Online Study Guide

The Art World's Focus Shifts West :: Postwar Expressionism in Europe :: Modernist Formalism :: Alternatives to Modernist Formalism :: Art for the Public :: New Models for Architecture: Modernism to Postmodernism :: Postmodernism In Painting, Sculpture, And New Media :: Into The 21st Century

POSTMODERNISM IN PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND NEW MEDIA

Many postmodern artists reveal a self-consciousness about their place in the art-historical continuum. They resurrect artistic traditions to comment on and reinterpret those styles or idioms. Postmodern artists challenge the avant-garde's claim to originality and creativity by addressing issues of the copy or reproduction and the appropriation of images or ideas from others. Another major characteristic of postmodernism is the erosion between high culture and popular culture. For many recent artists, postmodernism involves examining the process by which meaning is generated and the negotiation or dialogue that transpires between viewers and artworks. Many postmodern artists reject the notion that each artwork contains a single fixed meaning, and in their work they explore in part how viewers derive meaning from visual material.

New Expressionist Explorations

Neo-Expressionism reflects postmodern artists' interest in reexamining earlier art of the German Expressionists and the Abstract Expressionists.

Extending paint's physicality:

In The Walk Home, Julian Schnabel explored superficially the work of the gestural abstractionists. The work is an amalgamation of painting, mosaic, and low-relief sculpture.

34-55: JULIAN SCHNABEL, The Walk Home, 1984-1985. Oil, plates, copper, bronze, fiberglass, and bondo on wood, 9' 3" x 19' 4". Eli Broad Family Foundation and the Pace Gallery, New York.

Horses as metaphors:

The loose brushwork and agitated surface in Susan Rothenberg's painting Tattoo identifies her as a Neo-Expressionist.

34-56: SUSAN ROTHENBERG, Tattoo, 1979. Acrylic, flashe on canvas, 5' 7" x 8' 7 1/8" x 1 1/4". Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (purchased with the aid of funds from Mr. and Mrs. Edmond R. Ruben, Mr. and Mrs. Julius E. Davis, the Art Center Acquisition Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts, 1979).

Confronting German history:

Anselm Kiefer's compelling painting Shulamite has a thickly encrusted surface and images that function on an historically specific level, as well as on mythological or metaphorical levels. Kiefer reexamines German history. The design of the darkened room is based on a building constructed as a memorial to Nazi soldiers but is subverted in the painting and presented as a memorial to Shulamite, the Jewish woman in the Paul Celan poem titled "Death Fugue."

34-57: ANSELM KIEFER, Nigredo, 1984. Oil paint on photosensitized fabric, acrylic emulsion, straw, shellac, relief paint on paper pulled from painted wood, 11' x 18'. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (gift of Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art).

Re-Presenting the Virgin Mary:

Although not affiliated with the Neo-Expressionists of the 1970s and 1980s, Chris Ofili has produced work that is emphatically expressionistic in nature.

34-58: CHRIS OFILI, The Holy Virgin Mary, 1996. Paper collage, oil paint, glitter, polyester resin, map pins, elephant dung on linen, 7' 11" x 5' 11 5/16". The Saatchi Collection, London.

Art as a Political Weapon

The persuasive powers of art to communicate with a wide audience is freshly embraced by artists who investigate in their own artwork the dynamics of power and privilege, especially in relation to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

A dinner party celebrating women:

In The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago used crafts techniques traditionally practiced by women to celebrate the achievements and contributions women made throughout history.

34-59: JUDY CHICAGO, The Dinner Party, 1979. Multimedia, including ceramics and stitchery, 48' x 48' x 48' installed.

"Femmage" and Collage:

Miriam Schapiro's Anatomy of a Kimono is one of a series of monumental femmages based on the patterns of Japanese kimonos, fans, and robes. The composition repeats the kimono shape in a sumptuous array of fabric fragments.

34-60: MIRIAM SCHAPIRO, Anatomy of a Kimono (section), 1976. Fabric and acrylic on canvas, 6' 8" x 8' 6". Collection of Bruno Bishofberger, Zurich.

Challenging the "male gaze":

In Untitled: Film Still #35 (from a series of black-and-white photographs titled Untitled Film Stills), Cindy Sherman appears in a photograph that seems to be a still from a film but is sufficiently generic that viewers cannot relate it to a specific movie. Her photographs examine the way much of Western art has been constructed to present female beauty for the enjoyment of the "male gaze."

34-61: CINDY SHERMAN, Untitled Film Still #35, 1979. Black-and-white photograph, 10" x 8".

Text and image:

In Untitled (We Won't Play Nature to Your Culture), Barbara Kruger overlaid a ready-made photograph of the head of a classically beautiful female sculpture with a vertical row of text composed of seven words. Kruger incorporated the layout techniques of the mass media to create a familiar advertising format that she then subverted in order to expose the deceptiveness of the media messages.

34-62: BARBARA KRUGER, Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face), 1983. Photostat, red painted frame, 6' 1" x 4' 1".

