Introduction

            “Postmodernism needs modernism to survive… like a host-parasite relationship” (pg.6). In other words, according to Tim Woods, the author of Beginning Postmodernism, one must understand modernism before understanding the concepts of postmodernism. In this book, Woods explores the idea of postmodernism in philosophy, literal arts, architecture, visual arts, music, film and social science. In this blog, I will use Woods’ ideas to roughly distinguish the differences of modernism and postmodernism; then I will use the concepts of postmodernism to analyze the photos I recreated to match this period of photography.  

Modernism

            (Tim Woods makes the concepts easier to understand through the summaries of different characteristics of the movements.)

The word “modern” in modernism means something new, something recent. The era of modernism started in the early twentieth century in Europe, and affecting the entire world. It is basically an experimental and innovative way to represent an object. The idea of modernism is very revolutionary in the beginning of twentieth century; it includes “movements like Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Cubism, Constructivism and Imagism” (pg.7).

Woods categorized the characteristics of modernism into six main ideas. To summarize, modernism is a way to find new forms to represent “how we see the world rather than what we see in it” (Pg.7). In other words, modernism is different from the realism that artists strive for during the renaissance period. Cubism is an example of this new form of representation; instead of a three-dimensional object created using perspective and different lighting, it is a random set of planes that are equidistance to the viewer. Artists in the modernism era use quasi-scientific modes of conceptualization and organization, like using basic geometric shapes.  The art itself shows “aesthetically self-reflexivity” and a “gradual growth in non-western forms of culture” (pg.7). Artists used these characteristics to separate modernism from the traditional form of aesthetics.

Postmodernism

            (After reading Woods’ idea of modernism, I thought to myself, how can something new/recent and be “post”? Just an interesting thought.)

            The word “postmodernism” may seem easy to understand; “post” means after, using the prefix and root word to define the term, postmodernism means something after modernism, but the concepts much more complex than that. Woods humorously describes a way to compare “hipness” (pg.1) to determine whether something is postmodern. Postmodernism started in the 1960s; Woods uses words like “vague, nebulous, [and] incommensurable” (pg.3) to describe the concept. The author then quotes Dick Hebdige’s definition of postmodernism in Hiding in the Light:

[Postmodernism is] an anti-teleological tendency within epistemology, the attack on the “metaphysics of presence”, a general attenuation of feelings, the collective chagrin and morbid projections of a post-War generation of baby boomers confronting disillusioned middle age, the “predicament” of reflexivity…a new phase of commodity fetishism, a fascination for images, codes and style, a process of cultural, political or existential fragmentation and/or crisis, the “de-centering” of the subject… (pg.2)       

In this passage, Hebdige breaks down the overall meaning of postmodernism. In other words, Hebdige describes postmodernism as a concept that does not have a universal or overall design, it is opposing to the traditional structure or foundation. This is the general idea of postmodernism, which applies to all the categories I mentioned in the introduction. Let’s move into the specific idea of postmodernism in visual arts.

              Woods categorized the characteristics of postmodern art into five main ideas. Artists in the postmodern era “exhibits a nonchalance in dealing with seemingly incompatible styles, practice an aesthetic pluralism” (pg.140). This means that artists combine different forms of style to produce the product, which is the art. Postmodern art often contain “unconstrained use of colors and shapes, along with a wealthy imagination” (pg.140). As I mentioned in the paragraph before, postmodernism “demonstrates a carelessness towards orthodox aesthetic conformity, and a lack of systematic approach… it lacks the general respect towards any aesthetic convention whatsoever” (pg.140). To summarize this, postmodernism is not constrained by any rules. So, in my opinion, it could be anything, anything that the artist wants it to be. In addition, postmodernism often seems very fragmented and incommensurable. As an example, Cindy Sherman is one of the most famous postmodern artists; her work often features a staged self-portrait, and they are “about the fakeness of the role-playing as well as contempt for the domineering ‘male’ audience who mistakenly read images as ‘sexy’” (pg.138). Sherman’s photography is highly unorthodox, “the wordlessness and despair that ensues when a fetishistic structure, that means erasing history and memory, collapses, leaving a void in its wake” (pg.139). I think what this meant is that her work is so different from others, the background knowledge needed to understand a photograph does not apply to her, people needs to ponder the abstract works created by Cindy Sherman. To summarize this whole concept of Postmodernism, it’s all “about the ‘double-ness’…meaning it’s ironic, self-reflexive… imitative action… postmodernism has proved to be a snake like concept whose twists and coils are difficult to pin down” (pg.6).

