Late modernism

Late modernism describes movements that both arise and respond to the trends of modernism and at the same time reject some of its aspects, fully developing the conceptual possibilities of the modernist trend ^[5] . In some descriptions, postmodernism as a period in art is completed, while in others it is an ongoing movement in contemporary art. In art characterized by the specific features of modernism, as a rule, formal purity, medium specificity, art for the sake of art, the possibility of authenticity in art, the importance or even the possibility of a universal truth in art, and the importance of avant-garde and originality are distinguished. This last point is one of the special disputes in art, in which many institutions claim that the presence of promising, advanced and progressive trends is crucial for the mission of art in the present, and therefore postmodern is a contradiction of the value of “art of our time”.

One of the proposed compact definitions is that although postmodernism acts by rejecting the great narratives of modernism about artistic leadership, and destroying the boundaries between high and low forms of art, it violates the genre and its conventions by collision, collage and fragmentation. In postmodern art, they believe that all positions are unstable and insincere, and therefore irony , parody and humor are the only positions that cannot be undone by criticism ^[6] .

Many of these features are present in contemporary movements in art, in particular, the rejection of the separation between high and low forms of art. However, these features are considered fundamental to postmodern art, and not just present to one degree or another. However, one of the most important differences between postmodernism and modernism, as movements in art, is, ultimately, the progressive position of modernism, according to which new works should be more “future-oriented” and advanced, while postmodern movements usually reject this concept.

However, in the use of the term postmodern, there are critics of its application. For example, Kirk Varnedo stated that postmodernism does not exist and that the possibilities of modernism have not yet been exhausted ^[7] . As noted above, these critics are currently outnumbered.

Radical movements and trends in modernism and modernist art, seen as having influenced and potentially preceding the emergence of late modernism, began to arise shortly before the First World War and especially after it. With the advent of the technical and mechanical component in art, such directions as cubism , Dadaism and surrealism appeared , and along with them such techniques as collage and others. Also at this time, the emergence of new forms of art such as cinema , which, thanks to the use of industrial copying techniques, brought art to a new level. Thanks to the efforts of Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp , the readymade technique appeared.

Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism as a Precedent

At the beginning of the 20th century , under the influence of Henri Matisse and Andre Derain as Fauvist painters and monumental innovations by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque , as well as the worldwide success of Cubism and the promotion of the avant-garde, Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal and declared it a sculpture . He wanted people to look at the urinal as a work of art because he said it was a work of art. He called his work " readymade ." The Fountain was a urinal with the pseudonym R. Matt, who shocked the art world in 1917. This and other works of Duchamp, as a rule, are attributed by art critics to Dadaism .

Dadaism can be seen as part of a modernist tendency to challenge established styles and forms, along with surrealism , futurism and abstract expressionism ^[8] . From a chronological point of view, Dada is within the framework of modernism, but some critics believe that he anticipates postmodernism, while others, such as Ihab Hassan and Stephen Connor , consider it a possible point of transition between modernism and postmodernism ^[9] .

Fauvism, and in particular, Henri Matisse, had an important influence both on abstract expressionism and on the painting of the color field , which became an important milestone of late modernism. “Dance” is widely known as “a key moment in Matisse’s career and in the development of modern painting” ^[10] . Due to the large blue space, the simplicity of design and the emphasis on pure sensations, the painting had a huge impact on American artists who saw it at MoMA in New York .

Jackson Pollock: Abstract Expressionism

In the late 1940s, Pollock ’s radical approach to painting revolutionized the potential of all contemporary art that followed. To some extent, Pollock realized that the path to creating a work of art was just as important as the work of art itself. Like the innovative inventions of painting and sculpture at the turn of the century with the help of Cubism by Pablo Picasso, Pollock redefined the way art was created in the middle of the century. Pollock's movement - away from easel painting and conventions - was a signal of liberation for his contemporaries and their followers.

The artists realized that the creative process of Jackson Pollock - work on the floor, stretched untreated canvas, specific materials, industrial materials, throwing linear skeins of paint, drip painting, drawing, painting, brushing, in fact, transferred the creative process beyond any previous boundaries.

Abstract expressionism as a whole expanded and developed the possibilities that artists had for creating new works of art. In a sense, the innovations of Jackson Pollock , Willem de Kooning , Franz Klein , Mark Rothko , Philip Guston , Hans Hoffmann , Clifford Still , Barnett Newman , Ed Reinhardt and others have opened the gateways to the diversity and scale of all art.

Neodada, collage and assembly

The appearance of combined works of art is associated with abstract expressionism - with the artist's materials, departing from the previous conventions of painting and sculpture. This trend in art is illustrated by the work of Robert Rauschenberg , whose "combines" in the 1950s were the forerunners of pop art and installation art and used many large physical objects, including stuffed animals, birds and commercial photography.

