Europe and Europe and It’s It’s

DevelopmentDevelopmentErica S.Horace Greeley

High School

Post- World War IIPost- World War IIArt MovementsArt Movements

Modernism

Conceptualism/ Dadaism

Post-structuralism

Influences of Postmodernism

ModernismRootsOf Post-modernism

Modernism time period: 1900-1950Emerges in Europe, then in America and other countries

• Rejection of Traditional forms of art• Reaction to technology, new philosophy,

especially psychology. • Focus on new expression of emotion, and

traditional ideology.• Mark making, and brushstrokes taken into

consideration for effect and internal meaning of the piece.

• World War I had a major impact on subject matter.

• Painters like Otto Dix concentrated on the human sacrifice of the war and it’s horrors.

Working towards pure Working towards pure abstractionabstraction

• Included Mini-movements like Abstract Expressionism, minimalism, surrealism and impressionism, all effected postmodernist subject matter.

Conceptualism & Dadaism

RootsOf Post-modernism

• Expanded into new media and new forms of expression

• Artists believed that ideas in work are the art in the piece itself.

• Conceptualism expanded from Dadaism because it used it’s anti-traditional art sentiment to express it’s ideas in a non-physical manner.

• Dadaism attempted to escape the underlying meaning of work and create ugliness that means nothing.

• In Conceptualism, the artwork is in the idea itself, the physicality of the work is not important, unlike old European painters. Often artists do not even make the work themselves, but have it made for them. For example, Jeff Koons, or Damien Hirst.

1940’s, 1960- today

Postmodernism shows that in looking at Postmodernism shows that in looking at situations from all points of view, no one is situations from all points of view, no one is correct, meaning nothing is the truth. It’s correct, meaning nothing is the truth. It’s subjective.subjective.

Post- Structuralism

RootsOf Post-modernism

• Reaction to Structuralism• Writing movement, including writers like

Derrida, Foucault and Kristeva • Focus on the greater meaning in text by

examining all sides of theory.

• Use work as a reflection upon the reader, read the text in a “self- conscious” way

• Influenced by the Enlightenment• Anti- Humanists- Post-structuralists reject

interpretation of old text. They search for a new meaning.

France in the 1960’s

There is more than one meaning to everything.There is more than one meaning to everything.

Pre-curser to Postmodernism theory

Postmodernism

Main Content, Philosophy and Development

PostmodernismUsually referred to by time period, 1960 – Contemporary today

• Rejection of modernism standards of how work should be made, especially “impulsive expressionistic” qualities.

• Attacks ultimate truth in work, believing that the truth is from all different points of view. Eventually rejects poststructuralist meaning, that the truth is insignificant.

• Expands into many different areas of art, including film and music. For example, John Cage and Stanley Kubrick.

• Rejects genres and labeling, tries to eliminate High v. Low art

• Expands into multi-media type projects •Installations, Performance, Photography, Sound and Video installations, found-art, painting, sculpture, and environmental installations.

Postmodernism• Individuality and Identity

• All artists and viewers are different with their own perspective.

• Cultural factors affect each person individually.

• Human beings are full of potential.• Postmodernists tackle issues of identity like:

• Feminism• Race• Gender• Sexuality• Postmodernists place a large emphasis on

originality and creativity within each individual. Creating their own new boundaries.

• Expands major ideas of the Post-structuralist theory.

• Postmodernism started with many of the smaller art movements in America, and expanded into literature and philosophy then art in Europe. Today, some of the most famous postmodern and contemporary artists are from Europe and their roots influence their ground-breaking original work.

Joseph BeuysB. 1921 in Germany D. 1986

• Considered the father of everything postmodern• Believed that “Man is sculpture” and rejuvenated performance art.

• Also felt that the audience is part of the piece.• Experimented with new materials• Explored the fourth dimension, time.• Famous for his lectures and Chalk board diagrams.

Media: Drawings, Performance, Lecture, Paintings

Joseph Beuys

• Used philosophy in work often and questioned the meaning of everything.

• Became more political in the 1960’s.• Interested in nature and natural sciences• Believed in the power of institution• Often religious in work, said that his work was a

healing process in nature for himself.• Considered art as a medium for social and political

change• Lecture Quotes:

• “ Everything is in a state of change.”• “ A people is not a Race.”• “Self-Aware man”

Coyote, "I Like America and America Likes Me , Tate Modern, GB 1974

Coyote, "I Like America and America Likes Me , Tate Modern, GB 1974

How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare ,Düsseldorf, 1965

Felt Suit, 1970

Action Piece , Tate Modern, 1972

Sledge stampede , Stockholm, 1971

Fat Chair 1964

Untitled (Sun State) NY 1974

Eurasia Siberian Symphony, NY, 1966

7000 Oaks, Kassel, Germany, 1982

Vanessa Beecroft• B. 1969 in Genoa, Italy, lives in NYC

• Media: Performance, Installation and Drawings

• Beecroft uses her performances as an expression of herself and the society we live in today.

Her subjects, mostly young women, sometimes models, represent femininity at its most vulnerable state.

Her work is radical and questions many of contemporary ideas, yet most of the significance behind the work is left to the viewer.

Vanessa Beecroft• She questions, in her performances

Beauty Eroticism Purity Femininity

• She looks at her work as a “live sculpture” or “live painting”

• She is influenced by many of the classic painters of mannerism and painters like Rembrandt and Della Francesca. But she used the tradition of performance and changes it significantly to be a piece about the modern world.

