Postmodernism, et al. I'm getting annoyed.

[doug anderson]

I'm wondering why I see so much art (not only photography) that is empty, merely clever, or bored. There are certain postmodern assumptions that the artists themselves seem to have adopted in their work.

1. Everything has been done, therefore nothing is left but commenting on what has been.

2. Passion (of any kind), and any affirmative (erotic) response to life is old hat, and only irony will suffice.

I've seen these attitudes expressed in so much of what I've seen in galleries lately, I've wanted to move to the woods and do cave paintings.

I began to get genuinely angry a few years ago when I saw a photography exhibit at Pomona College in Claremont, in which the photographer had taken photographs of photographs. After one has got the simple idea that everything is a copy or a copy of a copy, the photographs themselves are simply diluted copies of the originals. This photographer was an academic, which is part of the problem, but it made me wonder what kind of numbing agent has been fed into the water supply.

I guess my question is where do I find, in contemporary photography, vision, passion and affirmation that being alive is a good thing and not a joke (of sorts, with a blown punch line)?

For example, Cartier-Bresson would be judged "sentimental" in this world (although almost everyone who photographs people owes something to him).

How does so much crap get into galleries?

Does anybody know of any exciting new art in a New York gallery right now? I'm going tomorrow, and I'm starved for something that will make me feel good about art/photography.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Doug,

I had written a longish reply but have lost it due to a Wi-Fi problem. So here it is again in shorter form.

I share these sentiments. I have been to SF MoMA and NYC MoMA recently. Some of the postmodern exhibits drove me literally mad. There was one showing 5 sheets of legal sized blank paper on which there were drawn short (less than 1 inch) shaky lines with a pen (1 short line per sheet). I don't remember the artist (a woman) but my reaction was like in the good old days when I did not dig modern art as much as I pretend to do now: "I can do that!".

I have seen the photo exhibitions there but it was a mixed bag. I have also seen a double exhibition at Getty LA, of Sander and the Bechers. It was good, but hardly (post)modern.

So indeed, where do we find a gallery displaying some good (modern) photography?

Cheers,

 

[doug anderson]

Hi Doug,

I had written a longish reply but have lost it due to a Wi-Fi problem. So here it is again in shorter form.

I share these sentiments. I have been to SF MoMA and NYC MoMA recently. Some of the postmodern exhibits drove me literally mad. There was one showing 5 sheets of legal sized blank paper on which there were drawn short (less than 1 inch) shaky lines with a pen (1 short line per sheet). I don't remember the artist (a woman) but my reaction was like in the good old days when I did not dig modern art as much as I pretend to do now: "I can do that!".

I have seen the photo exhibitions there but it was a mixed bag. I have also seen a double exhibition at Getty LA, of Sander and the Bechers. It was good, but hardly (post)modern.

So indeed, where do we find a gallery displaying some good (modern) photography?

Cheers,

Good question: I find inspiring work often at the Magnum Photos website, and sometimes at the Lens Culture website, and try to track down books and exhibits by those photographers. Not so easy.

The last time I was at MOMA (May), there was an exhibit of a fan on a long cord suspended from the ceiling: that's it: fan, cord. The fan swung in a circle, blowing air on whomever happened to be under it at the time. The only time it became interesting for me was when a little girl started chasing it in a circle. I thought, maybe that's what we're to do with this: run around a chase it. The art itself is nothing but what we add to it in our frustration. Bleh!

And people get big grants for this sort of thing.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I'm wondering why I see so much art (not only photography) that is empty, merely clever, or bored. There are certain postmodern assumptions that the artists themselves seem to have adopted in their work.

1. Everything has been done, therefore nothing is left but commenting on what has been.

2. Passion (of any kind), and any affirmative (erotic) response to life is old hat, and only irony will suffice.

I've seen these attitudes expressed in so much of what I've seen in galleries lately, I've wanted to move to the woods and do cave paintings.

I too search for the pictures that show us life with a heartbeat. Still, I'm a pragmatic optimist. Some spend a lot of time chewing gum. I prefer peaches fresh from the farmers' market. That's what we want to see more of. We agree! What you don't like, let's put aside for now. Speaking of what we want to see more of, consider, for your own appetite, this photograph.

Hello again ...

Today I bring you a small collection of photographs in the market for birds in Madrid ...

