The interactivity my piece facilitates, combined with the communication allowed from artist to viewer concerning the process behind the final form, places my art in a largely postmodern light. In order to understand postmodernism, nevertheless, one must first explore its precursor, Modernism. Here follows a short study of the Modernist movement as it applies to art in general, and to my project in particular.
Aesthetic or Artistic Modernism was rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As culture became more urban than rural, more industrial than agricultural, Aesthetic Modernism reflected the growing sentiment that humans had the power to create, improve, and reshape their environment through the aid of science, technology, and practical experimentation.[1] Like the larger Modernist movement, Aesthetic Modernism urged the reexamination of all aspects of existence in order to root out that which curtailed society’s progress, and to replace it with that which would allow society to progress, embracing change and the present.[2]
Aesthetic Modernism rebelled against traditional forms, seeing them as outdated.[3] At a time when physics, with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Niels Bohr’s model of the atom, put the very nature of reality in question, artists argued that so, too, art should radically change.[4] Modernism embraced disruption, rejecting elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalism in art and literature.[5] It emphasized impressionism and subjectivity over realism, and was concerned more with perception of art than art itself.[6] Modernism praised spontaneity and discovery, rather than formal theory.[7]
According to the Modernist view, the viewer must consider irrelevant both the artist’s intent in creating art and any social or ideological function the artist may have wanted to fill, and must pay attention only to the work’s “significant form,” or how it is constructed.[8] Subject matter, narrative content, and use are nothing; form is everything.[9] Art, as the avant-garde would say, exists for art’s sake.[10] The Modernists dissected all previous art, taking away the foundation of everything that made it special: they abandoned the ideal of beauty, the attempt to give the eye sensations similar to those given by the real world, any idea of subject matter, any simulation of three-dimensional space, and even the need of an object itself.[11] By tearing away the past foundations of art and building afresh, Modernism used new methods to produce new results.[12]
Public reaction to the vast changes sweeping the western world was sometimes hostile: people spat on paintings and organized riots upon the opening of exhibitions; political figures vilified Modernism as immoral and unwholesome.[13] Famous paintings such as Édouard Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” (“Le déjeuner sur l’herbe”) and James McNeill Whistler’s “Symphony in White…”[14] earned disdain and ridicule from the public and critics alike. [15] Yet by the 1930s Modernism had gained a secure place in the political and artistic establishment, although it had changed somewhat from its original form.[16] Aesthetic Modernism eventually changed the idea of art so radically that it eliminated the very concept of art.[17] A painting is not a picture of a thing, Modernism dictates, it is the thing itself.[18]
Postmodernism followed Modernism, and while it shared many characteristics of its precursor—rejection of traditional boundaries between “high” and “low” art, reflexivity and self-awareness, discontinuity, ambiguity, simultaneity, and parody, to mention a few—it reintroduced traditional materials and elements of style.[19] Modernist art tended to depict “a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history… but present[ed] that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss.” Postmodernist art, instead of lamenting the incoherent and fragmented world, celebrated it, and did not try to impose meaning through art.[20] Paintings such as Jackson Pollock’s “No. 5” and Barnett Newman’s “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue”[21] exemplify the non-realism and ambiguity of Postmodern art, although both works are specifically abstract.
Proponents of Postmodernism had a very dim view of trying to cover up the disorder of the world through artistic creation, knowing that such ideologies and theories “serve to mask the contradictions and instabilities that are inherent in any social organization or practice.”[22] Instead of claiming that disorder is bad and order is good, Postmodernism rejected grand illusions, and made no claim to truth, reason, stability, or universality.[23] Instead, Postmodernism favored “personal preferences and variety over objective, ultimate truth or principles,” believing that truth “doesn’t exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.”[24]
My mirror-window clearly steps beyond the bounds of Modernism: the artist’s intent is not only relevant, but a crucial and dynamic part of the artwork itself. Likewise, the ideological function of the art is one large facet of its raison d’être, its purpose and reason to exist. I make no claims to universal truth or reason, but merely set out my own subjective vision. My work references itself: its own creation is a fundamental part of the work as a whole. As artist, I speak directly to the viewer, stripping away the conceit that art is a destination, a final flat, perfect image, making the birth process visible and accessible to any who care to see it.
[1] Berman, M. 16
[2] Childs, P. 17
[3] Childs, P. 18
[4] Greenberg, C.
[5] Childs, P. 21; Klages, M.
[6] Klages, M.
[7] Klages, M.
[8] Lewis, P, 2000. 62
[9] Lewis, P, 2000. 63
[10] Lewis, P, 2000. 65
[11] Berman, M. 35
[12] Orten, F and Pollock, G. 22
[13] King, R. 27
[14] For reference, see Images: 1 and 2.
[15] King, R. 23
[16] King, R. 29
[17] Lewis, P, 2007. 55
[18] King, R. 72
[19] Klages, M.
[20] Klages, M.
[21] See Images: 3 and 4 respectively.
[22] Klages, M.
[23] Klages, M.
[24] McDowell, J and Hostetler, B. 208
