Postmodern Art - Use of The Term

Use of The Term

The predominant term for art produced since the 1950s is "contemporary art". Not all art labeled as contemporary art is postmodern, and the broader term encompasses both artists who continue to work in modernist and late modernist traditions, as well as artists who reject postmodernism for other reasons. Arthur Danto argues that "contemporary" is the broader term, and that postmodern objects represent a "subsector" of the contemporary movement. Some postmodern artists have made a more distinctive break from the ideas of modern art and there is no consensus as to what is "late-modern" and what is "post-modern." Ideas rejected by the modern aesthetic have been re-established. In painting, postmodernism reintroduced representation. Traditional techniques and subject matter have returned in art. It has even been argued that much of what is called postmodern today, the latest avant-gardism, should still be classified as modern art.

As well as describing certain tendencies of contemporary art, postmodern has also been used to denote a phase of modern art. This position is adopted by both defenders of modernism such as Clement Greenberg, as well as radical opponents of modernism such as Félix Guattari, who calls it modernism's "last gasp". The neo-conservative Hilton Kramer describes postmodernism as "a creation of modernism at the end of its tether." Jean-François Lyotard, in Fredric Jameson's analysis, does not hold that there is a postmodern stage radically different from the period of high modernism; instead, postmodern discontent with this or that high modernist style is part of the experimentation of high modernism, giving birth to new modernisms. In the context of aesthetics and art, Jean-François Lyotard is a major philosopher of postmodernism.

Many critics hold that postmodern art emerges out of modern art. Suggested dates for the shift from modern to postmodern include 1914 in Europe, and 1962 or 1968 in America. James Elkins, commenting on discussions about the exact date of the transition from modernism to postmodernism, compares it to the discussion in the 1960s about the exact span of Mannerism and whether it should begin directly after the High Renaissance or later in the century. He makes the point that these debates go on all the time with respect to art movements and periods, which is not to say that they are not important. The close of the period of postmodern art has been dated to the end of the 1980s, when the word postmodernism lost much of its critical resonance, and art practices began to address the impact of globalization and new media.

American Marxist philosopher Fredric Jameson argues that the condition of life and production will be reflected in all activity, including the making of art.

Jean Baudrillard has had a significant influence on postmodern-inspired art and has emphasised the possibilities of new forms of creativity. The artist Peter Halley describes his day-glo colours as "hyperrealization of real color", and acknowledges Baudrillard as an influence. Baudrillard himself, since 1984, was fairly consistent in his view that contemporary art, and postmodern art in particular, was inferior to the modernist art of the post World War II period, while Jean-François Lyotard praised Contemporary painting and remarked on its evolution from Modern art. Major Women artists in the Twentieth Century are associated with postmodern art since much theoretical articulation of their work emerged from French psychoanalysis and Feminist Theory that is strongly related to post modern philosophy.

As with all uses of the term postmodern there are critics of its application. Kirk Varnedoe, for instance, stated that there is no such thing as postmodernism, and that the possibilities of modernism have not yet been exhausted. Though the usage of the term as a kind of shorthand to designate the work of certain Post-war "schools" employing relatively specific material and generic techniques has become conventional since the mid-1980s, the theoretical underpinnings of Postmodernism as an epochal or epistemic division are still very much in controversy.