What is post-modern photography

I know this question, most likely, has cob-webs on it, but I was just

curious what that would be. Wise words and a post of an example, or

a link to examples, would be nice.

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I suppose I thought of this the other day, when I was thinking about

the photographs on photo.net. I find them, first, to be of a very

even nature, and could sometimes I think, "look at them forever", but

the ones I like the best, the ones that knock my socks off, still,

are of this, what I call and don't know how to explain, "even" nature-

whatever I mean, I intend it as a compliment/positive feedback.

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The ones I like the best, take this same nature and run with it. I

feel a consensus here, in photo.net about photography-oh, yes, I've

read discussions, but the bottom line seems to be consensus.

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So, I wondered what the "consensus" had to say about post modern

photography.

Strictly speaking "post Modern" art and literature is that which followed the

moder n era which roughly speaking lasted from the 1920s to the early 1970s.

Basically it refers to a style of art., architecture but esp. literature that looks

back on modernism , takes it apart and critically examines Modern

assumptions and then incorpates these reflections as a kind of ornamentation

and elaboration on the idea being expressed.

 

Now... aren't you sorry you asked?

Assuming that Ellis is correct, and I have no doubt he is in this case, how does post modern end? I mean, are we forever going to be going back to the early 20th century, and "taking it apart and critically examining Modern assumptions and then incorpating these reflections as a kind of ornamentation and elaboration on the idea being expressed...".

 

Actually, from what I read and hear on the subject, we are still doing that, and I dont see anything poking at something entirely new. And if there is, I'd love to see what is considered.....errrrrrrr.....for lack of a better term......post-post-modern. Sometimes I have the feeling that I can't see the next evolution because I am living in the middle of it, and the changes are so slow, they go unnoticed to me. And then other times I swear nothing has essentially changed since I was a young adult.

it is PM if it has a theory attached to it. but i think most people have yet to catch up with 'modernism' and now we are in post-post modernism or even a reaction to PPM. and then there is always PMS :0

I like Ellis's definition. I don't think you'll find many, if any, examples of post-modernism on this site, nor any other posting site. It's a different approach to art. Many of the top photos on here are very well done, but they are purely visual in nature without much in the way of a deeper ideology. This is not meant to be an insult in any way.

Cannot be said better than this: http://www.ms.uky.edu/~sills/sprockets.html

Or......http://www.pinakothek.de/pinakothek-der-moderne/

<a href='http://photocritique.net/g/s?10mWBc'>click here</a>

http://www.photocritique.net/g/s?zzaaTn-p01080416

 

Sorry, I'm too lazy to tag it. Post-Modern will be something else in ten years, and something else again in 50. I can't get wrapped up in the debate too much. Especially not here! :)

Check out <a href="http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html">this

link</a>.

I have included a link below to the archive of an online symposium hosted by Maurice Berger through the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in early October 2001. An international group of scholars, artists, and curators discussed and debated the issue of postmodernism.

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It has been a couple of years since I read the printed transcript of the symposium but I recall that it was illuminating and included a wide range of informed opinions from recognised authorities. It may be useful to note here that the only universal consensus on postmodernism was that there isn't one. That's not to say that predominate themes did not emerge but some participants did not even recognise postmodernism as a distinct movement, for example.

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I am puzzled by the refrence to photographs "of a very even nature" in the original question posted. I looked in the responses for clarification but didn't see any. What do you mean by 'even' especially in the context of postmodern photography?

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<a href="http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=1">Postmodernism Symposium</a>

DP thanks for the link. I'm reading through it right now but this statement mirrored my feelings about postmodernism. It was made by Dan Cameron

 

"On the one hand, I've never identified post-modernism as an art movement, but rather as a cultural era, in which a number of separate

disciplines (art, film, literature, video, music) began to share certain underlying characteristics, one of them being a deep skepticism regarding structures of authority and authenticity. In a literal sense, the dream of modernity was no longer seen as sustainable (or even desirable), and the culture packed up and moved to another place."

I guess I should've just posted the photo instead of the URL :)<div></div>

The question was: what is post-modern photography? Provide examples. This is not a chat room.

I've never really understood exactly what "postmodernism" is - and I don't think I'm the only one since from reading around the web it seems to be a subject of much debate! It's easier to say what it isn't. Clearly Ansel Adams work isn't. It isn't an attempt to make things look beautiful, or to accurately portray nature in a romantic manner.

 

Here's a shot that I guess could be classified as "postmodern". I wouldn't classify it as that, since I wouldn't classify it at all, but maybe it's an example for discussion?<div></div>

I have no idea what post-modernism is when applied to photography. I'd like to be educated by someone who does.

