Postmodern art encompasses various art movements that emerged in opposition to certain tenets of modernism or subsequent developments. Typically, categories such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art, and multimedia, especially those incorporating video, are characterized as postmodern.
Several defining characteristics distinguish postmodern art. These encompass the recontextualization of historical styles and themes within contemporary frameworks, bricolage, the prominent integration of text as a primary artistic component, collage, simplification, appropriation, and performance art. Additionally, a significant feature is the dissolution of traditional distinctions between fine art, high art, low art, and popular culture.
Usage of the Term
Since the 1950s, the prevailing designation for artistic output has been "contemporary art." However, not all art categorized as contemporary is postmodern; this broader classification includes artists who maintain modernist and late-modernist practices, alongside those who disavow postmodernism for alternative reasons. Arthur Danto posits that "contemporary" serves as the more expansive descriptor, with postmodern works constituting a "subsector" within the broader contemporary movement. While some postmodern artists have markedly diverged from modernist principles, a definitive consensus distinguishing "late-modern" from "post-modern" remains elusive. Concepts previously dismissed by the modern aesthetic have been reinstated. Specifically in painting, postmodernism marked the reintroduction of representational forms. Certain critics contend that a substantial portion of contemporary "postmodern" art, particularly recent avant-garde expressions, ought to be classified under modern art.
Beyond characterizing specific trends in contemporary art, the term "postmodern" has also been applied to designate a particular phase within modern art. This perspective has been embraced by both proponents of modernism, including Clement Greenberg, and its radical critics, such as Félix Guattari, who famously termed it modernism's "last gasp." Neo-conservative critic Hilton Kramer characterized postmodernism as "a creation of modernism at the end of its tether." According to Fredric Jameson's interpretation, Jean-François Lyotard did not assert a postmodern stage fundamentally distinct from high modernism; rather, Lyotard viewed postmodern dissatisfaction with specific high modernist styles as an integral component of high modernism's experimental nature, thereby fostering new modernisms. Within the realms of aesthetics and art, Jean-François Lyotard stands as a pivotal philosopher of postmodernism.
A prevalent critical view posits that postmodern art evolved from modern art. Proposed timelines for this transition range from 1914 in Europe to 1962 or 1968 in America. James Elkins, reflecting on the debates surrounding the precise commencement of the shift from modernism to postmodernism, draws a parallel to the 1960s discourse concerning the exact duration of Mannerism and its initiation point—whether immediately following the High Renaissance or later in the century. He emphasizes that such debates are perennial concerning art movements and periods, without diminishing their significance. The conclusion of the postmodern art era is often situated at the close of the 1980s, a period when the term "postmodernism" experienced a decline in critical relevance, and artistic practices increasingly engaged with the implications of globalization and emerging media.
Jean Baudrillard exerted considerable influence on postmodern-inspired art, highlighting the potential for novel creative expressions. Artist Peter Halley, for instance, characterized his use of day-glo colors as a "hyperrealization of real color," attributing Baudrillard as a key influence. Conversely, Baudrillard consistently maintained, from 1984 onwards, that contemporary art—especially postmodern art—was inferior to the modernist art produced in the post-World War II era, whereas Jean-François Lyotard lauded contemporary painting and noted its development from modern art. Numerous prominent women artists of the twentieth century are linked with postmodern art, given that much of the theoretical framework for their work originated from French psychoanalysis and feminist theory, both deeply connected to postmodern philosophy.
The application of the term "postmodern" faces criticism, a common occurrence with such designations. For example, Kirk Varnedoe asserted that postmodernism does not exist and that modernism's potential remains unfulfilled. Although the term has become a conventional shorthand since the early to mid-1980s for identifying works by specific post-war artistic movements that utilize distinct materials and generic techniques, the theoretical foundations of Postmodernism as an epochal or epistemic demarcation continue to be highly contentious.