Recreating Photos

Figure 1

             This black and white photo is from Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots series; its name is “100 Boots Out of a Job.” Her work is first used as printed postcards, the distribution of the postcards made Antin’s 100 Boots series well-known to the public. The first thing that comes to my mind is “wow, what a spectacular picture!” This photo is from the time period of postmodernism. In the foreground, there are a number of boots chaotically placed on the ground. In the background, it seems to be an active industrial facility. I thought this picture is very interesting because there are many facilities in the background, but it’s titled “100 Boots out of a Job.” It speaks to the present times when there are more qualifying workers than the amount of jobs available. It is not only postmodern because of its time period; it is postmodern because of the style of photography within the photo.

            Antin personifies the boots, giving each pair of them human traits so they could perform human activities in the 100 Boots series. This is revolutionary at the time; it does not follow any of the traditional styles, thus giving this photo the main trait of postmodernism. Here is my other favorite photo from Eleanor Antin.

Figure 2

            This photo is my poor attempt to recreate the “Self-Portrait as a Fountain” by Bruce Nauman. This photo is called, “Spot the Difference.” Because of the unorthodox way of representing an object, people often react to postmodern art like, “what the hell are they doing?” This is what I am trying to recreate here. In the foreground, there is a working water fountain. In the background, there is a person, pushing water out of his mouth, trying to imitate the water fountain that is right in front of him. The camera focuses on the motion of pushing water out, rather than where it is coming out from. Unlike the photos from the 100 Boot series, this person gave himself the trait of an object rather than personification. The clear trait of untraditional photography makes this photo a postmodern example.

Figure 3

            This photo is similar with the photo “Photo-transformation” by Lucas Samaras. I named this photo, “Anonymous.”  This photo combines many different styles into one coherent story.  The camera focuses on the covered face, which is in the foreground of the photo. In the background, there is a very old-fashioned, yet beautiful building. At first glance, people would most likely think that this is just a normal portrait with landscape in the background. Most people would like to show their face while taking a picture; the fact that the face is covered up by the shirt raises many questions. It seems like this photo shows some sort of protest against documenting likenesses. But people will never find out, because the highly unorthodox style would show the photographer’s intention in a very abstract way. In addition to the unorthodox style, this photo practices pluralism by combining the style of self-portrait with the idea of anonymous to create the sense of postmodernism.

Figure 4

            I named this photo, “One of My Friend is Fat, and the other has Two Donuts on His Head.”  This photo combines many different styles into one coherent story.  The camera focuses on the donuts, which is in the foreground of the photo along with two people (Robert and I). In the background, there is a very old-fashioned, yet beautiful building. The title of this photo may sound like a joke, but it shows the unorthodox way  of showing that donuts will make you gain weight, hence the title “fat.” This attributes to the traits of postmodernism.

Figure 5

This photo is similar with the work of Cindy Sherman. I named this photo, “The Human Body.”  The human body is replaced with just clothing, and a ball, representing the head of the man. The camera focuses on the clothing, it is staged that it seems like the human body disappeared from its clothing. This unorthodox way of representing a staged fake human body represents the idea of postmodernism.

Figure 6

I named this photo, “Battle to the Trash Bin.”  The camera focuses on the water bottle with doodled solider on it, which is in the foreground of the photo. In the background, there are trash cans. The photo shows a water bottle on the floor, which means it, could represent an idea of recycling or just cleaning up the trash. This photo is abstract in the sense that it gives the water bottle human traits from the doodle, thus making it different from the traditional styles. This could be postmodernism and advertisement of recycling plastic water bottles.

Figure 7

This photo was inspired from the movie “Yes Man.” In the movie, the character Jim Carey played crashed on caffeine while participating in jogging photography. The picture in the movie was taken by accident, and it received many questions on during the gallery showing due to its abstract style. I named this photo, “Passing Out.” I included this picture at the end of my photo analysis because I wanted to show that any picture that is “abnormal” can be argued as postmodern, just like the photo above. It is unorthodox because of the staging “accidental” picture taking, which attributes to the postmodern traits.

Conclusion, Comparing the Two “ism”

            It is true that postmodernism and modernism have similar traits; they are both different from the traditional style of art. Now that we know both of the concepts, we can compare and contrast them. They are sometimes similar because the idea of pluralism; but other cases, postmodernism will show a significant difference in the “mood and attitude” (pg.9). In other words, Woods stated that postmodernism “rejects modernism,” because of the fact that postmodernism appeals to the mass culture, and modernism deprecates to the mass culture. At last, rather than ending the period of modernism, postmodernism overturns, supersedes and replaces modernism.”

Work Cited

Antin, Eleanor. 100 Boots Out of a Job. N.d. Photograph. 100 Boots. Antin's Oddssy. The Ovarian Fist, 14 Jan. 2010. Web. 12 May 2013. <http://ovarianfist.wordpress.com/tag/100-boots/>.

Woods, Tim. Beginning Postmodernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Print. This book explains the idea of postmodernism in many areas in detail. Woods describes both modernism and postmodernism, so readers can have an idea of the differences between the two.