Lecture Three: Postmodernism

POSTMODERNISM

*The term applied to a wide range of cultural analysis and production since the early 1970's.

*If modernism= 1860-1960 then logically postmodernism= 1960's-today.

*Generally referred to as a significant shift in attitude away from the certainties of a modernism based on progress.

*In art, postmodernism was specifically a reaction against modernism.

*Starts as a critique of the International style - Robert Venturi. 'Learning from Las Vegas' 1972.

- ideas developed by Charles Jencks, 1977.

*Only rule is there are no rules!

*Celebrates what might otherwise be known as 'kitsch'.

*If modernism equates with:

• Simplified aesthetic
• Utopian ideals
• Truth to materials
• Form follows function

Then Postmodernism involves:

• Complexity
• Chaos
• Bricolage (mixing up styles and materials)
• Parody, pastiche and irony
• Only rule= there are no rules
• Celebrates what might be otherwise be termed kitsch

*Postmodernism has an attitude of questioning conventions (especially those set out by modernism)

*postmodern aesthetic= multiplicity of styles and approaches.

*Theme of 'double coding', borrowing or 'quoting' from a number of historical styles.

*Space for marginalised discourse- women, sexual diversity, and multiculturalism.

(Le Corbusier, Chapel of Notre Dame Du Haut, Ronchamp, 1953-5)

*No longer truth to materialism. Movement known as 'brutalism'.

Term comes from the French word for concrete. (Modernism has failed?)

*Attention to detail that went with modernism goes out of the window.

*Ultimate post-modern city is Vegas. Very 'kitsch'.

*‘I didn’t like Europe as much as I liked Disney

World. At Disney World all the countries are much

closer together, and they just show you the best of

each country. Europe is more boring. People talk strange languages and things are dirty. Sometimes you don’t see anything interesting in Europe for days, but at Disney World something different happens all the time, and people are happy. It’s much more fun. It’s well designed!’

A college graduate just back from her first trip to Europe, in Papanek, V. (1995), The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture, London, Thames and Hudson, page 139

Mies Van Der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram building, New York, 1957.

    ->  Symmetrical, balanced architecture. A modern building with post-modern features.

Ron Herron/Archigram. 'Walking City in New York', 1964.

->Shows progression of ideas. Designing for fun rather than for uses.

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, Pompidou Centre, Paris, 1972-77.

->Everything thats is supposed to on the inside of the building is on the outside. It is is an old area of Paris, so really stands out and makes a statement.

James Stirling, Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany 1977.

->Joking, playfulness in architecture.

DESIGN

Michael Graves, Kettle for Alessi, 1985.

->Emulates form but takes away from function. Playfulness, makes things attractive, but is it now just about status? Owning objects like these shows you have money to spend on designer products? Art for arts sake?

Ettore Sottsass, Carlton Bookcase, 1981.

Hussein Chalayan, Afterwords 2000-2001.

*Grew up with Civil war all around him- people living in an environment where they might have to move at any given time. People being displaced by war/environmental disasters.

People will need use his designs- making a statement rather than creating a functional product.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup cans 1962.

*Is it graphic design? Using graphic production to create highbrow art. Turning something kitsch into an art piece.

Roy Lichenstein, Drowing Girl.

*Using popular comic style to create fine art- going against all rules of fine art before.

Jeff Konns, Dirty- Jeff on Top 1992.

*Highly kitsch! Emulating cheap, tacky statues- challenging fine art conventions before him.

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968 L.H.O.O.Q)

*Post modern art started here?

--->  Michael Craig-Martin: An Oak Tree 1973

Michael Craig-Martin was a high brow intellectual and was the tutor of Damien Hirst. So could be argued opened the way for a lot of post-modern art.

Damien Hirst, Mother and Child Divided, 1993.

Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-95, 1995.

*This work saw Tracey Emin labelled as a 'slut' by the media. She actually meant everyone she had sleep next too in a bed as well, as in not just had sex with. This shows how the media view women? Quick to label her and therefore dismiss her work.

*Art like this is very easy to make, shows no great talent. Does that mean it should not be labelled as art?

Sarah Lucas, Au Naturel, 1994.

*This artwork is putting women in a position society does not want them. 

Jake and Dino Chapman, 1995.