Characteristics
Postmodernism encompasses artistic movements that both originate from and actively oppose or reject established modernist trends. Key characteristics often attributed to modernism include formal purity, medium specificity, the concept of art for art's sake, authenticity, universality, originality, and either revolutionary or reactionary tendencies, exemplified by the avant-garde. Nevertheless, paradox stands out as arguably the most significant modernist concept that postmodernism challenges. Paradox was fundamental to the modernist project, notably introduced by Manet. Manet's diverse subversions of representational art underscored the perceived mutual exclusivity between reality and representation, design and representation, and abstraction and reality, among other dichotomies. This integration of paradox proved profoundly influential for artists ranging from Manet to the conceptualists.
The position of the avant-garde within contemporary art remains contentious. Numerous institutions contend that visionary, forward-looking, cutting-edge, and progressive qualities are indispensable to art's contemporary mission, suggesting that postmodern art inherently conflicts with the ethos of "art of our times." Postmodernism fundamentally repudiates the concept of inherent advancement or progress in art, thereby seeking to dismantle the "myth of the avant-garde." Rosalind Krauss was a prominent proponent of the perspective that avant-gardism had concluded, ushering in a new artistic epoch characterized as post-liberal and post-progress. Griselda Pollock extensively researched and critically engaged with the avant-garde and modern art through a series of seminal publications, simultaneously re-evaluating modern art and re-conceptualizing postmodern art.
A defining characteristic of postmodern art is its amalgamation of high and low culture, achieved through the incorporation of industrial materials and popular culture imagery. Although modernist experimentation also included the utilization of "low" art forms, as evidenced by Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik's 1990–91 exhibition High and Low: Popular Culture and Modern Art at New York's Museum of Modern Art—an exhibition widely criticized at the time for uniting figures like Douglas Crimp and Hilton Kramer in collective disdain—postmodern art is particularly recognized for its deliberate blurring of the boundaries between what is considered fine or high art and what is typically categorized as low or kitsch art. While the concept of "blurring" or "fusing" high and low art was explored during modernism, it gained full endorsement only with the emergence of the postmodern era. Postmodernism integrated elements of commercialism, kitsch, and a broader camp aesthetic into its artistic framework. Furthermore, it appropriates and combines styles from diverse historical periods, such as Gothicism, the Renaissance, and the Baroque, often disregarding their original contextual functions within their respective artistic movements. These elements collectively constitute common characteristics that define postmodern art. Art Spiegelman, in discussing his stylistic choices for Maus, articulated the postmodern artist's capacity to cultivate an extensive "palette" of varied styles, from which they can draw freely, in contrast to their predecessors who typically concentrated on refining and maintaining a singular "trademark" style.
Fredric Jameson posits that postmodern works renounce any assertion of spontaneity and directness in expression, instead employing pastiche and discontinuity. In opposition to this definition, Charles Harrison and Paul Wood of Art and Language contended that pastiche and discontinuity are intrinsic to modernist art, having been effectively utilized by modern artists such as Manet and Picasso.
A concise definition of postmodernism posits its rejection of modernism's overarching artistic narratives, simultaneously dismantling the distinctions between high and low art forms, and subverting conventional genres through techniques such as collision, collage, and fragmentation. Within postmodern art, all perspectives are considered inherently unstable and disingenuous; consequently, irony, parody, and humor emerge as the sole critical or revisional stances immune to subversion. Additional hallmarks include pluralism and diversity.
Avant-Garde Precursors
Influential radical movements and trends, considered potential precursors to postmodernism, arose during and immediately following World War I. The incorporation of industrial artifacts into art and the adoption of techniques like collage by avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism fundamentally challenged established notions of art's nature and value. Emergent art forms, including cinema and the increasing prevalence of reproduction, also shaped these movements as new avenues for artistic creation. Clement Greenberg's seminal essay, Avant-Garde and Kitsch, initially published in Partisan Review in 1939, served as a foundational text for defining modernism, advocating for the avant-garde against the backdrop of popular culture. Subsequently, Peter Bürger differentiated between the historical avant-garde and modernism, a distinction that led critics like Krauss, Huyssen, and Douglas Crimp to identify the historical avant-garde as a precursor to postmodernism. For instance, Krauss interprets Pablo Picasso's application of collage as an avant-garde technique that foreshadowed postmodern art's prioritization of linguistic elements over autobiographical expression. Conversely, an alternative perspective suggests that avant-garde and modernist artists employed comparable strategies, with postmodernism ultimately repudiating both.