Here, in my opinion is the sort of work we want to see more of. It has, perhaps, the elements you also seek. Am I at least on the right track? Read the original thread here and perhaps add your own impression. I'd love to see more reactions to what I think is a photograph of unusual value today. I hope that is of interest and relevant to what you search. Still it's not, as yet, AFAIK, in a gallery.

Now we go back to your well expressed complaints:

I guess my question is where do I find, in contemporary photography, vision, passion and affirmation that being alive is a good thing and not a joke (of sorts, with a blown punch line)?

For example, Cartier-Bresson would be judged "sentimental" in this world (although almost everyone who photographs people owes something to him).

How does so much crap get into galleries?

That would make an excellent separate thread! for now, let's focus on finding those galleries showing work that's alive and shows us more of ourselves, not just the joke or the negative extraction. The later, again we can discuss separately. All have their place in art.

Does anybody know of any exciting new art in a New York gallery right now? I'm going tomorrow, and I'm starved for something that will make me feel good about art/photography.

Now we need to find a gallery that shows such contemporary work now.

 

[Michael Fontana]

I don't think we' re still in the postmodernism - in its closer meaning.

>How does so much crap get into galleries?<

Because people buy it, it's as easy as that.
Art of course alwith tried to push the border furter; so there might be some misunderstandings, sometimes.

 

[doug anderson]

I don't think we' re still in the postmodernism - in its closer meaning.

>How does so much crap get into galleries?<

Because people buy it, it's as easy as that.
Art of course alwith tried to push the border furter; so there might be some misunderstandings, sometimes.

My argument is that most postmodernists DON'T try to push the border further. Modernism pushed the border much further than anything that came before it. Postmodernism -- and let me separate its current usage from the writings of Lyotard and other great thinkers -- at least as far as art goes, seems to be a little like the starving person digesting his own stomach lining. A lot of been-there-done-thatness on the part of people who haven't been anywhere or done anything.

I HATE Nan Goldin. I LOVE Dianne Arbus. What is the difference? Both purport to push the limit, but I don't think that Goldin did anything but swim around in her own narcissism. I LOVE the early work of Cindy Sherman. I HATE the later work because it is so self-consciously intellectual.

It seems that a lot of postmodernists' grasp exceeds their reach: they know too much ahead of time what they're going to say and they short circuit their own creativity.

 

[Michael Fontana]

doug

I agree much what you wrote; and you pointed out correctly the distinction of the french philosoph's meaning of the word postmodern.

Looking at art means not looking back; and I think cause we've so many artists - remember A. Warhol's bonmot, that in the future, everbody will be famous for 5 minutes - we've so much crap (sorry ;-) )

If you look today at the 80th stuff, you become aware, that then too, lots of crap - not holding longer than maybe one or two decades - was made.

So there's good stuff today arround, too - you' ve only to discover it.

One thing has changed for sure, though: the importance of marketing, business, etc has increased very much within the last decades, working for some artists, I can clearly see this development: we might have today some marketing people making °art°.

Time will tell.

 

[doug anderson]

doug

I agree much what you wrote; and you pointed out correctly the distinction of the french philosoph's meaning of the word postmodern.

Looking at art means not looking back; and I think cause we've so many artists - remember A. Warhol's bonmot, that in the future, everbody will be famous for 5 minutes - we've so much crap (sorry ;-) )

If you look today at the 80th stuff, you become aware, that then too, lots of crap - not holding longer than maybe one or two decades - was made.

So there's good stuff today arround, too - you' ve only to discover it.

One thing has changed for sure, though: the importance of marketing, business, etc has increased very much within the last decades, working for some artists, I can clearly see this development: we might have today some marketing people making °art°.

Time will tell.

Right you are, sir, and I like your iteration of Warhol.

Speaking of Campbell's soup cans, let me talk about Marcel Duchamp, who is claimed by both modernists and postmodernists. He put a urinal in an art gallery to make a point about galleries. It worked -- once. What we have with much contemporary art is the equivalent of many urinals in many art galleries.

 

[David Sommars]

a lot of this is being taught in art school nowadays, its ingrained in the textbooks.

the world as a whole seems to be lacking its youthful optimism.

 

[doug anderson]

a lot of this is being taught in art school nowadays, its ingrained in the textbooks.

the world as a whole seems to be lacking its youthful optimism.

Why should they have to be told what to think? What if they just looked around them? Became engaged with life in some way? The drollery is killing me.

