Modernism / Post modernism 

• Modernism – broad movement encompassing Avant Gard ‘isms’ – another word for ‘new’.
• Discovered at the first half of the 20th Century.
• Define Avant Gard – transgressing the limits, non-mainstream.
• Push the boundaries Manual labour- beginning of the industrial revolution.
• What happens outside art?  – Societies expectation at large.
• Queen Victoria, Victorian times, invention of photography 1839 – part of modernism, machine, optical device and object, interpreting reality, development of machinery, lasting over 100 years.
• Different interpretations of Avant Gard – cubism, tantrism, futurism, surrealism, social realism, formalism, in photography and art.
• Invention of the press, beginning of the 20^th century, mass production of newspaper and magazines, money in the early 1900’s.
• References to Abstraction / expressionism / cubism – abstraction and modernism, different multiple interpretations
• Post modernism – ‘after’ 1970s-80s, post second world war, destruction to our civilisation, ordinary people killing ordinary things – questioning authority in society – law enforcements, police, various occupations – complex movement.
•  Investigating a process’s rather than the finishing product. E.g. Conyrast to Picasso who never realved the process of his art, only ever cared about the end product.
• More stage photography, ref. to tableau photography, using yourself as a self-portrait, using people that are creating an image which is highly constructed, ref to political, historical, or in the art world.

Example Artist  (landscape Photography) Ansel Adams

• Ansel Adams is seen as a modernist, his photographs are intrinsic to modern photography, of his time / very contrasted / vivid imagery / looking back he was he was now he isn’t as its very traditional of his time – now seen as contemporary.
• Modernism changes over time.  Romanticism – leading into post-modernism.

Example Artist  John Millais – 1852

• Millais shows deliberate references to other things outside of the art world, not trying to hide the production / stages with references to Shakespeare.

Other Techniques relating to Modernism and Post-Modernism 

Pictorism vs Realism

•  Photographers who wanted to make photography an art form, invented as a scientific experimentation – not scientific experiment but an artistic experiment.
• Deliberately used processes to make photographs seem ‘fuzzy’ and out of focus. In the dark room they’d create textures, manipulating chemicals in dark room, photographs became more like paintings making them overall more eccentric forms in the art world – debating what’s the point of the photography, should be sharp and in focus.
• Straight photography was a  direct reaction against the pictorists.
• Celebrating vivid, realism in photography. Realism can be found I theatre, architecture. – Frank Eugene (pictorism) – subject matters of mythology, fairies. Straight Photography (Sally Mann)

Dadaism and the development of the Photo Montage

• Constructivism Photography shows extreme angles and advantage points
• Example: El Lissizky 1890-1941 was apart of a communist regime, based in what happened in 1917 – part of the political regimes, photography turned into propaganda / contextual resources / origins of change /manipulating the public through social media of the time / advertisement / creating a shift in social movements.
• References to the Russian Avant Gard.

Surrealism

• Founded in Paris in 1924,
• Example: Psychologist Froid – ‘Psych Analysis’,  which displays themes of dreams and internal forms.
• Feminism against realists, sexists in their subject manner, predominately men. The Female was seen as the ‘Muse, catalyst for Male psyche – misogynists – segregation in today’s society, majority of governmental power is male, male dominance has various debates towards sexism.
• Looking at stereo types in modern day society, how its developed from years since Surrealism was introduced.
• Patriarchal structures, men seen as ‘rulers’ women seen as workers in the home.
• Example: Man Ray (Solarization / Rayograph) cameraless photographs, exposing an object into sensitive paper, superstition versus reality 1890-1974).

Social Reform photography 1895-1965

• Example artist: Dorothea Lange 
• Includes Interdisciplinary – other knowledge from different subjects, e.g. gothic texts

Question to consider in my final paragraphs / conclusion:

What ism does my work fall under in my personal study?

Has the development of photography overtime impacted the outcome of modern day photography today?