preview

Contemporary Art Essay

Best Essays

Contemporary Art: Dealing with Post-Modernity

− ”Art worlds consist of all the people whose activities are necessary to the production of the characteristic works which that world, and perhaps others as well, define as art. … By observing how an art world makes those distinctions rather than trying to make them ourselves we can understand much of what goes on in that world.... The basic unit of analysis, then, is an art world.”
- Howard Becker (Art Worlds)
Postmodernism deconstructs Modernism like Modernism deconstructed art
Like the Simpson's episode that explained Po-Mo as “weird for the sake of weird”,
Postmodernism accepted the philosophy “art for the sake of art”. A very free and democratic practice, a natural response …show more content…

Postmodernism embraces hypertext and hyperplicity, or the rejection of centralized control. It looses trust in the media and public communication, embracing simulacrum as a hyper-reality that was only long-ago based on some sort of truth. Most importantly, Postmodernism rejects the
Modernist idea of high art as normative and dominant. Instead, it merges the concept of “low” and “high” art, effectively canceling them both. Where Modernism saw a work of art as a finished product, signed by the artist and authenticated by the art market,
Postmodernism sees art as a recycling of culture, authenticated by whatever audience that may be. Where Modern art is a separate dichotomy of contrasting themes (organic/nonorganic, realist/abstract), Postmodern art mixes all available ideas into a sensational pastiche. Finally Modernism clearly divided normity versus sexual difference and pornography. Postmodernism embraces whatever ideas have an audience, and mixes polymorphous sexuality and pornography with mainstream media. Postmodernist art and media reject the linear way of working, building upon a specific discourse and ideology. It embraces instead, an anything-goes attitude, expanding mediums and messages into multiple directions. As long as there's an audience somewhere, the work can be considered legitimate art.
Modernist trends in the Postmodern Art-World
It is important to note - since the work is still authenticated by its audience, art still

Get Access