Leo Steinberg uses the term postmodernism in 1969 to describe the "flat" plane of the image of Rauschenberg, containing a number of cultural images and allusions that were not compatible with the picturesque field of pre-modern and modern painting ^[11] .

Stephen Best and Douglas Kellner identify Rauschenberg and Jasper Jones as part of the transitional phase between modernism and postmodernism, influenced by Marcel Duchamp . Both used images of ordinary objects or the objects themselves in their work, while preserving the abstraction and pictorial gestures of high modernism ^[12] .

Abstract Painting and Sculpture of the 1960s and 1970s

In abstract painting and sculpture in the 1950s and 1960s, geometric abstraction became an important direction in the work of many sculptors and artists. Minimalism , painting of the color field , painting of hard contours and lyrical abstraction , which were radically new directions ^{[13] [14] [15],} dominated the painting .

Helen Frankenthaler , Maurice Louis , Frank Stella , Kelly Ellsworth , Richard Dibenkorn , David Smith , Anthony Caro , Mark di Suvero , Gene Davis , Kenneth Noland , Jules Olitsky , Isaac Witkin , Anne Trutt , Kenneth Snelson , Al Heldard , Howard Puns , Bryce Marden , Robert Mangold , Dan Christensen , Larry Zox , Charles Hinman , Sam Gilliam were some of the artists whose works characterized the abstract painting and sculpture of the 1960s ^[16] . Lyrical abstraction resembles painting of a color field and abstract expressionism , especially in the free use of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of lines, the effects of matte, splattered, painted, squeezed, poured and splattered paint in appearance resemble the effects observed in abstract expressionism and color field painting. However, the styles are noticeably different.

As can be seen in the action painting , the emphasis is on strokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in lyrical abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness of the whole composition, restrained and relaxed compositional drama and emphasis on the process, repetition and general sensitivity. In the 1960s and 1970s, influential artists such as Robert Motherwell , Adolph Gottlieb , Philip Guston , Lee Krasner , Cy Twombly , Robert Rauschenberg , Jasper Jones , Richard Dibenkorn , Joseph Albers , Elmer Bischoff , Agnes Martin , Sam Frances , Ellsworth Kelly , Frank Stella , Kenneth Noland , Joan Mitchell and young artists such as Bryce Marden , Robert Mangold and dozens of others continued to create vital and influential paintings.

Minimalism and post-minimalism

By the early 1960s, minimalism appeared as an abstract movement in art (its root goes to the geometric abstraction of Malevich , Bauhaus and Mondrian ). Among the artists who have become pioneers of minimalism, one can single out Frank Stella , Ed Reinhardt , Agnes Martin , Barnett Newman , Donald Judd , Tony Smith , Karl Andre , Robert Smithson , Saul Levitt , Dan Flavin , Robert Mangold , Robert Morris a and Ronald Blad . New art rejected the idea of ​​relational and subjective painting, the complexity of abstract expressionist surfaces, the emotional spirit of the times, and polemics present in the action arena. Minimalism argued that extreme simplicity could encompass the entire sublime representation needed in art. Minimalism in painting and sculpture, in contrast to other areas, is a late modernist movement and, depending on the context, can be interpreted as the forerunner of the postmodern movement.

Hal Foster, in his essay The Essence of Minimalism, explores the extent to which Donald Judd and Robert Morris recognize and surpass Greenberg Modernism in their published definitions of minimalism ^[17] . He argues that minimalism is not a “dead end” of modernism, but "a paradigm shift towards post-modern practices that continue to be developed today" ^[18] .

In the late 1960s, the term “ post-minimalism ” was coined by Robert Pincus-Witten to describe a minimalist derivative art that has content and contextual overtones rejected by minimalism, which included works by Eva Hesse, Keith Sonnier , Richard Serre and new works by former minimalists Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Saul Leviticus and others ^[19] .

Rosalind Krauss claims that by 1968, artists such as Morris, Levitic, Smithson and Serra, “found themselves in a situation whose logical conditions can no longer be called modernist” ^[20] . The expansion of the category of sculpture, which included land art and architecture, "led to the transition to postmodernism" ^[21] .

Process Art

However, by the end of the 1960s, process art had become a revolutionary concept and movement that embraced painting and sculpture through lyrical abstraction and post-minimalist movement , as well as early conceptual art . Eva Hesse , Robert Smithson, Walter De Maria , Richard Serra, Nancy Graves , Yannis Kunellis , Bruce Naumann , Richard Tuttle , Mel Bochner , Hannah Wilke , Linda Benglis , Michael Heiser , Lawrence Weiner , Joseph Kossuth were among the artists of the direction that appeared in 1960s. The art of process art, inspired by Pollock , allowed artists to experiment and use a diverse palette of style, content, material, placement, a sense of time, scale, size, plasticity and real space ^[22] .

