Change. Change is the core of Modernism and Postmodernism. Yet, they are the opposite of each other. Between In the end of the 19thcentury and the early 20thcentury was the era of Modernism. Artist used new technique to create artworks that tried to unify the truth of the world. One truth. “It involved a reform movement in art, music, literature, and the applied arts. It was based on rational thinking, logic, and the scientific process. It aimed at creating a clear and ration view of the world; believing that through science and reason mankind can advance and grow” (differencebetween.net).
Modernism believes that there is purpose in life and that It must be vowed objectively. There is a kind of set of rules, values, and ethics that need to be follow. This was a big advancement in the art culture, not just in the product I has produced, in the way women were viewed. In the middle ages, where art was dominated by males, women were only acknowledged if there was a male figure in the background, but, even then, the male was credited with the work! During the modernism era, women were still being ridiculed but had a lot more opportunities than ever before. “There was still lots of discrimination, still lots of critics nagging that women’s work was not as good as men’s. But there was also more opportunity than ever before for a woman to live her life and make her own terms. In the 20th century, women won rights never given to them before, including the right to vote. With more freedom, more women have become artists” (Guerrilla Girls, 59).
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| Black Iris |
An example of Modernism is Georgia O’Keefe. She was an American artist best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York Skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O’Keefe is widely recognized as the “Mother of American modernism.” She created a lot of forms of abstract art, which includes close-up flowers that many found to represent women’s private parts. Many have called them “petal pussies.” She has denied her paintings representing women genitalia. This reputation was also fueled by the photographs that Alfred Stieglitz, her husband, took of Georgie O’Keefe that were explicit and sensuous. As a woman, she did receive a certain amount of hate, but she never let that stop her.
Postmodernism was the complete opposite of modernism. Postmodernism was created to simply overthrow its predecessor. The beginning of this new era created an issued with its “breaking down of the unified traditions of Modernism” (Chadwick 380). Where Modernism had a set of rules and values that had to be followed, postmodernism throws all that out the window. There is no set of rules or values that need to be follow. There is no certain type of procedure that has to be followed for it to be considered post modernism. If you were to ask anyone on the street how to describe postmodernism their answer would most likely be, “Whatever the f*uck you want it to be.” Postmodernism started to pick up after World War II. It allowed the artist more freedom, and allowed for the “what a typical artist has to be” rules to also be thrown out.
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An example of a postmodernism artist is Barbara Kruger. She used her work to challenge viewers to question the culture, social, and societal. "Postmodernism draws heavily on existing representations rather than inventing new styles, and it often derives its imagery from mass media or popular culture, has focused attention on the ways that sexual and cultural difference are produced and reinforced in these images."(Chadwick 380). Barbara Kruger followers this. Most of her work is in black and white and has text on top of them. She used images from pop culture and put her own twist.
Another example of post modernism is Cindy Sherman. She was an artist who decided a photograph was better than a painting. Her photographs showed mostly female roles and usually she was the one who was in the photograph. She brought light to the fakeness that most women in the media were pretending to be real.
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Langara College, 2016
M, Emelda. “Difference Between.” Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects, 23 Aug. 2011, www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/ideology-politics/difference-between-modernism-and-postmodernism/.
The Guerilla Girls, The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books, 2006.
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