The Book of Food, Milan, 1993

VB40, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

VB40, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

VB35, Guggenheim Museum, NY 1998

VB26, Galleria Lia Rumma, Naples, Italy 1997

VB30, Il Biennial, Site Santa Fe, NM 1997

VB21, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan, Italy 1996

VB12, Fuori Uso 95, Pescara, Italy 1995

VB16, Deitch Projects, NY 1996

VB16, Deitch Projects, NY 1996

VB24, Gallerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris, France 1996

Ilya KabakovB. 1933 in RussiaMedia: Total Installations, writings, design,

sculpture• Lived during Soviet Russia• He war freed by government from soviet

socialist realism art, and made autobiographical work.

• Work included huge installations in apartments and writings that go along with the piece so the viewer gets a full experience at the installation.

• Believed language was most important in communication and expression.

• Used his chaotic environments to portray the hostile suppression he went though in Russia during the cold war.

• Incorporates shot tales with work in short story form, to direct the viewer to what they are looking at.

The Man who Flew into Spacec from his apartment , Moscow Apartment, 1968

The Man who Flew into Space from his apartment , Moscow Apartment, 1968

Incident at the Museum of Water Music  Ronald Feldman

Gallery, NY 1992

School no. 6 , Moscow Apartment, 1993

Ten Characters , Ronald Feldman Gallery, NY 1988

Kitchen # 2 voices , Ronald Feldman Gallery, NY 1988

Gerhard RichterB. 1932 in Germany

Media: Paintings• Influenced by Beuys, worked with him often.• His use of media images in his work mixed

with his aesthetic design choices make his work exceptionally postmodern.

• His versatility in his work is often praised by critics

• Photorealism is a common method he uses• his favorite color of gray because it is the

one color that most people don’t have the personal reference like other colors.

• He subtly alters the viewers perception of the painting and changes variety. • Simplicity is

important to him

Woman Descending and Kvinde med paraply, LA 1978

Frau Marlow 1964

Hitler 1964

Stragtrager /coffin bearers 1962

Onkel Rudi/ Uncle Rudi 1965

Candle 1982

Skull 1983

Apfel (Apples) 1984

Lesende 1994

Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Picture) 1992

Meditation, 1986

Untitled, 1988

Abstract Painting, 1979

Untitled (green), 1968

Fiction, 1976

Spiegal, grau/ Mirror, Grey 1991

Three Greys, One upon the other, 1966

5 Doors (II) 1967

Passage 1968

Kiki SmithB. 1954 in Germany, lives in AmericaMedia: Sculpture, printmaking, photogravure

• Feminism drives most of her work• She tends to re-direct thoughts on femininity a

viewer may have and distort or exploit them to take on an entirely different meaning.

• Known for her ability to shock with her sculptures

• Questions sexuality, health and purity in her work

• Tackles world issues like AIDS• Interested in anatomy and

drawings from nature• Her sculptures have been

described as surreal realism were the are anatomically correct but a little altered for emphasis.

Peacock. 1997

The Fourth Day: Destruction of Birds. 1997

Silent Work, 1992 Urogenitals. 1994

Free Fall. 1994

Las Animas. 1997

Possession is Nine-Tenths of the

Law, 1985

How I know I’m Here, 1985

Lucy's Daughters, 1990

Untitled (train) 1994

Untitled (Butterfly) 1994

Woman on Pyre, 2001

Mary Magdalene, 1994

Cresant Moon 2002

Notes in Time, 1979 and other work by Smith

Damien HirstB. 1965 in England

Media: Installations, sculpture, paintings, lithography

• Questions fundamental life issues like birth, death and love

• Contradicts to confuse the viewer and make the viewer reconsider evidence in work.

• Conceptual, doesn’t do much of his own work• Provocative, causes much controversy,

especially with animal rights.• Questions beauty. Can something so

horribly gruesome be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing?

• Shock Art• His work is known to be sensational,

which come might consider trendy and negative.

• He was among the few who put concept back into minimalism.

Snowblind, 1998

Pharmacy, Sotheby’s England 1992

LSD 2000 Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 2000

One Thousand Years, 1990

Some comfort gained from the acceptance on the coherent lies in everything 1996

Away from the Flock 1994

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home 1996

Mother and Child Divided 1996

"Where are we going? Where do we come from? Is there a reason?" 2000-04

Horror at Home 1995

The Virgin Mother 2005 Hymn 1996

Addicted to Crack 2005 Vivisection 2004-05

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Jeanne-Claude B. 1935 in FranceChristo- B.1935 in Bulgaria

• Media: Environmental Installation• Install temporary art into nature to give a new

perspective of environment.

• Encourages preservation of monuments or nature• Including wrapping buildings or monuments,

covering water or greenery on site, or installing sculpture in a natural environment.• Christo had a Marxist education.

• Studied environmental issues • Makes political statements about the

preservation of environment and structure.• Postmodern: Looking at the world in a new unrecognizable way.

• Environment conscious--Part of work is the process of creative and installment

• As a husband and wife team, Christo and Jeanne-Claude work together to come up with initial ideas and sketches.

• Jeanne-Claude’s main role is to sell all the sketches and raise money for their projects.

Christo’s Sketches

Reichstag in Berlin, 1995

• Parliament had to be convinced in person by Christo and Jeanne- Claude to go ahead with the project.

The Umbrellas in California and Japan, 1990

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Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1972

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Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1972

Surrounded Islands, 1983

Biscayne Bay, Miami, Florida

Running Fence, 1976

Sonoma and Marin Counties, California

The Gates, 1979-2005

Central Park, New York

The Gates, 1979-2005

The Gates, 1979-2005

the end.