Dada
During the early 20th century, Marcel Duchamp presented a urinal as a sculptural piece. His intention was to compel viewers to perceive the urinal as an artwork solely by virtue of his declaration. He termed such creations "Readymades". The iconic Fountain, a urinal signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, provoked considerable controversy within the art world in 1917. This piece, along with Duchamp's other similar works, is broadly categorized as Dada. Duchamp is often regarded as a progenitor of conceptual art. However, some critics dispute classifying Duchamp—renowned for his preoccupation with paradox—as a postmodernist, arguing that his rejection of medium-specificity (given that paradox transcends any particular medium, despite its initial emergence in Manet's paintings) complicates such a categorization.
Dadaism, alongside Surrealism, Futurism, and Abstract Expressionism, can be understood as an expression of modernism's inherent inclination to subvert established artistic styles and forms. Chronologically, Dada is firmly situated within modernism; nevertheless, several critics contend that it foreshadows postmodernism, while others, including Ihab Hassan and Steven Connor, propose it represents a potential transitional phase between modernism and postmodernism. For instance, McEvilly posits that postmodernism commences with the recognition that the myth of progress is no longer credible, a realization Duchamp reportedly grasped in 1914 when he shifted from a modernist to a postmodernist practice, thereby "abjuring aesthetic delectation, transcendent ambition, and tour de force demonstrations of formal agility in favor of aesthetic indifference, acknowledgement of the ordinary world, and the found object or readymade".
Radical Movements in Modern Art
Initially, Pop Art and Minimalism emerged as modernist movements; however, a significant paradigm shift and philosophical divergence between formalism and anti-formalism in the early 1970s led some to re-evaluate these movements as precursors to or transitional forms of postmodern art. Additional modern movements considered influential to postmodern art include conceptual art and the application of techniques such as assemblage, montage, bricolage, and appropriation.
Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pollock's radical approach to painting revolutionized the trajectory of subsequent contemporary art. Pollock posited that the artistic process held equivalent significance to the final artwork itself. Similar to Pablo Picasso's groundbreaking reinventions of painting and sculpture at the turn of the century through Cubism and constructed sculpture, Pollock fundamentally redefined artistic creation during the mid-20th century. His departure from traditional easel painting and conventional methods emancipated both his contemporaries and succeeding generations of artists. Artists recognized that Pollock's methodology—which involved working on the floor, utilizing unstretched raw canvas from all four sides, incorporating both artistic and industrial materials, employing imagery and non-imagery, and applying paint through linear skeins, dripping, drawing, staining, and brushing—expanded the parameters of artmaking beyond previous limitations. Abstract Expressionism consequently broadened and advanced the definitions and creative possibilities available to artists for producing new works. The innovations introduced by figures such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Clyff Still, Barnett Newman, and Ad Reinhardt, among others, effectively paved the way for the diverse range and scope of subsequent artistic endeavors.
Post-Abstract Expressionism
During the 1950s and 1960s, abstract painting witnessed the emergence of several new movements, including Hard-edge painting and other forms of Geometric abstraction, exemplified by the work of Frank Stella. These developments arose in artist studios and avant-garde circles as a reaction against the perceived subjectivism of Abstract Expressionism. Clement Greenberg championed Post-painterly abstraction; articulating its principles through an influential exhibition of new painting that toured major art museums across the United States in 1964. Color Field painting, Hard-edge painting, and Lyrical Abstraction subsequently materialized as significant new artistic trajectories.
