Postmodernism in
Post-World War II
and Post-Vietnam
Europe and It’s
Development
Erica S.
Horace Greeley High
School
Influences of Postmodernism
Post- World War II
Art Movements
Modernism
Conceptualism/ Dadaism
Post-structuralism
Roots
Of
Post-modernism
Modernism
Modernism time period: 1900-1950
Emerges in Europe, then in America and other countries
• Rejection of Traditional forms of art
• Reaction to technology, new philosophy, especially
psychology.
• Focus on new expression of emotion, and traditional
ideology.
• Mark making, and brushstrokes taken into consideration for
effect and internal meaning of the piece.
• World War I had a major impact on subject matter.
• Painters like Otto Dix concentrated on the human
sacrifice of the war and it’s horrors.
• Included Mini-movements like Abstract Expressionism,
minimalism, surrealism and impressionism, all effected
postmodernist subject matter.
Working towards pure abstraction
Roots
Of
Post-modernism
Conceptualism & Dadaism
1940’s, 1960- today
• Expanded into new media and new forms of expression
• Artists believed that ideas in work are the art in the piece
itself.
• Conceptualism expanded from Dadaism because it used it’s
anti-traditional art sentiment to express it’s ideas in a nonphysical manner.
• Dadaism attempted to escape the underlying meaning of
work and create ugliness that means nothing.
• In Conceptualism, the artwork is in the idea itself, the
physicality of the work is not important, unlike old European
painters. Often artists do not even make the work
themselves, but have it made for them. For example, Jeff
Koons, or Damien Hirst.
Postmodernism shows that in looking at situations from all
points of view, no one is correct, meaning nothing is the
truth. It’s subjective.
Roots
Of
Post-modernism
Post- Structuralism
France in the 1960’s
• Reaction to Structuralism
• Writing movement, including writers like Derrida, Foucault
and Kristeva
• Focus on the greater meaning in text by examining all sides
of theory.
• Use work as a reflection upon the reader, read the text in a
“self- conscious” way
• Influenced by the Enlightenment
• Anti- Humanists- Post-structuralists reject interpretation of
old text. They search for a new meaning.
There is more than one meaning to everything.
Pre-curser to Postmodernism theory
Postmodernism
Main Content, Philosophy
and Development
Postmodernism
Usually referred to by time period, 1960 – Contemporary
today
• Rejection of modernism standards of how work should
be made, especially “impulsive expressionistic” qualities.
• Attacks ultimate truth in work, believing that the truth
is from all different points of view. Eventually rejects
poststructuralist meaning, that the truth is insignificant.
• Expands into many different areas of art, including film
and music. For example, John Cage and Stanley Kubrick.
• Rejects genres and labeling, tries to eliminate High v.
Low art
• Expands into multi-media type projects
• Installations, Performance, Photography, Sound and
Video installations, found-art, painting, sculpture,
and environmental installations.
Postmodernism
• Individuality and Identity
• All artists and viewers are different with their own
perspective.
• Cultural factors affect each person individually.
• Human beings are full of potential.
• Postmodernists tackle issues of identity like:
• Feminism
• Race
• Gender
• Sexuality
• Postmodernists place a large emphasis on originality and
creativity within each individual. Creating their own new
boundaries.
• Expands major ideas of the Post-structuralist theory.
• Postmodernism started with many of the smaller art movements
in America, and expanded into literature and philosophy then art
in Europe. Today, some of the most famous postmodern and
contemporary artists are from Europe and their roots influence
their ground-breaking original work.
Joseph Beuys
B. 1921 in Germany
D. 1986
Media: Drawings, Performance, Lecture, Paintings
• Considered the father of everything postmodern
• Believed that “Man is sculpture” and rejuvenated performance art.
• Also felt that the audience is part of the piece.
• Experimented with new materials
• Explored the fourth dimension, time.
• Famous for his lectures and Chalk board
diagrams.
Joseph Beuys
• Used philosophy in work often and questioned the meaning of
everything.
• Became more political in the 1960’s.
• Interested in nature and natural sciences
• Believed in the power of institution
• Often religious in work, said that his work was a healing process
in nature for himself.
• Considered art as a medium for social and political change
• Lecture Quotes:
• “ Everything is in a state of change.”
• “ A people is not a Race.”
• “Self-Aware man”
Coyote, "I Like America and America Likes Me , Tate Modern, GB 1974
Coyote, "I Like America and America Likes Me , Tate Modern, GB 1974
How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare ,Düsseldorf, 1965
Felt Suit, 1970
Action Piece , Tate Modern, 1972
Sledge stampede , Stockholm, 1971
Fat Chair 1964
Untitled (Sun State) NY 1974
Eurasia Siberian Symphony, NY, 1966
7000 Oaks, Kassel, Germany, 1982
Vanessa Beecroft
• B. 1969 in Genoa, Italy, lives in NYC
• Media: Performance, Installation and Drawings
• Beecroft uses her performances as an expression of herself and
the society we live in today.
 Her subjects, mostly young women, sometimes models,
represent femininity at its most vulnerable state.
 Her work is radical and questions many of contemporary
ideas, yet most of the significance behind the work is left to
the viewer.
Vanessa Beecroft
• She questions, in her performances
 Beauty
 Eroticism
 Purity
 Femininity
• She looks at her work as a “live sculpture” or “live painting”
• She is influenced by many of the classic painters of mannerism and
painters like Rembrandt and Della Francesca. But she used the
tradition of performance and changes it significantly to be a piece
about the modern world.
