{"id":25,"date":"2005-08-01T22:14:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-02T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hugoholbling.org\/heterodoxia\/?p=25"},"modified":"2016-12-07T11:27:14","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T17:27:14","slug":"genealogy-of-modern-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"genealogy of modern art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bords
Bords d’une rivi\u00e8re by Cezanne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Modern art emerged during the end of realism or the crisis of representation (Cezanne, Cubism<\/a>, Dadaism<\/a>, Surrealism<\/a>). Realism<\/a> is defined as the mirror theory of knowledge where the mind is a mirror of reality and objects that exist independently of the mind are represented (reproduced by a concept\/work of art) adequately, accurately and true.<\/p>\n

The invention of photography canceled\/negated the authority of painting to “represent” reality. Technological innovations from the infrastructure of society subverted and radically transformed the superstructural tradition of visual art, when mass production replaced hand-crafted originality.<\/p>\n

Modern art also contains abstract art, where the presentation of the unpresentable is attempted (Suprematism<\/a>, De Stijil<\/em><\/a>, Constructivism<\/a>, Abstract expressionism<\/a>, Minimalism<\/a>). One way to present what is conceivable, but not representable. is\u00a0through abstraction: if the concept was inadequate to represent reality, then the solution was privileging it and eliminate of all traces of reality from the (re)presentation of the unpresentable. Then the concept becomes the sublime reality.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

De Stijl<\/em> promoted the machine aesthetic, which was an idealistic belief in abstraction for real life, and championed machinelike undecorated flat surfaces (international style in architecture).<\/p>\n

\"Agitprop
Agitprop poster by Mayakovsky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Constructivism was basically the desertion of easel painting for kinetic art and technical design in typography\/architecture\/industrial production.<\/p>\n

Autumn Rhythm by Pollock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Abstract expressionism there was only one name: Jackson Pollock.<\/p>\n

by Marcel Duchamp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dadaism was taken as a stance against the optimism of modern art. For Dada means nothing, a meaningful nothing when nothing has any meaning. Dada emerged in the nihilistic defiance of endless machinery and assembly line of technological warfare in World War I (Hans Arp<\/a>, Max Ernst<\/a>, Francis Picabia<\/a>, Marcel Duchamp<\/a>, and Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau<\/em> production<\/a>). Even when the artist spits, it is art! Dadaism released automatism, which junks all traditional rules of art for the sake of chance as the direct creative access of the unconscious. Duchamp insisted that as “readymades,” the non-art object by itself can be displayed as art, if it was separated or isolated from its original context\/use\/meaning (the posted image of a porcelain urinal signed as R. Mutt). The mass (re)produced object discontinued the concept of originality, as well as the sacred uniqueness of a work of art.<\/p>\n

Equivalent VIII by Carl Andre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Minimalism: Carl Andre’s 120 fire bricks, where he intended to “unexpress” himself by eliminating all elements of expressiveness that left only the aesthetic process itself at the very borderline of non-art.<\/p>\n

Mierda de artista, by Piero Manzoni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Non-presentation signified the very destruction of the aesthetic process. Piero Manzoni<\/a> captured the movement by canning his own shit and sold it as 100% pure artist’s shit. Conceptualism<\/a> did away with the aesthetic process and refuted art itself since it was contaminated with elitism and crass marketing of the art world.<\/p>\n

Phony Postmodern<\/strong>
\nJean-Francois Lyotard<\/a> identified one alternative strand of\u00a0postmodernism as “antimodernist” that called for the end to experimentation. But since antimodernist conservationism is\u00a0but one strand of a tangled skien, then rational agreement on postmodernism is impossible.<\/p>\n

Another strand is “eclectic” or “junk” pomo, a ground zero of contemporary general culture: Reggae music, Western films, Burger King for lunch, local cuisine for dinner, Paris perfume in Tokyo, retro clothes in Hong Kong…. Kitsch, confusion, anything goes, no aesthetic criteria except for the almighty dollar.<\/p>\n

Actual\/real postmodern<\/strong>
\n1. Reproductibility<\/strong> in age of mass consumerism: Walter Benjamin<\/a> thought mass reproduction would lead to the destruction of aura\/autonomy of original stuff, but actually, the more a piece of work became a clich\u00e9, the\u00a0more the original increased in value. Everything\u00a0was becoming souvenirs of the ancient manufacture of the past. Where the reproduced\u00a0replaced reality as hyperreality, or image consumerism, the life that already has been lived and reproduced\u00a0without reality, except the cannibalized image.<\/p>\n

2. Postmodernism\u00a0consists of working without rules<\/strong> for the purpose of finding out the rules of what you just finished working on. Instead of experimentation, the question of recognizing a work as art depends on whose power it is that legitimizes what was done as the right way of doing it.<\/p>\n

2. Legitimation<\/strong> is the third issue of the postmodern: a difficult and unpopular avant-garde modern art became accepted as institutional standard of taste through the taste of art galleries, museums, dealers, and the art-purchasing public (merchants and collectors of art). As experimentation destroyed the aura and autonomy of art, the aura and autonomy became the sole properties of “exhibitive power” or the critical establishment (curators, art dealers and clients). Ergo even anti-art inevitably becomes reproduced as art by the institutional powers of legitimizaition. Contra the naive utopian beliefs of early avantgarde modernists, where they thought history would confirm and legitimate their works as representing modernity through formalism and subversion, postmodernist struggle with this legacy (formalist subversion) and come to grips with the depressing reality that representation, reproduction, and legitimation are far more complicated than previously thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modern art emerged during the end of realism or the crisis of representation (Cezanne, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism). Realism is defined as the mirror theory of knowledge where the mind is a mirror of reality and objects that exist independently of the mind are represented (reproduced by a concept\/work of art) adequately, accurately and true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15,13],"tags":[156,361,364,363,186,284,310,362],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1Af2X-p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1415,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}