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Modernism failed. Post-modernism was the desperate attempt to avoid admitting that the classicists were right. At some point The Artist will face up to it, an

Modernism failed. Post-modernism was the desperate attempt to avoid admitting that the classicists were right. At some point The Artist will face up to it, and we can begin repairing the visual world.

mccoyspace 10y ago
So you are dividing the world into a classical and modern/postmodern halves. When does your modernism start? What triggers it? Is it the Avant Guards of the late teens and 20's, unleashed by the horrors of the WW1? Is it the loosening of realism by the Impressionists in the 1880's set free by the early widespread use of photography? Or is it earlier with Gothic Churches, whose vast open spaces were structurally freed by architectural innovations like external flying buttresses, that allowed the insides to be illuminated by massive stained glass windows colored in new pallets by minerals imported from Asia and Africa? Or do we start your modernism all the way back in 1420 and Brunelleschi's development of linear perspective? It was only in this time that the Classical Era was first defined as such -- retroactively, rediscovered thanks primarily due to its preservation by Islamic scholars over preceding centuries. The forces of technological change, war, trade, and migration have always been at work. They were in Greece in 300BC when those Classical texts were originally written, in Constantinople during the sacking 4th Crusade in 1204, when they were taken from their ancient libraries and brought to Western Europe, and they were during the second half of the 20th Century, when what is now called Post Modernism emerged to critique key aspects of their organizing logic. In all those times we were Modern. I don't think we have ever not been. And before you dismiss those pesky, ugly Avant Guardists, especially since you are doing do in the context of networked computer machinery, I suggest you read this excellent article by Lev Manovich "Avant-guard as Software" https://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/espai/eng/art/manovich1002/manovich1002.html https://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/espai/eng/art/manovich1002/mano...
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SuperPaintMan 10y ago
[Discalimer : Artist behind https://theblackbox.ca https://theblackbox.ca ] I'm going to disagree on Modernism failing, It simply built a little too high and lost it's essence somewhere along the line. Post modern techniques and critique did a excellent number at deconstructing some of this artistic cruft but failed to sew the scars left by itself closed. We've been dealing with this critical based attitude for so long that it's become a cultural default, where we have a collective aversion to building modern-esque structures. This history isn't linear though, the periods are only created upon looking back upon the collective history of works and mapping out what informs which and the majority cultural norm. The internet/access to history has had a strange way of making the concept of what is contemporary semi atemporal. Modernity isn't dead. Postmodernity sure as hell isn't dead. Renaissance painting is surprisingly still alive. There are painters working with egg tempura creating sacred icons still. Instead we have a crazy cross-referenced shitshow that we call the contemporary. When we linearize and compartmentalize art history it's simple to reject avenues as being traversed already. At least in my practice I've found this to be the case. Mythos have been evolving and changing to fit contemporary society through the ages. The criticality of our times have destroyed the mythos. What is our collective cultural mythology? Jesus and company was a pretty close fit for mythos (assuming my cultural context, substitute other here). Why bother with creating a new mythos for contemporary society, we obviously tore it down for a reason. /s We artists are facing this postmodern gash, and are searching for ways of using the deconstructive/critical tools while also constructing and pushing forward. We can't just return to the classical and bury our heads from the past 200 years of advances, nor can we continue along this bastard PM track. Metamodern artworks are an attempt to strive with naive idealism in the footsteps of modernity fully understanding that these advances can easily be pulled apart and dismissed academically. In response to the narrowing of the definition of art, in my practice there is fine Art (that holds up to academic criticism and is supported by literature) and folk art which expresses and is usually dismissed by academics. I don't know, I'm trying to recover from a cynical upbringing and this horrible aversion to sincerity. Painting is dead, long live painting. Vapourware is authentic, and that screws with me.
aarmenante 10y ago
I always find it odd when people make statements like this. Roger Kimball's The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art tries to make the case that modern art has abandoned the past because art historians are now too "PC" to appreciate it. Modernism did not, and can not fail because it has already happened. You can't change what inspired people. > At some point The Artist will face up to it, and we can begin repairing the visual world Statements like that are scary. Sounds like a headline torn from the pages of the National Review's art and literature section. If you don't like the way modern art makes you feel or the way it is critiqued, pick up a paintbrush or open a gallery.
pjc50 10y ago
Modernist architecture (especially Brutalism) certainly failed, because it abandoned considerations of usability and was often deliberately hostile. You end up with car parks that look amazing in carefully posed photos, but have to be demolished not only because the fabric is rotting, but the building is such a despair magnet that people are regularly committing suicide from it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre Art doesn't really have to submit to questions of "usability".