By the late 1960s, Postminimalism, Process Art, and Arte Povera also materialized as revolutionary concepts and movements, influencing both painting and sculpture. These developments were intertwined with Lyrical Abstraction, the Postminimalist movement, and early Conceptual Art. Inspired by Pollock, Process Art empowered artists to explore and employ a diverse range of styles, content, materials, placements, temporal perceptions, and both plastic and real spaces. Prominent younger artists who emerged during this late modernist era, contributing to the artistic flourishing of the late 1960s, included Nancy Graves, Ronald Davis, Howard Hodgkin, Larry Poons, Jannis Kounellis, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, Alan Saret, Walter Darby Bannard, Lynda Benglis, Dan Christensen, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Eva Hesse, Keith Sonnier, Richard Serra, Sam Gilliam, Mario Merz, Peter Reginato, and Lee Lozano.
Artistic Movements
Performance Art and Happenings
Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, artists from diverse backgrounds actively expanded the parameters of contemporary art. Pioneers of performance-based art included Yves Klein in France, and Carolee Schneemann, Yayoi Kusama, Charlotte Moorman, and Yoko Ono in New York City. Ensembles such as The Living Theater, led by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, collaborated with sculptors and painters to construct immersive environments, fundamentally altering the dynamic between audience and performer, particularly in their work Paradise Now. The Judson Dance Theater, situated at the Judson Memorial Church in New York, featured dancers such as Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Elaine Summers, Sally Gross, Simonne Forti, Deborah Hay, Lucinda Childs, and Steve Paxton, who collaborated with artists Robert Morris, Robert Whitman, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and engineers like Billy Klüver. These performances frequently aimed to forge a new art form, integrating sculpture, dance, and music or sound, often involving audience participation. The works were characterized by the reductive philosophies of Minimalism, spontaneous improvisation, and the expressivity inherent in Abstract Expressionism.
Concurrently, from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, various avant-garde artists created Happenings. These events were often spontaneous, unscripted, and enigmatic assemblages of artists, their friends, and relatives, held in diverse designated venues. Happenings frequently integrated elements such as absurd exercises, physical activities, costumes, impromptu nudity, and a range of seemingly unrelated and random actions. Prominent figures in the creation of Happenings included Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Robert Whitman.
Assemblage Art
Emerging in conjunction with Abstract Expressionism, assemblage art involved the integration of manufactured items with traditional artistic materials, thereby departing from established conventions of painting and sculpture. Robert Rauschenberg's "combines" from the 1950s, which incorporated large physical objects such as stuffed animals, birds, and commercial photography, served as a prime illustration of this artistic trajectory and foreshadowed both Pop Art and Installation art.
In 1969, Leo Steinberg employed the term "postmodernism" to characterize Rauschenberg's "flatbed" picture plane, which integrated a diverse array of cultural images and artifacts previously considered incompatible with the pictorial domains of premodernist and modernist painting. Craig Owens expanded upon this interpretation, asserting that the significance of Rauschenberg's oeuvre lies not in representing, as Steinberg suggested, "the shift from nature to culture," but rather in illustrating the inherent impossibility of maintaining such a binary opposition.
Steven Best and Douglas Kellner position Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns within a transitional phase, influenced by Marcel Duchamp, bridging modernism and postmodernism. Their artistic practice incorporated images of quotidian objects, or the objects themselves, while simultaneously preserving the abstraction and gestural brushwork characteristic of high modernism.
Anselm Kiefer similarly incorporates elements of assemblage into his creations, notably featuring the bow of a fishing boat within one of his paintings.
Pop Art
Lawrence Alloway coined the term "Pop Art" to characterize artworks that celebrated the consumerism prevalent in the post-World War II era. This artistic movement diverged from Abstract Expressionism's emphasis on hermeneutic and psychological introspection, instead favoring art that depicted, and frequently lauded, material consumer culture, advertising, and the iconography of the mass production age. Seminal examples within the movement include early works by David Hockney, alongside creations by Richard Hamilton, John McHale, and Eduardo Paolozzi. Subsequent American manifestations encompass the extensive careers of artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, the latter notably employing Benday dots, a technique derived from commercial reproduction. A distinct lineage connects the radical, humor-infused works of the rebellious Dadaist Marcel Duchamp with Pop Artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.