*The ultimate 'shock' piece. Was this designed to just be controversial and get noticed for how horrible it is? Or is there a deeper meaning? A reference to cloning and the future of science perhaps?

Playing with perceptions. Very tacky and kitsch.

Jake and Dino Chapman, Works From the Chapman Family Collection, 2002.

*This piece is easier to understand and to grasp the message behind it. It is making a comment on globalisation and the raping of older cultures. We get their artefacts to place in museums and they get McDonalds and Starbucks in return.

Chris Ofili, Holy Virgin Mary, 1996.

*The first famous black artist in the UK. He used materials and colours that symbolised his heritage. He used elephant dung in his work to represent his African roots and Rastafarian colours. 

*This piece really offended and shocked people- people did not want to see a black Virgin Mary. White christians considered it offensive.

Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars, 1997.

Shithead, 1993

*Chris Ofili is making a statement about the lack of black superheroes here. The argument is does he ruin the message by how simple his work is, how it could be taken for a joke?

Martin Creed, Work no. 22: The Lights Going On and Off, 2000.

*The media questioned if the person who wired up the light is actually the artist?

Mark Wallinger, Sleeper, 2005.

*Wallinger's film Sleeper, features the artist dressed as a bear wandering round Berlin's Neue National at night. This won the Turner Prize much to the amazement of the media. Is it deliberately offensive and deliberately provocative? 

Barbara Krugar, I shop Therefore I Am, 1987.

*A comment on post-modern society and consumer society.

*Selfridges then took it as part of their advertising campaign. Should we look it as a new, inventive way to display artwork- making art available to the masses, or is it selling out?

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, USA 1970.

*First land art. It laid down the foundations for the land art movement.

Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993.

*A female artists who people seemed to only be interested in her work rather than her personal life, unlike Tracy Emin.

*K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was an action that took place on 23 August 1994, in which the K Foundation (an art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) burned cash in the amount of one million pounds sterling on the Scottish island of Jura. 

This money represented the bulk of the K Foundation's funds, earned by Drummond and Cauty as The KLF, one of the United Kingdom's most successful pop groups of the early 1990s.

They were making a statement about art and the money that fuels it- is art all about making money? 

Is fine art becoming popular culture, instead of the high culture it once was- more interactive, less cultured? Is fine art progressing or being dumbed down?

Challenging perceptions of what is seen as art.

Summary

*Postmodern attitude of questioning conventions (especially modernism)

*Post modern aesthetic= multiplicity of styles and approaches.

*Shift in thought and theory investigating 'crisis in confidence'

*Space for new voices

*That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.   http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

*the question to ask now is what will happen with art in the future? Altermodern?

Image Analysis Exercise.

The Uncle Same Range (1876) Advertising image by Schumacher & Ettlinger, New York.

Poster by Savile Lumley (1915)

     
         'The Uncle Sam Range' by Schumacher & Ettlinger is a very 'all american' approach at selling a cooking range. It shows 'Uncle Sam' (the personification of America) at a large dinner table with a globe, three children, which are the personifications of different states of America (used because children represent growth, optimism and hope for the future), an eagle and lots of flags (both patriotic). There is also a young lady serving food, a black servant and a very large cooker/range.
The globe is obviously meant to represent the rest of the world, however it is mainly showing Africa and the face has black African features. This is suggesting that Americans of that time believed the rest of the world was less civilised and educated. Africa was seen as a third world country that was still wild with tribes and second class people.
The globe is also holding a long list that stereotypes other nations and their national dishes- it suggests the rest of the world still eat odd food and are not as civilised as Americans, the food that they eat and what this range can cook.
It has not aged well and I can safely say no longer connected with my group- to the point that it took us a long time to realise it was even an advert. The product is lost amidst a haze of patriotism and symbolism and we were far to distracted by (what is now considered) the bad taste and racism within it.
However, I think it is an important fact that it was made at the same time America was celebrating it's 100th birthday, hence all the patriotism and the flags.The creators were clever and tapped into a very large market- they made it appeal to those celebrating Americas birthday and so tapped into the mood on the streets, so the whole of America.
       