mccoyspace 10y ago

So you are dividing the world into a classical and modern/postmodern halves. When does your modernism start? What triggers it? Is it the Avant Guards of the late teens and 20's, unleashed by the horrors of the WW1? Is it the loosening of realism by the Impressionists in the 1880's set free by the early widespread use of photography? Or is it earlier with Gothic Churches, whose vast open spaces were structurally freed by architectural innovations like external flying buttresses, that allowed the insides to be illuminated by massive stained glass windows colored in new pallets by minerals imported from Asia and Africa? Or do we start your modernism all the way back in 1420 and Brunelleschi's development of linear perspective? It was only in this time that the Classical Era was first defined as such -- retroactively, rediscovered thanks primarily due to its preservation by Islamic scholars over preceding centuries. The forces of technological change, war, trade, and migration have always been at work. They were in Greece in 300BC when those Classical texts were originally written, in Constantinople during the sacking 4th Crusade in 1204, when they were taken from their ancient libraries and brought to Western Europe, and they were during the second half of the 20th Century, when what is now called Post Modernism emerged to critique key aspects of their organizing logic. In all those times we were Modern. I don't think we have ever not been. And before you dismiss those pesky, ugly Avant Guardists, especially since you are doing do in the context of networked computer machinery, I suggest you read this excellent article by Lev Manovich "Avant-guard as Software" https://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/espai/eng/art/manovich1002/manovich1002.html https://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/espai/eng/art/manovich1002/mano...

deleted 10y ago
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SuperPaintMan 10y ago

[Discalimer : Artist behind https://theblackbox.ca https://theblackbox.ca ] I'm going to disagree on Modernism failing, It simply built a little too high and lost it's essence somewhere along the line. Post modern techniques and critique did a excellent number at deconstructing some of this artistic cruft but failed to sew the scars left by itself closed. We've been dealing with this critical based attitude for so long that it's become a cultural default, where we have a collective aversion to building modern-esque structures. This history isn't linear though, the periods are only created upon looking back upon the collective history of works and mapping out what informs which and the majority cultural norm. The internet/access to history has had a strange way of making the concept of what is contemporary semi atemporal. Modernity isn't dead. Postmodernity sure as hell isn't dead. Renaissance painting is surprisingly still alive. There are painters working with egg tempura creating sacred icons still. Instead we have a crazy cross-referenced shitshow that we call the contemporary. When we linearize and compartmentalize art history it's simple to reject avenues as being traversed already. At least in my practice I've found this to be the case. Mythos have been evolving and changing to fit contemporary society through the ages. The criticality of our times have destroyed the mythos. What is our collective cultural mythology? Jesus and company was a pretty close fit for mythos (assuming my cultural context, substitute other here). Why bother with creating a new mythos for contemporary society, we obviously tore it down for a reason. /s We artists are facing this postmodern gash, and are searching for ways of using the deconstructive/critical tools while also constructing and pushing forward. We can't just return to the classical and bury our heads from the past 200 years of advances, nor can we continue along this bastard PM track. Metamodern artworks are an attempt to strive with naive idealism in the footsteps of modernity fully understanding that these advances can easily be pulled apart and dismissed academically. In response to the narrowing of the definition of art, in my practice there is fine Art (that holds up to academic criticism and is supported by literature) and folk art which expresses and is usually dismissed by academics. I don't know, I'm trying to recover from a cynical upbringing and this horrible aversion to sincerity. Painting is dead, long live painting. Vapourware is authentic, and that screws with me.

aarmenante 10y ago

I always find it odd when people make statements like this. Roger Kimball's The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art tries to make the case that modern art has abandoned the past because art historians are now too "PC" to appreciate it. Modernism did not, and can not fail because it has already happened. You can't change what inspired people. > At some point The Artist will face up to it, and we can begin repairing the visual world Statements like that are scary. Sounds like a headline torn from the pages of the National Review's art and literature section. If you don't like the way modern art makes you feel or the way it is critiqued, pick up a paintbrush or open a gallery.

pjc50 10y ago

Modernist architecture (especially Brutalism) certainly failed, because it abandoned considerations of usability and was often deliberately hostile. You end up with car parks that look amazing in carefully posed photos, but have to be demolished not only because the fabric is rotting, but the building is such a despair magnet that people are regularly committing suicide from it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre Art doesn't really have to submit to questions of "usability".