The Book of Food, Milan, 1993
VB40, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
VB40, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
VB35, Guggenheim Museum, NY 1998
VB26, Galleria Lia Rumma, Naples, Italy 1997
VB30, Il Biennial, Site Santa Fe, NM 1997
VB21, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan, Italy 1996
VB12, Fuori Uso 95, Pescara, Italy 1995
VB16, Deitch Projects, NY 1996
VB16, Deitch Projects, NY 1996
VB24, Gallerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris, France 1996
Ilya Kabakov
B. 1933 in Russia
Media: Total Installations, writings, design, sculpture
• Lived during Soviet Russia
• He war freed by government from soviet socialist realism
art, and made autobiographical work.
• Work included huge installations in apartments and
writings that go along with the piece so the viewer gets a
full experience at the installation.
• Believed language was most important in communication
and expression.
• Used his chaotic environments to portray the
hostile suppression he went though in Russia
during the cold war.
• Incorporates shot tales with work in short story
form, to direct the viewer to what they are
looking at.
The Man who Flew into Spacec from his apartment , Moscow Apartment, 1968
The Man who Flew into Space from his apartment , Moscow Apartment, 1968
Incident at the Museum of Water Music Ronald Feldman Gallery, NY 1992
School no. 6 , Moscow Apartment, 1993
Ten Characters , Ronald Feldman Gallery, NY 1988
Kitchen # 2 voices , Ronald Feldman Gallery, NY 1988
Gerhard Richter
B. 1932 in Germany
Media: Paintings
• Influenced by Beuys, worked with him often.
• His use of media images in his work mixed with his
aesthetic design choices make his work exceptionally
postmodern.
• His versatility in his work is often praised by critics
• Photorealism is a common method he uses
• his favorite color of gray because it is the one color that
most people don’t have the personal reference like other
colors.
• He subtly alters the viewers perception of the painting
and changes variety.
• Simplicity is
important to him
Woman Descending and Kvinde med paraply, LA 1978
Frau Marlow 1964
Hitler 1964
Stragtrager /coffin bearers 1962
Onkel Rudi/ Uncle Rudi 1965
Candle 1982
Skull 1983
Apfel (Apples) 1984
Lesende 1994
Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Picture) 1992
Meditation, 1986
Untitled, 1988
Abstract Painting, 1979
Untitled (green), 1968
Fiction, 1976
Spiegal, grau/ Mirror, Grey 1991
Three Greys, One upon the other, 1966
5 Doors (II) 1967
Passage 1968
Kiki Smith
B. 1954 in Germany, lives in America
Media: Sculpture, printmaking, photogravure
• Feminism drives most of her work
• She tends to re-direct thoughts on femininity a viewer may
have and distort or exploit them to take on an entirely
different meaning.
• Known for her ability to shock with her sculptures
• Questions sexuality, health and purity in her work
• Tackles world issues like AIDS
• Interested in anatomy and drawings from
nature
• Her sculptures have been described as surreal
realism were the are anatomically correct but
a little altered for emphasis.
Peacock. 1997
The Fourth Day: Destruction of Birds. 1997
Silent Work, 1992
Urogenitals. 1994
Free Fall. 1994
Las Animas. 1997
Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law, 1985
How I know I’m Here, 1985
Lucy's Daughters, 1990
Untitled (train) 1994
Untitled (Butterfly) 1994
Woman on Pyre, 2001
Mary Magdalene, 1994
Cresant Moon 2002
Notes in Time, 1979 and other work by Smith
Damien Hirst
B. 1965 in England
Media: Installations, sculpture, paintings, lithography
• Questions fundamental life issues like birth, death and love
• Contradicts to confuse the viewer and make the viewer
reconsider evidence in work.
• Conceptual, doesn’t do much of his own work
• Provocative, causes much controversy, especially with animal
rights.
• Questions beauty. Can something so horribly
gruesome be beautiful and aesthetically
pleasing?
• Shock Art
• His work is known to be sensational, which
come might consider trendy and negative.
• He was among the few who put concept back
into minimalism.
Snowblind, 1998
Pharmacy, Sotheby’s England 1992
LSD 2000
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 2000
One Thousand Years, 1990
Some comfort gained from the acceptance on the coherent lies in everything 1996
Away from the Flock 1994
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991
This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home 1996
Mother and Child Divided 1996
"Where are we going? Where do we come from? Is there a reason?" 2000-04
Horror at Home 1995
The Virgin Mother 2005
Hymn 1996
Addicted to Crack 2005
Vivisection 2004-05
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Jeanne-Claude B. 1935 in France
Christo- B.1935 in Bulgaria
• Media: Environmental Installation
• Install temporary art into nature to give a new perspective of
environment.
• Encourages preservation of monuments or nature
• Including wrapping buildings or monuments, covering water
or greenery on site, or installing sculpture in a natural
environment.
• Christo had a Marxist education.
• Studied environmental issues
• Makes political statements about the preservation
of environment and structure.
• Postmodern: Looking at the world in a new
unrecognizable way.
• Environment conscious--Part of work is the
process of creative and installment
Christo’s Sketches
• As a husband and wife team, Christo and Jeanne-Claude work together to
come up with initial ideas and sketches.
• Jeanne-Claude’s main role is to sell all the sketches and raise money for
their projects.
Reichstag in Berlin, 1995
• Parliament had to be convinced in person by Christo and Jeanne- Claude to
go ahead with the project.
The Umbrellas in California and Japan, 1990
.
Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1972
.
Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1972
.
Surrounded Islands, 1983
Biscayne Bay, Miami, Florida
Running Fence,
1976
Sonoma and Marin Counties, California
The Gates, 1979-2005
Central Park, New York
The Gates, 1979-2005
The Gates, 1979-2005
the end.