 

It would seem that possible starting points would be:

 

(1) what is post-modernism when applied to other arts or media, and how have those concepts been translated into the context of photography?

 

(2) who are some of the photographers who SAY they are "post-modernist", and what do they seem to be doing?

 

(3) taken literally, it means, "after modernism". So, what is "modernism" in photography, and how are people who avow themselves as "post-modern" different from those who are/were merely "modern", and why? Do these people in fact have anything in common apart from being "post-"? Are "modern" and "post-modern" anything more than simply chronological designations? That is, all it takes to be a "post-modernist" is to be working in a style that originated (or at least didn't become fashionable until) after 1970?

<i> the 1980s, the photographic world witnessed the emergence of a generation of practitioners, unconnected yet sharing in common a sense that they were artists first and foremost, and photographers only because light-sensitive emulsions were the chosen medium for their artistic expression. Even where the work was purely photographic, straight from life, and without any manual intervention, these practitioners emphasized their allegiance to the world of art by various means. One obvious pattern was the tendency to use a large, mural format; another was in giving consideration to the framing and presentation of the work as integral to the process of creation. Some photographers framed up series of pictures and hung them as installations or added typography or gestural markings. All pursued new options in the desire to make artefacts which distanced themselves from the conventional small-format fine print. These artists sought and found the support of contemporary art dealers, critics, and collectors and redefined the frame of references in which their photographs were to be perceived. The American Robert Mapplethorpe was a pioneer in terms of format and presentation as well as a challenger of taboos in his subject-matter, while Cindy Sherman has constructed elaborate tableaux around the theme of identity and image with herself as the constantly metamorphosed subject. She too has favoured a large scale.

 

Much work has been produced in an idiom which is generally dubbed ?Postmodern? in as much as, like Postmodern architecture and design, it is self-referential; photographers have created works around the subject of photography itself, fascinated by the contradictions and conceptual complexities of the image-making process. John Baldessari and Richard Prince share a fascination with the mysteries of the mediated image which they translate into challenging constructions.

 

Others, meanwhile, work ?straight?, from life yet with a more evident subjectivity than documentarists of previous eras. The very concept of photographic truth seems outmoded within the work of such penetrating individual eyes as Tina Barney, William Eggleston, and Martin Parr, new colourists who translate the physical world into a disconcerting two-dimensional alternative.</i>

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from<p>http://web.telecom.cz/photography.iol.cz/postmodernp.htm</p>

?

Brian if you take the time to read the opening discussions on the meaning of the term Post Modernism in the link provided by D Poinsett you might be able to answer your question. The gist of it is that you can't nail the term to any one media, style or genre.

 

I'll give you a hint though, you would have to try very hard to find anything post modern on this site.

Sam wrote<p>

 

<i>I guess I should've just posted the photo instead of the URL :)</i><p>

 

Where did you find the link, I tried for a good deal of time to find a link to the image and couldn't find one.<p>

Bob wrote<p>

 

<i>I've never really understood exactly what "postmodernism" is - and I don't think I'm the only one since from reading around the web it seems to be a subject of much debate!</i><p>

 

From many of the essays that I've recently read, deconstruction of the sacred is much of the intent of Postmodern photographic effort. The next essay that I'll start chewing on will deal with the grotesque; a similar theme on deconstruction.<p>

 

If anybody is truly interested in getting a make on what Postmodern photography is about, I highly recommend spending some time digesting the essays in "Veronica's Revenge" by Elizabeth Janus. The information in the essays are very enlightening as to the philosophy that forms the foundation of Postmodern photographic art.<p>

 

From the back of the dust cover for "Veronica's Revenge":<p>

 

<b>"It is the transformation of art photography during the past thirty years that is the focus of "Veronica's Revenge": Contemporary Perspectives of Photography. The intention was to bring together an array of artists, writers, historians, critics and curators, all of whom are implicated in the evolving understanding of what defines photography as art, and to have them reflect on the present state of the medium. In many instances this has meant looking at its position within the larger context of contemporary art and visual culture, and in others, it has meant focusing on its use by specific artists in an attempt to understand the reasons why it has become, in recent years, one of the most prevalent means of artistic creation."</b> Elizabeth Janus<p>

 

As to the image you posted Bob, portrait comes to mind:)<p>

"The question was: what is post-modern photography? Provide examples. This is not a chat room"

 

Postmodernism is as much a critical perspective as a genre. (The difference is problematic of course.)

 

"I'd love to see what is considered.....errrrrrrr.....for lack of a better term......post-post-modern. Sometimes I have the feeling that I can't see the next evolution because I am living in the middle of it, and the changes are so slow, they go unnoticed to me."

