Modernism, a term so often thrown around but never understood. Modernism has a handful of definitions. Modern literature, modern fashion, modern poetry, modern music, and then of course modern art. Modern art can be defined as a series of global movements in not only culture but also societies. Modernism wanted to give a modern image to our industry, architecture, literature, music and art. In life into our everyday activities and values. The Modernism era took place in the late 19th and earth 20th centuries. As modernism comes about we see female artists grasp onto the idea and run with it, by incorporating techniques of it in their work. Through incorporating these techniques, female artists are developing the idea of modernism among their audiences.
Female artists all over the Unites States of America admired the new idea of Modernism. Each added their own sorts of techniques to give it their own touch. One example of a female artist who quickly became famous due to her work with Modernism, was Barbara Kruger.
Barbara Kruger takes art into her hands and gives it a different look. A look which no longer objectifies women; rather she takes women and adds a message…a message so strong that it almost takes away the fact that a woman is even in the picture. As seen in the image above, she takes, “blown-up, severely cropped photographs of women, and their short accompanying texts subvert the meanings of both image and text in order to destabilize the positioning of woman as object,” (Chadwick, 382). In other words, Kruger’s idea of Modernism is to make a photograph of a woman, not JUST a photograph of a woman, but rather a message.
Another female artist who incorporates Modernism techniques into her work is a woman named, Cindy Sherman. Cindy Sherman used her art to send out a message that audiences were not used to receiving. She gave them the message that women were not just what they were sought to be, sex symbols, but rather actually did, unwillingly, portray sexuality; “Cindy Sherman’s photographs reveal the instability of gender, and challenge the idea that there might be an innate, unmediated female sexuality,” (Chadwick, 383)
Cindy Sherman illustrates to her audience the idea that although women are always “portrayed” and “made out” as sexy, hot and inviting…in reality they do not need to be portrayed this way for they naturally posses these characteristics. As seen in, “Untitled 1979,” we see a woman so effortlessly being so attractive, and giving off an immense amount of sex appeal. Sherman gives this feeling off through her model looking away from the spectator and instead she is engulfed in whatever it is she’s thinking about. Sherman’s new take on illustrating women was innovating. She was moving away from the male gaze…moving away from always creating an image for men, but rather letting the image be created on its own. It was something no one had ever seen…taking the female body and just capturing it, rather than “creating” it. Sherman depicts that artists do not have to “create” sexuality of a woman to make them attractive but rather just has to capture it, for women innately acquire this characteristic.
These types of female artists forced the public to deal with the idea of abstraction, and to welcome the idea of these women being able to express themselves however they feel like through art. Although at first society was not a fan of this movement, or the idea of men not being the drive behind the change, they later came around and soon found themselves at the bridge of Modernism to Postmodernism.
Soon after Modernism came about, came about the Postmodernism. Postmodernism came about to challenge ideas that did not suit all in Modernism. Postmodernism came about after World War 2 and was characterized by the idea of technology, literature, music and art all advancing past just Modernism, but rather into Postmodernism. Postmodernism wanted to challenge the issues that societies faced; issues that were technology, architecture, literature, music or art based. Through Postmodernism we see cultures come together to make something different, something better. Liberian Himid states how, “a lot of [her] work has been about how European masters took African artifacts…[she’s] trying to say a lot about the kind of swapping of culture; how both sides, how everybody is taking from everyone else, to make a better art,” (Chadwick, 388). Postmodernism takes parts of everyone’s forms of art and creates a new art.
In, “The Missing Woman,” we see Marie Yates portray an image of what looks to be woman. Her face is surrounded by not characteristics of her looks in aiding her being found but rather she is surrounded by, “verbal signs and fragments which invite the viewers to construct the identity of a woman who is revealed only by the traces of her social engagements — the family, property rights, legal ceremonies,” (Chadwick, 402). In this piece of work Yates takes art into her own hands and gives it a Postmodernism touch; rather than portraying a message, she lets her audience create the message.
Postmodernism was all about delivering a message that could be interpreted a million different ways, depending on the viewer. For example, in the art work, “Glossolalia (1993)” Helen Chadwick arranges Russian fox furs in a circle on a table.
What’s interesting isn't the way the furs are arranged but rather why the furs are arranged the way they are. Chadwick clarifies to her audiences that, “It’s no longer a single phallus…you could read all of the tongues as a cluster of phallic forms, but no more than the corolla of a flower.” Chadwick states that she aimed at making a piece of art work that would play with the way her audience’s minds worked. It would alter the way the spectator looks and judges genders. Chadwick’s goal in this piece was to create a message, a message that would be perceived by individuals differently, a postmodernist message.
Lastly, a very famous group known to send messages to audiences across the world, The Guerrilla Girls, were very involved advocating Postmodernism.
The Guerrilla Girls used these posters to get numbers out to audiences, to get statistics out to audiences, to get people to see the truth behind racism and sexism. The Guerrilla Girls allowed for societies to get a closer look at the real issues that were occurring under everyone’s nose but no one took out the time of their day to notice. Postmodernism works at challenging the issues that societies face, and in the Guerrilla Girls posters they not only clearly display the issue but also get people thinking as to how to go about solving these issues.
Works Cited
Tate. “Modernism – Art Term.” Tate, Tate, www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism.
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Langara College, 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment