MODERNISM

Time period: first half of the 20th century

Key characteristics/ conventions : Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

Artists associated: Margareth Bourke-White

Key works: Grant Wood-American Gothic

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

• photojournalism
• avant-garde movement

POST-MODERNISM

Time period : Postmodernism is best understood by defining the modernist ethos it replaced – that of the ‘avant-garde’ who were active from 1860s to the 1950s. Postmodernism overturned the idea that there was one inherent meaning to a work of art or that this meaning was determined by the artist at the time of creation. Instead, the viewer became an important determiner of meaning, even allowed by some artists to participate in the work as in the case of some performance pieces.

Key characteristics/ conventions :

• It is the movement away from modernism.
• It involves the mixture of different art medium that reference political, cultural and historical issues.
• The concept itself lacks rules, it’s up to the photographer to decide what messages they encode and how these messages are represented in an image.
• In a way it’s initial motive was to challenge the idea of modernism.
• Common targets of postmodernism and critical theory include universalist notions of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress. The ideas rejected by postmodernists include the idea of artistic development as goal-oriented, the notion that only men are artistic geniuses, and the outdated assumption that non-white races are inferior. Feminist art and minority art that challenged canonical ways of thinking are often included under the umbrella of postmodernism or seen as representations of it.

Artists associated: William Eggleston and Robert Rauschenberg.

The snapshot type imagery which Eggleston created throughout his career, created anecdotal meaning about everyday aspects of life. The accessible and simplistic method of his photography, such as using the Kodak’s Brownie camera, meant that his work had a personal touch to subjects he had no direct personal link with. Color also represented a multitude of themes in his work such as the contrast between the new and the old, the ordinary and extraordinary, the man-made and the natural. In many senses he was a non-conformist, associating him as a prominent figure in the postmodernist art scene. He also explored a contemporary commercial printing process of dye transfer to see the ways in which this could contribute to the representation of color and how this could become the focal point instead of the selling of lifestyle, concepts or ideas. During his career there were a few occasions where Eggleston encountered the work of Andy Worhol, exposing him to other popular forms of mediums, contributing to his experimental photography style. Eggleston’s use of the anecdotal and everyday is set apart by his focus on details such as facial expression which can be seen in the image above. Throughout his career he pushed the boundaries of documentary photography associated with the works of Robert Frank and Walker Evans. His photography effectively captured the shift of life in the South from rural to cosmopolitan societies.

In the work above we can see an example of the extreme focus which Eggleston pays to the facial expressions and body language of the subjects. There is a clear contrast in character from the youthful appearance of the woman on the right and the sickly, pale and tired lady on the right hand side of the image. There is also an overall contrast of color from the left and right with the radiant blonde hair, African print dress and the dark, flat hair and blue toned dress. There is a distinct lack of facial expression with with the woman on the left as she lays on the sofa, in a lifeless and melancholy fashion, observed by the Goddess like presence of the light haired woman. The image provokes overall feelings of conflict and change. Opposed to the typical conventions of postmodernism, this image in particular follows close conventions of Tableau and Renaissance art with the stylized body language and dramatic lighting. This image very effectively showcases the postmodernist features which Eggleston focused on within his work.

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

• Tableaux- staged photography which displays a pictorial narrative.
• Intertextuality – when you include others work.
• Eclecticism – the mixture of styles.
• Refiguration – re-structuring an original image.
• Collaboration-working alongside other artists.
• Pastiche – copying an original.
• Re-cycling- using materials more than once.
• Dadaism: Dada or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Dadasim had an influence on postmodernism in its questioning of authenticity and originality. ‘Combined with the notion of appropriation, postmodernism often took the undermining of originality to the point of copyright infringement, even in the use of photographs with little or no alteration to the original.’ -The Art Story.