 

[doug anderson]

I too search for the pictures that show us life with a heartbeat. Still, I'm a pragmatic optimist. Some spend a lot of time chewing gum. I prefer peaches fresh from the farmers' market. That's what we want to see more of. We agree! What you don't like, let's put aside for now. Speaking of what we want to see more of, consider, for your own appetite, this photograph.



Here, in my opinion is the sort of work we want to see more of. It has, perhaps, the elements you also seek. Am I at least on the right track? Read the original thread here and perhaps add your own impression. I'd love to see more reactions to what I think is a photograph of unusual value today. I hope that is of interest and relevant to what you search. Still it's not, as yet, AFAIK, in a gallery.

Now we go back to your well expressed complaints:


That would make an excellent separate thread! for now, let's focus on finding those galleries showing work that's alive and shows us more of ourselves, not just the joke or the negative extraction. The later, again we can discuss separately. All have their place in art.



Now we need to find a gallery that shows such contemporary work now.

I like this shot. I wonder what kind of bird they're looking at. The atmosphere around them made me think fighting cock, but the cage is too small.

 

[Maris Rusis]

If I were going to Art School I'd want to do Postmodernism.

Wow, what a course! There are no rules. Not even the rule that there are no rules. There are no facts only the intellectual prison of imposed opinion. There is no truth only cultural hegemony. There are either no values or alternatively all values are fully equivalent and interchangeable. There is no good or bad, no morality. no ethic save what you care to make up for yourself. Everything is relative; there are no absolutes.

How could a lazy and distracted undergraduate fail such a course? How could an overworked and underpaid academic fail to teach such a course? Both must pass with flying colours because Postmodernism is, at its heart, a self healing belief system that is unaffected by criticism or negative analysis.

 

[Ken Tanaka]

Hmmm. This thread is wandering into some very deep, and very old, swamp water.

Rather than categorically accepting or dismissing unnamed artists or their works, I'll offer a very simple perspective system for you to consider adopting as you face various contemporary artistic works.

For most people the most difficult (indeed, perhaps impossible for some), hurdle to breach is that of making initial judgements based on traditional beauty. The old saw, "I don't know anything about ART but I know what I don't like." is as symptomatic of a closed and narrow mind as a sneeze is of a histamine response. Yes, I must admit that I find visual beauty in many of the works I find most fascinating. But that's not what I initially seek when I first view a work.

If you're able to genuinely swallow that requisite pill, I suggest that you form your judgement of a work based primarily on (a) your personal assessment of the vigor and value of conceptual thought behind it, and (b) the execution of the expression (ex: visual choices, craftsmanship) within the chosen medium.

Most people spend only seconds to consider an artistic work that may have taken the artist months or even years to conceptualize and execute. Yes, a simple household fan hardly sounds like much of a work of art. Maybe it really was, from all practical perspectives, pure pretense. But viewing art ain't the same as taking your kid to Disneyland. If you're going to take time to see works at least devote some time to attempting to understand their underpinnings, particularly if you're a person prone to share your opinions.

As a matter of perspective from a photographic perspective, many people viewing HCB's photos for the first time would have the opinion that they're just a bunch of old black-and-white pictures.

 

[Kathy Rappaport]

Modern Art

I am not a fan of "Modern" art. Just because you can doesn't make it so.

Give me great images - crisp, clean and well styled. Give me Monet, Manet and Van Gogh. Rembrandt will do. Ah, Michelangelo. Even of modern, Andy Warhol and Ed Weston.

But like Rap Music, I can do without those small squiggly lines on paper. Give me a box of crayons and a 6 year old. As it says in the comic strip Good Art by Ruthie 10 cents. That's what some of it worth in my perspective.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I am not a fan of "Modern" art. Just because you can doesn't make it so.

Give me great images - crisp, clean and well styled. Give me Monet, Manet and Van Gogh. Rembrandt will do. Ah, Michelangelo. Even of modern, Andy Warhol and Ed Weston.

But like Rap Music, I can do without those small squiggly lines on paper. Give me a box of crayons and a 6 year old. As it says in the comic strip Good Art by Ruthie 10 cents. That's what some of it worth in my perspective.

Hi Kathy,

I'm going to take you to see some modern art. Then we can talk more. At the time when the artists you love to love were producing their works, they too were often dismissed! After all, a lady's skin is not made of blue, pink and purple squiggles, not is there green in the sky!

I think, kathy it's a matter of being open to really new experience and novels frames of reference. Forget, for a moment that these new pieces have great commercial and collecting value. Just see what they might mean to you. That is what we need to do. Want to have a go? Just leave behind the baggage of assumptions of what you know you like and we'll have a great time. Promise!