Thomas McEvilly, concurring with Dave Hickey, posits that U.S. postmodernism in the visual arts originated with the inaugural Pop Art exhibitions in 1962, despite requiring approximately two decades for postmodernism to establish itself as a predominant sensibility within the visual arts. Fredric Jameson similarly categorizes Pop Art as postmodern.
Pop Art's postmodern character is partly attributable to its dismantling of what Andreas Huyssen termed the "Great Divide" between high art and popular culture. Postmodernism itself is understood to arise from a "generational refusal of the categorical certainties of high modernism."
Fluxus
The Fluxus movement was named and loosely structured in 1962 by George Maciunas (1931–78), a Lithuanian-born American artist. Its origins can be traced to John Cage's Experimental Composition classes, held from 1957 to 1959 at the New School for Social Research in New York City. A significant number of Cage's students were artists engaged in diverse media, often possessing minimal or no formal musical training. Among Cage's students were several foundational members of Fluxus, including Jackson Mac Low, Al Hansen, George Brecht, and Dick Higgins. In Germany, Fluxus commenced in 1962 with the FLUXUS Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik in Wiesbaden, featuring George Maciunas, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik, and others. This was followed in 1963 by the Festum Fluxorum Fluxus in Düsseldorf, which included George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, and Emmett Williams, among others.
Fluxus championed a self-production ethos and prioritized simplicity over intricate design. Similar to its predecessor, Dada, Fluxus exhibited a pronounced anti-commercial and anti-art stance, critiquing the conventional, market-driven art establishment in favor of an artist-centric creative methodology. Fluxus artists favored utilizing readily available materials, either independently producing their works or engaging in collaborative creation with peers.
Fluxus is often categorized within the initial phase of postmodernism, alongside figures such as Rauschenberg, Johns, Warhol, and the Situationist International. Andreas Huyssen, however, critiques efforts to align Fluxus with postmodernism, characterizing such attempts as presenting it as "either the master-code of postmodernism or the ultimately unrepresentable art movement – as it were, postmodernism's sublime." Conversely, Huyssen posits Fluxus as a significant Neo-Dadaist manifestation within the avant-garde lineage. While it did not signify a substantial progression in artistic methodologies, it nonetheless articulated a defiance against "the administered culture of the 1950s, in which a moderate, domesticated modernism served as ideological prop to the Cold War."
Minimalism
During the early 1960s, Minimalism materialized as an abstract art movement, tracing its origins to geometric abstraction through Malevich, the Bauhaus, and Mondrian. This movement repudiated relational and subjective painting, the intricate surfaces of Abstract Expressionism, and the emotional tenor and polemics characteristic of Action Painting. Proponents of Minimalism contended that profound simplicity could achieve the sublime representation inherent to art. In painting, Minimalism, exemplified by artists like Frank Stella, constitutes a modernist movement that, depending on its contextual interpretation, may be regarded as a precursor to postmodernism.
In his essay The Crux of Minimalism, Hal Foster analyzes how Donald Judd and Robert Morris, through their published definitions of minimalism, simultaneously acknowledge and transcend Greenbergian modernism. Foster contends that minimalism represents not a "dead end" of modernism, but rather a "paradigm shift toward postmodern practices that continue to be elaborated today."
Land art
Known by various appellations such as Land art, Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, this art movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s. While primarily linked to Great Britain and the United States, it encompasses examples from numerous other nations. As an artistic phenomenon, "land art" broadened the scope of conventional art production through its choice of materials and the placement of its installations. The constituent materials frequently comprise natural elements such as soil, rocks, vegetation, and water sourced directly from the site, which are often situated remotely from urban areas. Despite the occasional inaccessibility of these sites, photographic documentation is routinely presented within urban art galleries.
The core tenets of this art movement revolve around a repudiation of art's commercialization and an embrace of the burgeoning ecological movement. Its inception coincided with a widespread disavowal of urban lifestyles and a corresponding appreciation for rural environments. These tendencies also encompassed spiritual aspirations regarding Earth's role as humanity's abode.