Gender and cultural heritage:

Ana Mendeita's Untitled No. 401 is a documentary photograph of one of the earth-body sculptures in the Silueta series that document a dialogue between landscape and the female body.

34-63: ANA MENDIETA, First Silueta, 1973. Color photograph of earth/body work with flowers, executed at El Yaagul, Oaxaca, Mexico . Need dimensions. Courtesy of the Estate of Ana Medieta and Galerie Lelong, New York.

From gum to scars?:

Hannah Wilke presented images of herself that trigger readings that are simultaneously metaphorical and real, stereotypical and unique, erotic and disconcerting, and deal with both pleasure and pain.

34-64: HANNAH WILKE, S.O.S.-Starification Object Series, 1974-82. Ten black-and-white photographs with 15 chewing-gum sculptures in Plexiglas cases mounted on ragboard, from a series originally made for S.O.S. Mastication Box and used in an exhibition-performance at The Clocktower, January 1, 1975, 3' 5" x 5' 8".Courtesy Ron Feldman Fine Arts, New York.

Who controls the body?:

The two life-size wax figures, one male and one female, in Kiki Smith's Untitled depart from conventional representations of the body and comment on how external forces, such as the media, shape people's perceptions of their bodies.

34-65: KIKI SMITH, Untitled, 1990. Beeswax and microcrystalline wax figures on metal stands, female figure installed height 6' 1 1/2" and male figure installed height 6' 4 15/16". Collection Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee).

Both personal political:

Faith Ringgold's Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima? is a quilt composed of dyed, painted, and pieced fabric. It combines written text, embroidered portraits, and traditional patterned squares to create a narrative that is both personal and political.

34-66: FAITH RINGGOLD, Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima?, 1983. Acrylic on canvas with fabric borders, quilted, 7' 6" 6' 8". Private collection.

Combating racism:

Adrian Piper's installation Cornered included a video monitor placed behind an overturned table. Piper spoke to viewers on the video monitor with a directness that forced viewers to examine their own behaviors and values.

34-67: ADRIAN PIPER, Cornered, 1988. Mixed-media installation of variable size; video monitor, table, and birth certificates. Collection of Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Cornered

Counteracting objectification:

In Stereo Styles, a series of Polaroids and engravings, Lorna Simpson focuses on African American hairstyles as a strategy to reveal and subvert conventional representations of gender and race. Simpson also comments on the appropriation of African-derived hairstyles as a fashion commodity, and correlates specific hairstyles with personality traits.

34-68: LORNA SIMPSON, Stereo Styles, 1988. 10 black-and-white Polaroid prints and 10 engraved plastic plaques, 5' 4" x 9' 8" overall. Collection of Raymond J. Learsy, Sharon, Connecticut.

"Lynch Fragments":

Melvin Edwards's small wall-hung welded steel sculpture Some Bright Morning (in the Lynch Fragment series) is made from found metal objects. The series focuses on the metaphor of lynching as a way to provoke thought about the legacy of racism.

34-69: MELVIN EDWARDS, Some Bright Morning, 1963. Welded steel, 1' 2 1/4" x 9 1/4" x 5". Collection of the artist.

Challenging cultural icons:

The central element of David Hammons's installation Public Enemy are large black-and-white photographs of a public monument depicting Teddy Roosevelt seated on a horse, flanked by an African American man and a Native American man. The work revealed and sharply commented on the racism embedded in received cultural heritage.

34-70: DAVID HAMMONS, Public Enemy, installation at Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1991. Photographs, balloons, sandbags, guns, and other mixed media.

Trading with the white man:

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) is a large-scale painting with collage elements and attached objects that explores the politics of identity. Quick-to-See Smith uses cultural heritage and historical references to comment on the present and to challenge stereotypes and unacknowledged assumptions.

34-71: JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People), 1992. Oil and mixed media on canvas, 5' x 14' 2". Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia (museum purchase 93.2).

Brutal visions of violent times:

Leon Golub's Mercenaries (IV) explores a condition of being through an image reminiscent of news photos of anonymous characters who participate in violence, terrorism, and torture.

34-72: LEON GOLUB, Mercenaries (IV), 1980. Acrylic on linen, 10' ´ 19' 2". Collection Mr. and Mrs. Ulrich Meyer, Chicago.

Fabric as a record of the soul:

Magdalena Abakanowicz made each piece of her installation of Backs by pressing layers of natural organic fibers into a plaster mold to create the slumping shoulders, back, and arms of a series of figures of indeterminate sex that rest legless directly on the floor.

34-73: MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ, artist with Backs, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France, 1982. Copyright © Magdalena Abakanowicz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY/Marlborough Gallery, NY.

Dealing with AIDS:

David Wojnarowicz dealt with issues of homophobia and the tragedy of AIDS in his disturbing and eloquent When I Put My Hands on Your Body in which he overlaid a photograph of a pile of skeletal remains with typed commentary of his feelings about watching a loved one dying of the disease.

34-74: DAVID WOJNAROWICZ, When I Put My Hands On Your Body, 1990. Gelatin-silver print and silk-screened text on museum board, 2' 2" x 3' 2".

Exposing the nexus of power:

For The Homeless Projection, Krzysztof Wodiczko projected images of homeless people on all four sides of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil War Memorial on the Boston Common.

34-75: KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO, The Homeless Projection, 1986-1987. Outdoor slide projection at the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Memorial, Boston, organized by First Night, Boston.

New Technologies: Video and Digital Imagery

With the development of relatively inexpensive portable video recording equipment and of electronic devices allowing manipulation of the recorded video material, artists began to explore the expressive possibilities of this new medium.

From video to computer images:

Nam June Paik's video Global Groove combines in quick succession fragmented sequences of female tap dancers, poet Allen Ginsberg reading his work, a performance of cellist Charlotte Moorman using a man's back as her instrument, Pepsi commercials from Japanese television, Korean drummers, and a shot of the Living Theatre group performing a piece called Paradise Now. Computer graphics have transformed how artists could create and manipulate illusionistic, three-dimensional forms. Computer graphics also allow artists to work with wholly invented forms.

34-76: NAM JUNE PAIK, Global Groove, 1973. Video still.

Computer-Generated landscapes:

In Nora, David Em uses computer imaging to create futuristic geometric versions of Surrealistic dreamscapes with a vivid illusion of space.

34-77: DAVID EM, Nora, 1979. Computer-generated color photograph, 1' 5" x 1' 11". Private collection.

The authority of signs:

For a major installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Jenny Holzer created a large continuous LED display spiraling around the museum's interior ramp composed of purposefully vague and ambiguous but authoritative sounding statements.

34-78: JENNY HOLZER, Untitled (Selections from Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments, and Child Text), 1989. Extended helical tricolor LED electronic display signboard, 16" x 162' x 6". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, December 1989-February 1990 (partial gift of the artist, 1989).

Digital sensory experience:

Bill Viola's The Crossing is an installation piece involving two color video channels projected on sixteen-foot-high screens. The installation's elemental nature and its presentation in a dark space immerse viewers in a pure, sensory experience.

34-79: BILL VIOLA, The Crossing, 1996. Installation with two channels of color video projection onto 16'-high screens.

Sculptural video projections:

Artist Tony Oursler, manipulates his images, projecting them onto sculptural objects. This has the effect of taking such images out of the digital world and insinuating them into the "real" world.

34-80: TONY OURSLER, Mansheshe, 1997.Ceramic, glass, video player, videocassette, CPJ-200 video projector, sound, 11" x 7" x 8" each. Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Postmodernism and Commodity Culture

Symbols of What's Wrong Today?:

Jeff Koons's trite and kitschy porcelain sculpture Pink Panther intertwines a magazine centerfold nude with a well-known cartoon character.

34-81: JEFF KOONS, Pink Panther, 1988. Porcelain, 3' 5" x 1' 8 1/2" x 1' 7". Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (Gerald S. Elliot Collection).

Postmodernism and the Critique of Art History

Postmodern artists exhibit a self-consciousness about their places in the continuum of art history. Artists demonstrate their knowledge about past art and express awareness of the mechanisms and institutions of the art world. Postmodern art may also be a critique of or commentary on fundamental art historical premises.

The history of art in art history:

In his A Short History of Modernist Painting, Mark Tansey provides viewers with a summary of the various approaches to painting artists have embraced over the years.

34-82: MARK TANSEY, A Short History of Modernist Painting, 1982. Oil on canvas, three panels, each 4' 10" x 3' 4".

Satirical ceramic sculpture:

Robert Arneson's ceramic sculpture California Artist was created as a direct response to the critic Hilton Kramer's derogatory comments on the provincialism of California art.

34-83: ROBERT ARNESON, California Artist, 1982. Glazed stoneware, 5' 8 1/4" x 2' 3 1/2" x 1' 8 1/4". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (gift of the Modern Art Council). Copyright © Estate of Robert Arneson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Postmodernism and Art Institutions

Postmodern artists have consciously reappraised the processes of art historical validation, reassessed art institutions (museums and galleries), addressed the role of these institutions in validating art, and scrutinized the discriminatory policies and politics of these institutions.

Museums and the politics of art:

In MetroMobiltan, Hans Haacke focused his attention on the politics of art museums and illustrated the connection between the realm of art and the "real" world of political and economic interests.

34-84: HANS HAACKE, MetroMobiltan, 1985. Fiberglass construction, three banners, and photomural, 11' 8" x 20' x 5'. Collection Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

The "conscience of the art world":

The sexist and racist orientation of the major institutions is addressed by the anonymous Guerrilla Girls, who itemize in a poster the numerous obstacles women artists face in the contemporary art world.

34-85: GUERRILLA GIRLS, The Advantages of Being A Woman Artist, 1988. Poster.