Pop Art

The term " pop art " was used by Lawrence Alloway to describe paintings that glorified the consumerism of the Western world of the era after World War II ^[23] . This movement rejected abstract expressionism and its orientation towards a hermeneutic and psychological interior, in favor of art, the movement depicted and often glorified the material consumer culture, advertising and iconography of the era of mass production. The early works of David Hockney and the works of Richard Hamilton , John McHale and Eduardo Paolozzi were considered original examples in the movement. While later American examples include the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Bendy's points, a technique used in commercial reproduction. There is a clear connection between the radical works of Duchamp , the rebellious Dadaist - with a sense of humor, and pop artists such as Klas Oldenburg , Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and others ^[24] .

In general, pop art and minimalism began as modernist movements, a paradigm shift and a philosophical split between formalism and anti-formalism in the early 1970s led some critics to consider these movements as predecessors or forerunners of postmodern art. Other contemporary movements that are referred to as influential in postmodern art are conceptual art , Dada, and surrealism , as well as the use of technical methods such as assembling , editing, collage , bricolage, and art forms that use recording or reproduction as the basis for works of art .

Opinions vary as to whether pop art is a late modernist movement or a postmodern one. Thomas Mackavelli , agreeing with Dave Hickey , says that postmodernism in the visual arts began with the first pop art exhibitions in 1962, "although it took about twenty years before postmodernism became dominant in the visual arts." Frederick Jameson also considers pop art postmodern ^[25] .

Performance and happening

In the late 1950s and 1960s, artists with a wide range of interests began to push the boundaries of contemporary art. Yves Klein in France and Carolie Schneemann , Yayoi Kusama , Yoko Ono in New York were pioneers of performance- based works. Groups such as Live Theater with Julian Beck and Judith Malina collaborated with sculptors and artists, creating an environment that radically changes the relationship between the audience and the performer. These performances were often intended to create a new form of art that combines sculpture, dance, music or sound, often with the participation of an audience. The works were characterized by reductive philosophies of minimalism, spontaneous improvisation and expressiveness of abstract expressionism.

During the same period - from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, various avant-garde artists created happenings . The cases were mysterious and often spontaneous and unregistered gatherings of artists, their friends and relatives in various indicated places. Activities include absurd, physical exercises, strange costumes, spontaneous nudity and various random and seemingly incoherent actions. Allan Kaprow , Klas Aldenburg , Jim Dine and Robert Whitman , among others, were well-known creators of the happenings.

Fluxus

Fluxus was named and organized in 1962 by George Maciūnas (1931-1978), an American artist born in Lithuania . Fluxus dates back to John Cage's experimental composition classes from 1957 to 1959 at the New School for Social Research in New York. Many of his students were artists with little or no musical experience. Among the cage students were the founders of Fluxus, Jackson MacLow , Al Hansen , George Brecht and Dick Higgins ^[26] .

In appearance, Fluxus often resembles Dada . Many representatives of the Fluxus group of the 60s themselves spoke about the direct influence of the Dadaists, in particular Marcel Duchamp, on their work. But to call the new trend "neo-dada" would be wrong. The founder of Fluxus, George Machiunas, preferred to turn to dead Latin, probably in order, first, to separate the new trend from the historical Dadaism, and secondly, to emphasize the timelessness of Fluxus' ideas. Simple to the banality, sometimes ridiculously stupid or defiantly wild, Fluxus challenged the canons in which official art of the 50-60s was "stuck". Fluxus was once again called upon to erase the boundaries between art and life, to teach people to see beauty in the most trivial things, to live “in the moment”, to create something interesting constantly and from “nothing” outside the workshops, outside the stage, without interruption from everyday life. Fluxus has included a strong stream of anti-commercialism and anti-artistic sensitivities, condemning the world of traditional market-oriented art in favor of artist-oriented creative practice. Fluxus artists preferred to work with any materials that were at hand, and either created their own work, or collaborated in the creation process with their colleagues.

Andreas Huissen criticizes attempts to declare Fluxus as postmodernism as "either a master code for postmodernism, or, ultimately, an unrepresentable art movement - like sublime postmodernism." Instead, he sees Fluxus as the main neo-Dadaist phenomenon within the vanguard tradition. He did not represent much progress in the development of artistic strategies, although he expressed rebellion against the “guided culture of the 1950s, in which moderate, domesticated modernism served as an ideological support for the Cold War ” ^[27] .