Postminimalism
In 1977, Robert Pincus-Witten introduced the term Post-minimalism to characterize art derived from minimalism but incorporating content and contextual nuances that minimalism itself eschewed. His application of the term spanned the period from 1966 to 1976, encompassing works by artists such as Eva Hesse, Keith Sonnier, Richard Serra, and new creations by former minimalists including Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, and Barry Le Va, among others. This body of work is also described by terms like Process art and anti-form art, its characteristics being defined by the occupied space and its production methodology.
Rosalind Krauss posits that by 1968, artists including Morris, LeWitt, Smithson, and Serra had "entered a situation the logical conditions of which can no longer be described as modernist." She further asserts that the broadening of the sculpture category to incorporate land art and architecture "brought about the shift into postmodernism."
American sculptor Christopher Wilmarth is often classified as a Post-Minimalist, aligning with figures such as Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman. Wilmarth's oeuvre deliberately diverged from the pristine, machine-fabricated aesthetic favored by minimalists, while simultaneously avoiding the process-driven exuberance prevalent in much of 1970s Post-minimalist sculpture.
Prominent minimalist artists, including Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Agnes Martin, and John McCracken, maintained their production of late modernist paintings and sculptures throughout their professional lives.
Conceptual Art
Conceptual art is frequently categorized as postmodern due to its explicit engagement with the deconstruction of artistic definitions. This genre often elicits significant controversy, as its creations are frequently intended to challenge, provoke, or critique prevailing perceptions among its audience.
Early influences on conceptual art encompass Duchamp's contributions, John Cage's "4' 33"—a piece where the musical content is defined by ambient sounds perceived by the audience during its performance—and Rauschenberg's Erased De Kooning Drawing. A fundamental tenet of many conceptual artworks is that art is constituted by the viewer's perception of an object or action as artistic, rather than by inherent qualities of the work itself. Consequently, the exhibition of Fountain rendered it a sculpture.
Figurative Painting
Certain trends within post-war figurative painting have been interpreted through a postmodern lens. American critics, for instance, identified the Italian artist Carlo Maria Mariani as a postmodernist. Charles Jencks noted that Mariani's group portrait, The Constellation of Leo (1980–1981), which portrays figures from the Italian art scene alongside mythological and art historical allusions, exemplified a key characteristic of postmodern art: "an ironic comment on a comment on a comment which signals the distance; a new myth thrice removed from its originating ritual."
Installation Art
A significant trajectory in art consistently categorized as postmodern encompasses installation art and the production of conceptually driven artifacts. Jenny Holzer's signs, for example, employ artistic mechanisms to communicate precise messages, such as "Protect Me From What I Want." Installation art has played a crucial role in shaping the architectural requirements for contemporary art museums, necessitating spaces capable of accommodating expansive works comprising extensive collages of fabricated and discovered materials. These installations and collages frequently incorporate electrical components, kinetic elements, and illumination.
Such works are frequently conceived to generate environmental impacts, exemplified by Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Iron Curtain, Wall of 240 Oil Barrels, Blocking Rue Visconti, Paris, June 1962, which served as a symbolic commentary on the Berlin Wall erected in 1961.
Lowbrow Art
Lowbrow art represents a pervasive populist movement originating from underground comix, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and various Californian subcultures. Also frequently termed pop surrealism, Lowbrow art underscores a core tenet of postmodernism: the dissolution of traditional distinctions between "high" and "low" art forms.
Performance Art
Digital Art
Digital art serves as an overarching descriptor for diverse artistic creations and methodologies that integrate digital technology as a fundamental component of their generative or exhibition processes. The influence of digital technology has revolutionized established practices like painting, drawing, sculpture, and music/sound art, concurrently fostering the emergence and recognition of novel artistic forms such as net art, digital installation art, and virtual reality.
Prominent art theorists and historians specializing in this domain include Christiane Paul, Frank Popper, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Dominique Moulon, Robert C. Morgan, Roy Ascott, Catherine Perret, Margot Lovejoy, Edmond Couchot, Fred Forest, and Edward A. Shanken.