          The poster by Savile Lumley is also patriotic, just in a more subtle way. This poster was made at the beginning of the Second World War and was obviously made to encourage young men to sign up as there was no conscription at the time.
It is projecting into a possible future and shows a man who obviously was not involved in the war; he looks uncomfortable and regretful as he can not answer his children's questions. It is obviously meant to worry young men that they will have no stories for their children and will be an embarrassment to their family.
The patriotic symbols are a little harder to notice in this poster but are used to great effect- the roses on the curtains are the english rose and the pattern on the armchair is the generic symbol of royalty. This gives the poster a feel of 'joining for Queen and Country', further emphasised by the red coats on the young boy's toy soldiers, which references the queens guards. This would appeal to a young man's love of his country and his need to feel involved in a event so important to the whole of the UK. No one wants to feel left out.
     
          I think the Lumley poster is aimed at a middle class audience. Upper-classes never go to war (you just have to look in any history book to confirm this!) and the working classes will more than likely have already signed up for the prospect of a job and a regular wage.
The setting of the image, with the nice furniture, a well dressed man, well dressed children and good toys also suggests a middle-class target audience- they are making an image that would be more familiar to the men with money.
On the other hand, I think that 'The Uncle Same Range' is aimed at a slightly poorer market. Adverts are made to be inspirational- people buy an 'ideal life' that comes with a product.
The use of a black servant in the corner of the image is an example of this- obviously this was made before slavery was abolished and owning a slave was a status symbol. Owning them showed you had money and were important. Schumacher & Ettlinger are suggesting to the viewer that buying this range would bring you the lifestyle associated with the ownership of a slave.

          The font on the Lumley poster is soft and looks as though it is meant to represent speech, or is handwritten. This makes it feel more personal and aimed directly to the reader and his life. It is appealing directly to a man's pride.
The font on 'The Uncle Sam Range' is reminiscent of the Wild West and saloon bars. Westerns are really important in American culture, they show a time that Americans 'civilised' their country and is what they consider the formation of the "american dream'. Again, this means the advert is appealing to those celebrating Americas birthday and everything it stands for.

        Overall both the poster and the advert are aimed at men. The conscription poster could not be more aimed at men if it tried, for very obvious reasons (only men could be soldiers then). In 'The Uncle Sam Range' a woman is serving 'Sam' placing women in a subservient role- so obviously they are not the target audience. It is appealing to a mans dream- he is in charge, at the centre of the action and being served by a beautiful woman.
They also both have links to the family and the family is used to manipulate men to either join up or to buy a cooker. 
However the most obvious contrast between the two pictures is that one is an advert trying to sell a product and the other a propaganda poster. The most obvious similarity is both are images that appeal to the viewers patriotism, manipulating it to their advantage- either selling a product or idea with it.

Lecture Two: Art and Revolution

Art and Revolution: Dictatorship and Propaganda.

*This lecture is going to look at a social revolution- a communist revolution and the effects this had on society during and after.

*Russian Revoltion, led by Lenin 1917
'Peace, Bread and Land'.
Russia was a country of illiterate workers (80% of the population) who rallied together and overthrew the government. They took over and wanted the country to become equal- everyone has the same amount of food, work etc as everyone else.
Known as the October Revolution 1917

*1917-1921 Russian Civil War: Reds (Revolutionary Bolsheviks) vs. Whites (Anti-Revolutionary Imperialists)
During the bloody civil war (after the revolution) many died

*After the revolution a 'rival' strand of modernist art came about . Different political and philosophical place than the west- so different (perhaps more progressive?) art was produced.

*OCTOBER (Ten days that Shook the World) Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
A film made to commemorate the event in 1927 (Bolsheviks led by Lenin, storming the government)- Ten years after the event.

*In late 20th century we see propaganda in a negative way- people think of Nazi's and deceit-lying to the public. However this revolution used it in a positive way.

B. Kustodiev 'The Bolshevik' 1920.

The giant Bolshevik= a personification of how powerful they were- greater than the Tsars and government they had overthrown.

The RED FLAG symbolically represents the blood of the workers.

Solely an image- no writing means an illiterate person will understand this propaganda.

*The cultural acceleration of Art after the revolution is massive. No one wants rich elite culture (realistic paintings of landscapes and kings etc.) people want NEW!
What is the art of the working people?
Radical experimenting begins- trying to find a new voice for the country.

*In this very short period the style of the art really progressed.

*Lenin asked artists to look at artists from the West for inspiration (e.g. Picasso and Matisse)

*Abstract and a more modern style of art appeared almost out of nowhere in Russia.

