Modernism
- Took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Series of cultural movements.
- Reforming movements in architecture, art, music, and literature.
- Was admired for its elegance and simplicity.
Postmodernism
- Movement that took place after the second World War.
- Characterized by the advancement of technology and its use in music, art, and literature.
- Questioned the rationality of modernism.
- Wanted to highlight the manipulation society was undergoing through mechanisms of advertising and machinery.
New Directions
- 1970’s: The increasing bitterness of the abortion-rights debates and the international spread of the AIDS epidemic all contributed to changes in the social climate that affected women.
- Issues such as sexuality, gender, ethnicity, and race all shaped artistic practices.
- Postmodernism relied heavily on existing representations rather than inventing new styles.
- This led people to focus their attention on the ways sexual and cultural differences were reinforced through images.
- The way women were positioned in photographs were critiqued heavily as it depicted patriarchal power.
Cindy Sherman
- Her photographs reveal the instability of gender, and challenge the idea that there might be an innate female sexuality.
- She exposes the “real” woman behind the images that Western culture has already instilled in society through the use of film and advertising.
- She positioned herself within an art historical tradition that has for centuries objected the female body.
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| Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1979 |
Postmodernism Establishes Multiculturalism
- Multiculturalism is used in the Postmodernism era of art and society, which they introduce diversity in music, art, and literature.
- This phenomenon of social life encourages peaceful coexistence between different cultures and ethnic groups within a society.
- The ideology of multiculturalism established in the postmodern era of art is developed by mainstream pop culture that depict common stereotypes of certain ethnic groups.
Shelley Niro
- Shelley Niro is a Native American Indian artist raised in a Reserve in Ontario, Canada.
- Niro is a Mohawk artist that used photography, sculpting and painting to undermine cultural stereotypes.
- She changes the approach of art by instilling feminism into her work and challenging patriarchy in the culture of indigenous society.
- Niro is a transcending figure in postmodern art.
Shelley Niro, Portrait of the Artist Sitting with a Killer Surrounded by French Curves 1991
Sherrie Levine
- Known as a talented female artist in the 1970’s for her amazing reproduction artwork in the postmodernism era.
- Most of her attention was seen as a second view of many male artist images that were reproduced by female artists for a more postmodernism overlook.
- Her work was properly cited and the audience viewing her work had thoughts of her copying but was never given her a label because of the flawless job she had done.
- In the 1930’s, the time period of great depression era farmers were going through hardships because of the disaster they had to face. So, the government had sent photographers to show the hardship. A photographer named Walker Evans went to Alabama and took pictures which was out in display in the NYC museum. In 1981 Levine decided to use the image as her painting by reproducing it the exact same without any changes. This amused so many people and she now has an exhibition in the museum with the name of the painting “AFTER THE WALKER EVANS’ in 1981.
- Levine also used and reproduced Elliot Porter and Edward Weston paintings.
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| Son of Edward Weston that was once painted by Weston, but this is an updated version of Levine artwork. |
Barbara Kruger
- Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, NJ in 1945.
- She is a conceptual artist known for her combination of type and image that depicts a feminist cultural critique.
- Her work is defined by the examination of stereotypes and the behaviors of consumerism through text placed over huge mass-media images.
- Through her work she looks to bring light to the ways language influences and weakens the assumption of masculine control over language and viewing. She does this by shifting pronouns to confuse viewers as to who is speaking.
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| Barbara Kruger, You’ve Got Money to Burn, 1987 |
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