Concept Art

Concept art became an important event in contemporary art in the late 1960s. Late modernism expanded and contracted in the late 1960s, and for some, conceptual art completely broke with modernism. Sometimes conceptual art is labeled as postmodern because it is clearly involved in the deconstruction of what makes a work of art “art”.

In conceptualism, the concept of a work is more important than its physical expression, the purpose of art is to convey an idea. Conceptual objects can exist in the form of phrases, texts, diagrams, graphs, drawings, photographs, audio and video materials. Any object, phenomenon, process can become an object of art, since conceptual art is a pure artistic gesture.

Duchamp can be seen as the forerunner of conceptual art. So the avant-garde composer David Tudor created the play “Reunion” (1968), written in collaboration with Lowell Cross, which presents a game of chess, where each move causes a lighting effect or projection. At the premiere, the game was played between John Cage and Marcel Duchamp ^[28] . Some other well-known examples are the composition “4′33 ″” by American composer John Cage , during which no sound is played. Many conceptual works adhere to the position that art is created by the viewer observing the object, and not otherwise.

Installation

An important series of movements in art, which were successively described as postmodern, included installation art and the creation of objects that are conceptual in nature. One example is the Jenny Holzer tablets, which use artistic methods to convey specific messages, such as “Protect me from what I want.” Entering into various extraordinary combinations, a thing is freed from its practical function, acquiring a symbolic function. Changing contexts creates semantic modifications, a game of meanings. The size of installations varies from extremely small, where you can only look with one eye, to several rooms in large museums . Installation, unlike flat murals and single objects, focuses on creating interior space.

Multimedia and Multimedia

Another trend in art that is associated with the term postmodern is the use of several different means of artistic expression together. Intermedia , a term coined by Dick Higgins and intended to refer to new forms of art in the directions of Fluxus , figured poetry , readymade , performance . Sustainable combinations of genres turned into new forms of artistic practice, for example, such as visual poetry, the art of performance. These symbioses occurred in line with the global trend of the 20th century , consisting in the destruction of the boundaries between the media, the mixing of expressive means of different types of art. Intermedia was understood to mean new works that could not be described within the framework of the artistic categories existing at the beginning of the 1960s, because in terms of meaning they were between two expressive means that were already known and used ^[29] .

Although the theory of combining several arts into one art is quite old and periodically revives, the postmodern manifestation is often combined with performance art , where dramatic subtext is removed, and what remains is the artist’s specific statements or conceptual exposition of the action.

The art of appropriation and neo-conceptual art

In the essay Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism , critic Craig Owens in 1980 identifies rebirth in allegorical impulse as a characteristic of postmodern art. This impulse can be seen in the art of appropriation of artists such as Sherry Levin and Robert Longo , because "allegorical images are assigned images" ^[30] . The art of appropriation debunkes the modernist ideas of artistic genius and originality and is more ambivalent and controversial than contemporary art, at the same time establishing and destroying ideologies, “being both critical and complicit” ^[31] .

Neo-expressionism

The return to traditional forms of sculpture and painting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, seen in the work of neo-expressionist artists such as Georg Baselitz and Julian Schnabel , was described as a postmodern trend and one of the first coordinated movements that arose in postmodern era ^{[32] [33]} .

His strong ties to the commercial art market raised questions about both his status as a postmodernist movement and the definition of postmodernism itself. Hal Foster states that neo-expressionism was an accomplice in the conservative cultural policy of the Reagan-Bush era in the United States ^[34] . Pierre Felix Guattari declares that postmodernism is nothing but the last breath of modernism . This criticism of neo-expressionism shows that money and public relations did maintain global trust in contemporary art in America at the same time that conceptual and feminist art practices systematically overestimated contemporary art ^[35] .

Late Modernist Painting and Sculpture in the 21st Century

At the beginning of the XXI century, modern painting, modern sculpture and contemporary art as a whole continue to develop in several related areas, characterized by the idea of pluralism . The “crisis” in painting, sculpture and contemporary art, as well as contemporary art criticism today are caused by pluralism. There is no and should not be consensus on the representative style of the era. Consequently, works of art continue to be produced, although in a variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, and the market is a measure of recognition and success.

There is no universally accepted term that would define the art of the last two decades of the 21st century, a number of critics declare the decline of postmodernism . It should be noted that so many works of contemporary art have never been created and bought before. The public and the media have never shown such interest in art. English art historian Will Gomperz in his book “Inexplicable Art. From Monet to Banksy ” introduces the term new avant-garde to describe the new art of the 21st century ^[36] .