 

The description of this era as "post-modern" is an attempt to describe it from "inside." One day (perhaps) someone will wake up one day and realize that the vocabulary of postmodernism no longer describes the world as she sees it and will start to develop an alternate description. (But philosophical eras develop over generations and I think we are just at the beginning of the postmodern age.)

 

"...are we forever going to be going back to the early 20th century, and "taking it apart and critically examining Modern assumptions and then incorpating these reflections as a kind of ornamentation and elaboration on the idea being expressed..."?

 

There is the possibility that there is nothing after postmodernism. My view is that postmodernism is inextricably linked to late capitalism - and that, barring a catalysmic rupture in society, (nuclear war, asteroid strike, ice age, etc.), late-capitalism brings with it the end of meaningful social change. Capitalism is most probably the end of history.

 

[And, yes, I am still planning on working on my site on Photography and Postmodernism - but work has kept me too busy. I hope to have some time in the next few weeks, but first I have to get my new business site up.]<div></div>

By the way, I think the Hands/Face series represents the archetypal postmodern photograph. They frustrate every traditional (modern) perspective you can bring to bear on them: subject/object, foreground/background, frame/content, form/meaning, revelation/concealment, etc. And in doing so, they foreground the limitations of the same.

I'm getting to more understand why the hands series is postmodern. That type, and the multi-pic ones, and the just fully abstract ones, I get as being postmodern. But is the rest of Adam's stuff also considered postmodern? It's those type that puzzle me. Like in the discussions above Tina Barney did shots of her family...why is that postmodern? And for some reason I understand why eggleston and parr are considered postmodern, but I'll be damned if I can explain why I think that. It's that type, the ones that are "almost straight" pics that confuse the issue for me......I think!?

This is exasperating.

 

It seems that somehwere along the line somebody invented a term, or more accurately appropriated a term that had meaning in the context of architectural criticism. He didn't say what it meant exactly in the art context, but it sounded cool. He described some cool artists as being "post-modern". Other people thought the term was cool and started to use it, describing other artists who were a bit like the first bunch as "post-modern" too. Art dealers, quick to spot a trend, started signing these people up; so that meant more artists wanted to be "post-modern".

 

But nobody has actually defined the term yet, and if you try to pin anyone down on it, you get a lot of hand-waving, or cynical statements that the term is meaningless. But post-moderns are cool and moderns (meaning the pre-post-moderns) are all has-beens. Popular culture hasn't caught on to this yet and posting sites like photo.net where the masses post their photos are so un-cool that they will bury anything "post-modern", which just adds to the elitist fun.

 

After a few years, it's an industry, and people are announcing their discovery that Duchamp, a very cool guy, was the first post-modern. Its already getting a little old and people are talking about the post-post-modern. But still don't ask anybody to define it.

 

In the context of photography, apparently a post-modern is somebody who:

 

- prints his photos big, like paintings

 

- stages a lot of his pictures, sometimes with himself or

herself dressed-up as somebody unglamorous.

 

- positions himself as a mainstream artist who just happens to

be using photography as a medium (but he isn't a photographer)

This gets the work into big-time New York galleries that are for

real artists, not photographers, and he can make a lot more money.

 

- produces a lot of photos that are about "photography"; that

is they self-consciously violate the conventions of photography,

so as to call attention to those conventions. This means the photos

look a bit ugly or kind of weird to most viewers.

 

- makes sure that the photogaphs are pretty much devoid of subject interest, subject interest being for the masses. A good post modern picture would be two guys standing around talkng near a Chevrolet, or some not-too-attractive girls in a messy bathroom in their hair rollers and lumpy wrinkled pajamas. Other good postmodern subjects are suburban bleakness or landscapes with with very intrusive hand-of-man elements, like electric wires.

 

- if he doesn't deconstruct photography, deconstructs something

else, deconstructing things being very cool and post-modern. Because of its need to deconstruct something, a post-modern picture needs to be shocking. This can be shockingly boring, the shock coming from the fact that someone thinks its a good photo.

 

- produces photos that look a bit like Cindy Sherman or Eggleston, or

other paradigm examples of post-moderns, and that don't look too much like Ansel Adams or other paradigm pre-post-moderns, who all achieved prominence before about 1970 (except for Duchamp and a few other people who didn't know at the time that they were post-moderns.)

 

That is how it seems to me right now, but maybe its just me. Can anybody actually define it?

Thomas G. The URL was eliminated in the Great Cleansing yesterday. It is:

 

http://www.kunstaspekte.de/kuenstlerin.php?k=3046&action=slideshow&id=675&ast_id=115