Asher

 

[Kathy Rappaport]

Sure

Asher,

I have a bottle of wine for you from a friend which I meant to bring with me today when I went to your neighborhood for a visit to a friend and to a client so it will be a good excuse to go see something interesting! We'll have to chat and set a date.

 

[Michael Fontana]

If I were going to Art School I'd want to do Postmodernism.

Wow, what a course! There are no rules. Not even the rule that there are no rules. There are no facts only the intellectual prison of imposed opinion. There is no truth only cultural hegemony. There are either no values or alternatively all values are fully equivalent and interchangeable. There is no good or bad, no morality. no ethic save what you care to make up for yourself. Everything is relative; there are no absolutes.

How could a lazy and distracted undergraduate fail such a course? How could an overworked and underpaid academic fail to teach such a course? Both must pass with flying colours because Postmodernism is, at its heart, a self healing belief system that is unaffected by criticism or negative analysis.

So you say the artists are the only legacy value-keeper in a society, which throughs, faster than ever, these values away?

Art isn't religion, nor a moral institution, its just art. And I'm very glad about this fact.

Art can be very much, at least a offer to experience the world with different eyes.

 

[Michael Fontana]

...........
But like Rap Music, I can do without those small squiggly lines on paper. Give me a box of crayons and a 6 year old. As it says in the comic strip Good Art by Ruthie 10 cents. That's what some of it worth in my perspective.

Kathy
you're doing unjustice to the serious artists.
The fact that there's some monkey business arround doesn't make th serious artist's work bad - it rathe gives them more value.

Compare with photography: there's a lot of crap on all these webalbums arround. isn't it?
Does it makes the good photographer bad?

Wasn' it Claes Oldenburg, a popart artist, saying that not everbodie's work is made for eternity?

 

[Asher Kelman]

Kathy,

Art can be considered a large cave where one's flashlight hardly ever reach all the walls or roof. Sometimes one can recognize the forms and even find painted animals, sometimes not.*

Then one has to reach deep in one's own experience for clues and feelings. That, perhaps, is what modern art can do at it's best.

If we're looking for immediate clarity, we just go to a small cave. We'll quickly decide if it's entertaining or not. Examining modern art, however, takes much more effort. Still, the best work gives back even more.

Asher

*My comments are extracted from a book on the study of critique in art schools. The "cave" metaphor was used there in a different context. I have repurposed the substance of metaphor for art iitself not the study of the teaching of critique. So while the cave for an indefinite description of a complex idea is valid, my use of the "cave" construct metaphorically to describe art appreciation is novel. I'll look up the source and add that later.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

At the time when the artists you love to love were producing their works, they too were often dismissed!

Doesn't that also separate 'art' from Art? True Art still fascinates long after the first confrontation, in fact it gains as one appreciates the skill that transformed lifeless matter into Art.

Bart

 

[doug anderson]

Doesn't that also separate 'art' from Art? True Art still fascinates long after the first confrontation, in fact it gains as one appreciates the skill that transformed lifeless matter into Art.

Bart

I agree. It's the flash-in-the-pan stuff that annoys me. I just don't think people are trying very hard.

 

[doug anderson]

If I were going to Art School I'd want to do Postmodernism.

Wow, what a course! There are no rules. Not even the rule that there are no rules. There are no facts only the intellectual prison of imposed opinion. There is no truth only cultural hegemony. There are either no values or alternatively all values are fully equivalent and interchangeable. There is no good or bad, no morality. no ethic save what you care to make up for yourself. Everything is relative; there are no absolutes.

How could a lazy and distracted undergraduate fail such a course? How could an overworked and underpaid academic fail to teach such a course? Both must pass with flying colours because Postmodernism is, at its heart, a self healing belief system that is unaffected by criticism or negative analysis.

Love the irony here.

Instead of engaging with the issues (that's too much trouble), they drift about on the surface (I can hear one of them questioning my use of the word "surface").

I think that in order to think like what you have described above, the following conditions are necessary:

You must never have been hungry.

You must never have been afraid.

You must never have been in love.

You must never have thought about your death.

You must have been, well, numb.

It is entirely possible to do such thinking without ever leaving your desk.

 

[doug anderson]

Let's Start A List

A list of photographers/artists who are doing extraordinary things. They exist: I just don't see them enough in galleries.

How about, Jonas Bendiksen?

