Post Modernism notes

Modernism P.2

Initialy born out of optimism, an aspirational reaction to world war 1.

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoy, Poissy, 1928 - 9. 

Moderinsm is associated with;

(ultimately experimental, privileges the new, innovative, new solutions, individualism, celebrated the idea of the individual leading the way forward e.g artist or designer, progressive, push the world forwards. Increasingly, each kind of form of modernist art of design practiced, filmmaking, architecture, painting, starts to become obsessed with it’s own purity. Originality. Seriousness - serious task, no room for mucking about. Pure to it’s discipline.

Binary opposites of this list - post-modernism

Postmodern attitude / artist “what’s the point in experimenting, all we’re doing is recycling, no such thing as new ideas”. Collaborative. Blends elements from many different sources. Not serious. Exhaustion, pluralism, pessimism, disillusionment with the idea of absolute knowledge.

Modernism, expression of modern life, technology, new materials, communication [modernity]. ....

Jean Tinguely, ‘Homage to New York’, 1960. Machine that destroys itself. Gesture of postmodernism. Origins of postmodernism, 1917 German writer Rudolph Pannwitz, spoke of nihilistic, amoral, postmodern men. 1964, Leslie Fielder described a post culture, which rejected the elitist values of modern culture.

1960’s, beginnings,

1970’s, established as a term (Jencks)

1980’s Recognized Style

& 90’s, Dominant Theoretical Discourse

Today, tired and simmering.

Postmodernism: after modernism, historical era following modernism, contra modernism, equivalent to late capitalism (Jameson), artistic and stylistic eclecticism. Used in different ways / by different thinkers, ‘new global countries, one global race of peoples / products / capital / culture’. 

Language of Postmodern Architecture - Charles Jencks

15 July 1972 3:32pm Modernism dies. Demoition of the Pruitt, Igoe Development, St Louis. 

La Corbusier, ‘Plan Voisin’, 1927. Utopia & Technological Determinism, architecture the entire world could share / use. Blind belief that technology will make things better. 

Postmodernism, a reaction to these rules, starts as a critique of the international style.

• Rovert Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas, 1972,
• Ideas by Charles Jencks, 1977

Only rule is that there are no rules

Celebrates what might otherwise be termed kitsch.

Mies Van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New York, 1957. Create a harmonious style that can be replicated anywhere in the world. Park Hill Flats, Sheffield, c.1960. Unpopular development by locals and residents. Crime problems, underclass, soulless, cold buildings. Start of 21st century, admitted it was failed project. 

Park Hill, proposed regernation by Urban Splash. Modernism not designed for human needs. 

Philip Johnson, AT & T building, NYC, 1982. Frank Gehry, Guggenheim museum, Bilbao. 1997.  James Stirling, Nueu Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart Germany 1977 - 1983. Birmingham, Selfridges. 

Quinlan Terry, 1992 - 1993, The Maitland Robinson Library at Downing College, Cambridge University.

J-F Lyotard, the postmodern condition, 1979, incredulity towards metanarratives, metanarratives = totalising belief systems, result - crisis in confidence. 

Simplified aesthetic, utopian ideals, truth to materials XXX postmodern aesthetics

Complexity, chaos, mixing materials / stylise

Roy Liochtenstein, This Must Be The Place 1965. High Art / Low Art / Divide. Beginning to Crumble. Las Vegas, Postmodern City? Robert Venturi, 1972. I like elements whuch are hybrid rather than pure, compromising rather than clean, distorted rather than straight forward, ambiguous rather than articulated. Postmodern city is a city of dystopia. 

Blade Runner, Postmodern film, Postmodern ideas about technology.

Akira 1988

Andy Warhol. Marilyn Monroe Diptych 1962. Oxidation painting 1978.   

Franz Kline

Untitled

1957

Roy Lichtenstein, Red Paiting (brushstroke) 1965

David Shrigley, Art Lovers, 2000

Piero Manzoni, Artists Shit, 1961

Advertising is the greatest artform of the 20th century. Marshal Someoneguy Mcluhan?

Generally post modern artists like to mix the highbrow and the populist, the alienating and the accessible, and to sample elements from different styles and eras.

Memphis group, David Carson Ray Gun magazine

Sottsass, Memphis group, draws. 

Now you can reinvent yourself endlessly, gaily pick n mixing your way through the gaudy fragments of a shattered culture.

Crisis in confidence, but also freedom, new possibilities, questioning old limitations, space for marginalised discourse, women, sexual diversity and multiculturalism. 

Jamie Reed, Sex Pistols. Rejected idea of skill and technique, quickly made and produced, critical attack on the order of the state / hierarchy. Negative. Freedom to it. Do it yourself, make things cheaply, don’t be part of the system. An inconclusion

A vague disputed term

po-mo attitude of questioning conventions esp modernism.

po-mo aesthetic - multiplicity of styles and approaches

Shift in thought and theory

Space for new voices

Rejection of technological determinism

Once Upon A Time In The West - cited as ‘truely the first postmodern film’. Direct references to High Noon & Shane in opening scene.