*Everyone was seen as a productive value- Artists became designers and designers became artists. No clear hierarchy of culture. No snobbery.

A. Rodchenko 'Book Poster- Books for all fields of Knowledge' 1924

Artists took jobs by the state- this poster was trying to get the public into the library to read and learn. No longer had to be illiterate- people now had the freedom to gain knowledge.

Also note the WOMAN! The revolution brought a levelling out of the status and the roles between the sexes.

      

                                                      

Some more of A. Rodchenko's work. Shows the experimentation with photography that was happening at the time. He was finding out what photographs can do.

*Artists became known as 'constructivists' - they were constructing the future.

Artists were now seen as people who could really help with the revolution.

*Tatlin's model of the 'Monument to the Third International'. Was going to be Russia's answer to the Eiffel Tower!- Bigger and better. A true 'Constructivist' version. The Wikipedia entry reads:

"Tatlin's Constructivist tower was to be built from industrial materials: iron, glass and steel. In materials, shape, and function, it was envisaged as a towering symbol of modernity. It would have dwarfed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The tower's main form was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 m in height, around which visitors would be transported with the aid of various mechanical devices. The main framework would contain four large suspended geometric structures. These structures would rotate at different rates of speed. At the base of the structure was a cube which was designed as a venue for lectures, conferences and legislative meetings, and this would complete a rotation in the span of one year. Above the cube would be a smaller pyramid housing executive activities and completing a rotation once a month. Further up would be a cylinder, which was to house an information centre, issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker, and would complete a rotation once a day. At the top, there would be a hemisphere for radio equipment. There were also plans to install a gigantic open-air screen on the cylinder, and a further projector which would be able to cast messages across the clouds on any overcast day"

Limited technology did not inhibit idea but it did inhibit building it. Sadly it was never made.

*The Russian Constuctivists: Leading Avant-Garde artistic group. Their aim- 'achieving the communistic expression of material structures.' ('The Programme of the first working group of Constructivists' 1929 quoted in Lodder (1983) Russian Constructivism, London & Yale, p.94)

Art should be understood, used and appreciated by everyone.

*1925 Paris expo- USSR pavilion by Melnikov. A constructivist building- a great place to exhibit the new modern work of the time. Paris had no idea what was happening in Russia and they were shocked to see this building. Shows how advanced Russia was for its time.

*VKhUTEMAS

A progressive art school. Prospectus cover by El Lissitzky. 

Sadly shut down when Lenin took over (more about that later....) :( 

*All architects in the West were men but in Russia women were studying it and were allowed to.

*Constructivists with textile, clothes and furniture- Art for the people. Art was not just for art galleries anymore- it was now in peoples homes (wallpaper, curtains etc.) and what they wore.

*New designs for clothing- made more for comfort. Not like high fashion for women, which were clothes to display femininity of women- make them objects of desire/lust. These new designs created a level of equality between the sexes.

V. Stepanova designed sports costumes and textile designs:

Example of designs.

* HAMMER AND SICKLE. Logo of the Soviet Union. United workers and united farmers.

*The lesson of the Soviet Union is that everyone has the same (standardised) so there is no haves and had nots in the country. No one can look down on others. However the human element is lost- there is no room for individuality. Plus, everyone has the same but that does not mean that what they have is good- there was a lot of poor housing and cheap food.

*STALIN came into power in the late 20's (thought to be about 1928) and changed art. The late 20's and onwards: socialist realism. 

He decreed that the only acceptable art was simple painting with simple meaning. He believed that was the only thing workers would truly understand.

In some ways Stalin killed culture.

*In 1962 Russians realised they did not have any good artists and designers anymore because of Stalin and the closure of Art schools. They were worried about opening Art Schools as art was associated with the West and Capitalism.

SUMMARY

*Revolution= new opportunity for art to progress.

*Constructivists desire to make art useful.

*Aim that art should help 'construct' new society.

*Use of new techniques and abstract aesthetic.

*By end of the 1920's artistic freedom curtailed.

*1934 Stalin decrees 'Socialist Realism' only.

Love/Hate

Leeds Central Library

The brief was to find one example of design/art/visual communication that I either love or hate in, or around Leeds College of Art.