 

[Gary Ayala]

It is easier to "copy" than create. It is easier to be negative than positive. It is easier to follow than to lead. It is easier to be entitled than to earn.

I found that each successive generation seems to be lazier than the previous.

Gary

 

[Michael Fontana]

I
........I found that each successive generation seems to be lazier than the previous.

Gary

That's what my parents told about my generation; unfortunatly I didn't asked their parents

 

[Ken Tanaka]

I agree. It's the flash-in-the-pan stuff that annoys me. I just don't think people are trying very hard.

I don't know the definition of "flash in the pan". A list of the most celebrated artists of the past two centuries is predominated by names of people who were not admired, or even recognized at all, during their lifetimes.

Speaking practically, however, it is certainly true that there are many "artists" who aren't "...trying very hard". Youngsters finish their MFA and immediately expect that their next step is international gallery representation and selection of a private banking relationship. (Young people across all occupations today seem to confuse the concepts of "activity" and "accomplishment", but that's another matter.) In due course the art world will slough most of these young people off, or not even admit them at all. Of those who remain, some have unquestionably slack creative prowess but have managed to gain momentary notoriety through a purchase, a show, an article, etc. Many others, however, work terrifically hard during every waking hour. Unlike a trade or normal job, many artists can't just turn themselves off after 5. They often become obsessive in pursuit of a concept to the point of illness...begging the question of the relationships between various forms of mental illness and greatness in artisitic endeavors.

Doug, to use such a broad brush by writing that "I just don't think that people are trying very hard." is a statement more reflective on your exposure to, and understanding of, the contemporary art world than on the state of contemporary art. Expressions of anger and resentment toward artistic works is as common as chewing gum. When you find yourself in angst over a work stop to probe your psyche for WHY you're so pissed rather than simply amused. Many people, particularly Americans for some reason, are angered by what they can't comprehend in a glance, are proud of their anger, and are resentful that society may consider the artist far more accomplished (and may be far better compensated) than the befuddled viewer.

I know it can be hard to shake oneself out of the narrow pedestrian boundaries of what we have been taught is art. Pretty paintings in pretty frames of pretty scenes and pretty people. But if you can manage to open your eyes just a bit towards new visual expressions I think you'll find that your photography may greatly benefit, too. You may find yourself occasionally breaking away from taking pretty pictures and more towards using your camera as an expressive medium.

And then one day it may happen to you. While attending a showing of some of your new work you overhear a viewer say, "Well, I don't think he tried very hard to get THAT. My nephew takes better pictures with his little Kodak."

 

[doug anderson]

Ken: I'm aware that people don't understand artists who are ahead of their time. But I don't see many people out there who are ahead of their time. I see people mucking about in the past, as if they are riding what is left of the crest of the wave of modernism.

I'm also aware that there are good people out there. I was getting really disgusted with video until I saw Bill Viola's show in LA.

I've looked at a lot of art and I'm not coming from an "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" position.

I'm more focused on the emptiness of the whole culture and the art it produces. There seems to me -- and I know this word will get me some flack -- a lack of soul in what I'm seeing. I don't think mere cleverness constitutes art. You get the joke, and then you are bored again.

By the way, I think Frank Gehry is way out ahead of everybody else. What he's doing cannot be neatly inscribed in any category. Who is doing the equivalent in photography?


D

 

[Asher Kelman]

By the way, I think Frank Gehry is way out ahead of everybody else. What he's doing cannot be neatly inscribed in any category. Who is doing the equivalent in photography?


D

I hope, no one! They must make their own mark!

I'm a pragmatic optimist. There is wonderful photography. It happens. You even posted on exceptional picture, today, yourself. Thanks goodness rare things do happen.

Yes most leaves are just like any other. But you will pick up one that mesmerizes you. That's photography too! We just have to be prepared for that one moment. Or else we just constrct that leaf ourselves!

Asher

 

[Ken Tanaka]

I can only offer what I've already written in reply.

It's fine not to like some forms of art. Even the deepest connoisseurs have aversions.

Yes, there are many fine new photographic artists. But you'll see relatively few of them on the Internet. Your best bet is to keep in touch with gallery exhibitions in NY, Chicago, L.A., and London. Based on your previous remarks, however, I would not dare to offer any guidance to you.

 

[doug anderson]

Susan Bein: someone whose work I like...

I don't know how much is photoshop enhancement, and how much is just plain shooting, but I really like this shot, am moved by it....

Susan Bein, by the way, can be seen on the Lensculture website.