Intermedia and Multimedia
A notable trend in art associated with postmodernism is the integration of diverse media, often termed "intermedia." Coined by Dick Higgins, intermedia refers to novel artforms encompassing movements such as Fluxus, Concrete Poetry, Found Objects, Performance Art, and Computer Art. Higgins, a Concrete poet, publisher of the Something Else Press, and admirer of Marcel Duchamp, was married to artist Alison Knowles. Ihab Hassan includes "Intermedia, the fusion of forms, the confusion of realms," among his defining characteristics of postmodern art. Video art, utilizing videotape and CRT monitors, represents one of the most prevalent forms of "multi-media art." While the theoretical concept of combining multiple artistic disciplines is ancient and has seen periodic revivals, its postmodern manifestation frequently merges with performance art, often devoid of dramatic subtext, focusing instead on the artist's specific statements or the conceptual essence of their actions. Higgins's vision of Intermedia is intrinsically linked to the evolution of multimedia digital practices, including immersive virtual reality, digital art, and computer art.
Telematic Art
Telematic art describes artistic endeavors that employ computer-mediated telecommunications networks as their primary medium. This art form challenges the conventional dynamic between active viewing subjects and passive art objects by establishing interactive, behavioral contexts for remote aesthetic encounters. Roy Ascott views telematic art as transforming the viewer into an active participant in the artwork's creation, which remains in perpetual process throughout its duration. Ascott has been a pioneer in the theory and practice of telematic art since 1978, when he first engaged online to organize various collaborative digital projects.
Appropriation art and neo-conceptual art
In his 1980 essay The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism, Craig Owens identifies the resurgence of an allegorical impulse as a hallmark of postmodern art. This impulse is evident in the appropriation art of figures like Sherrie Levine and Robert Longo, given that "Allegorical imagery is appropriated imagery." Appropriation art critiques modernist ideals of artistic genius and originality, exhibiting greater ambivalence and contradiction than modern art by simultaneously establishing and subverting ideologies, thereby being "both critical and complicit."
Neo-expressionism and painting
The resurgence of traditional art forms like sculpture and painting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, exemplified by Neo-expressionist artists such as Georg Baselitz and Julian Schnabel, has been characterized as a postmodern tendency and one of the first cohesive movements to emerge in the postmodern era. However, its strong ties to the commercial art market have prompted questions regarding its status as a postmodern movement and the very definition of postmodernism. Hal Foster contends that neo-expressionism was complicit with the conservative cultural politics prevalent during the Reagan-Bush era in the U.S. Félix Guattari dismisses the "large promotional operations dubbed 'neo-expressionism' in Germany" (citing it as an example of a "fad that maintains itself by means of publicity") as an overly simplistic means for him "to demonstrate that postmodernism is nothing but the last gasp of modernism." These critiques of neo-expressionism highlight how financial backing and public relations significantly bolstered the credibility of the contemporary art world in America during a period when conceptual artists and the practices of women artists, including painters and feminist theorists like Griselda Pollock, were systematically reevaluating modern art. Brian Massumi asserts that Deleuze and Guattari expand the scope for new definitions of Beauty within postmodern art. For Jean-François Lyotard, the paintings of artists such as Valerio Adami, Daniel Buren, Marcel Duchamp, Bracha Ettinger, and Barnett Newman, following the avant-garde era and the works of Paul Cézanne and Wassily Kandinsky, served as a conduit for novel concepts of the sublime in contemporary art.
Institutional critique
Critiques of art institutions, primarily museums and galleries, are central to the work of Andrea Fraser, Michael Asher, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, and Hans Haacke.
Sources
Sources
- The Triumph of Modernism: The Art World, 1985–2005. By Hilton Kramer. 2006. ISBN 978-0-15-666370-0.
- Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock (A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts). By Kirk Varnedoe. 2003.
- Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s. By Irving Sandler.
- Postmodernism (Movements in Modern Art). By Eleanor Heartney.
- Sculpture in the Age of Doubt. By Thomas McEvilley. 1999.
References
- Media related to Postmodern art at Wikimedia Commons