I have decided to photograph The Central Library located on the Headrow, in the City Centre. It is a beautiful building with the most amazing staircase. I have done some research and found that is it is a grade 2 listed building and was constructed between 1878 and 1884. It was was opened by the Mayor at the time (Alderman Edwin Woodhouse) on the 17th of April 1884.

I love it when something so amazing to look at can still have a function and be an important part of a city. It can be viewed by everyone and although many people may not really spend the time too appreciate it (understandable really, as you go to a library for the books not the architecture) it is something that has been used, and will be continued to be used for many years.

A building that adds beautiful architecture to the city of Leeds yet still has an important function- design and art for the everyday people to live and work amongst.

Lecture One, Modernity and Modernism

1. Meaning of terms- 'Modern' and 'Modernity'
2. Modernity- Industrialisation, urbanisation and the city.
3. Modern artist's response to the city.

ART

*John Ruskin
Wrote about Pre-Raphaelites.
First started using the word 'modern'. The term meant more 'new' or 'different'.

*Modern- fundermentally better than before- progression, development and improvement.
When we attach 'modern' to art we carry a judgement- that this art is better than before, it has improved on old ideas and practises.

*At turn of 19th century Paris was the most important and influencial city- it was 'new'.
*(Trottoir roullant [electric moving walkway]. A good representaion of the rapid change and new ideas around at the time)

*Urbanisation
Changes peoples lives.
*E.g. New transport like the Railway. Allowed people to access different parts of their country- and the world so much quicker and easier. The world became smaller!
*Time was broken down into hours and standardised because of travel. People stopped relying on just posittion of sun.
*Urbanisation also brought along rationalised labour. Brought free time and work time. No more work from dusk till dawn.

*Enlightenment.
Period in late 18th century when scientific/ philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds. (process of ratrionality and reason)
*The city is the site of this new experience.

*The Eifell Tower is a good representation of modernity- new materials, undecorated, very different.

*Haussmanisation
Paris 1850's onwards= a new Paris.
Old Paris architecture is ripped out and Haussman (a city architect) redesigns Paris. New narrow streets. Easier to police= a form of social control. Paris becomes a place for the rich.
Distance. Alienation.

*Psychology- grew at the same time. Worried people would be distacted by modern technology.

*Fashion becomes very important around this time. Fahion showed how rich, important and elegant people were.
*Urbanisation brings labour, factory work and clear rich/poor divides.

*Kaiserpanorama 1883
The first public viewing experience. Start of alienation between people and the world? People begin to experience things through technology rather than first-hand. Technology keeping people sedate and controlled rather than improving lives. Locking us down rather than freeing us.
*Still the same- even more so through T.V. phones and internet etc.

*Max Nordau- Degeneration 1892.
(an anti-modernist) wrote about his worries on the modern world.

*Moving image cinema was created at this time. "The Lumiere Brothers". First films.
Shows how new everything was- people were constantly having to adapt and keep up with new tech.

*In period of modernity- painting followed photography. Painting and painters had to re-invent itself/themselves to keep up and make it more modern. Photography showed the world in a new, better way that painting couldn't.

*High-rise building gave people the opportunity to 'look down on the world'. This influenced modern paintings.

*Technology brought new understandings of biology, space and time. This really influenced art of the time.

DESIGN

*Anti-historicism (new, for the new world, progressive, not nostalgic)

*Truth to materials (increasingly using new materials [e.g. steel] and does not hide what it is)

*Form follows function. If it works- that is enough, that is it's beauty.

*Technology

*Internationalism (global language understood by all)

*"Ornament is crime"- Adolf Loos (1908)

*BAUHAUS. The Bauhaus art school totally changed design.
Led to idea modern life should be surrounded by new modern things. Things became simple and mass producable, therefore cheaper to make.

*Internationalism.
A language of design that could be recognised and understood world wide.

*Sans serif font was invented during modernist era.

*Herbert Bayer argued for all text to be in lower case. He invented a modern sans-serif type.

*Times New Roman font. Stanley Morison 1932.
Refernces Roman empire and its greatness. Trying to make the paper suggest Britain is great. A form of patriotim.

CONCLUSION

*Term modern is not a neutral term- it suggests novelty and improvment.

*'Modernity' (roughly 1750-1960)- social and cultural experience.

*'Modernism'- the range of ideas and styles that sprang from modernity.

*Importance of modernism.
1. A vocabularly of styles
2. Art and Design education
3.Idea of form follows function.