Creating/taking photographs with themes/references

[AJHingel]

<p><strong>Luis</strong> when concerning contemporary art you write:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"only conceptual" seems to me an absolutist oversimplification</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I totally agree with you and it was why I cowardly wrote "has been denoted as". However simplifications sometimes helps us forward in these discussions.<br /> You inform me that "many" have announced post-modernism as over. I were, as far as I remember, slow in discovering that it started, so I will be totally happy still believing that it continues. Having just come back from the far East I have the impression that in some parts of our world, they do not follow the call at least.<br /> I'm not sure I agree with you that</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The 'invisible' of Modernism assumed that at the bottom lay the Truth. For Post-Modernists there are <em>truths</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure I used the term<em> "truth". </em>I think what a painter like Cezanne did was not to search or the truth, but rather more "real" approaches to painting nature and developed slowly over years his very creative use of colors and especially light. The invisible dimensions of reality could be brought to the fore by the artist. That Cezanne was not a cubist or fauvist but so obviously developed his own approach that made him into the "father" of modern painting does not, at least for us the viewers, mean that there is only one approach to this "reality".</p>

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<p>Post-Modernism attempted to depose or at least attacked all that, and reacted against the undelivered naive promises of Modernism.</p>

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<p>In fact, I only used two terms, as far as I remember: Modern and contemporary art, the latter started in 1961 by "decrete" from the marked. I try not to use the term postmodernism because I'm convinced it is a buzzword that covers anything as long as it is different from what came before: modernism.-The whole recent history of "schools" of art periods can mainly be understood through power interest and markets, as far as I see it (that is why CIA supported American abstract expressionism so actively)- but that is another thread that I would not suggest to start - it would rapidly end up as a closed thread on the Off-topic" forum. I do not suggest that postmodernism reacted towards "the undelivered naive promises of modernism" but it reacted towards the hegemonic power of modern art before the second world war (read: impressionism and what followed).<br /> I agree that any medium that manages to play between "what was" and "what is" can be said to have survived both modernism and post-modernism - or has never discovered that either existed!<br>

<strong>Philo</strong>'s "<em>Clin</em> d'œil" above could be an illustration.</p>

<p> </p>

[luis_g]

<p>The essays about Post-Modernism becoming OPD on 9/11 were many. Of course, there were several parties (besides old Modernists) interested in its passing, and there is a certain cachet about being the first to do the last rites on any movement. Remember Sontag's essay?<br>

[Note I didn't say I agreed that it was dead. Or dead and gone.]</p>

<p>I brought in some distinctions I felt were relevant, even if Anders hadn't mentioned them. Complications and addenda sometimes helps us forward -- or backward --, which can be useful at times, in these discussions.</p>

<p>Do art movements really ever end? Modernism never went truly extinct, let alone Post-Modernism. Just because movements become passe' doesn't mean they stop cold. Like Zombies, they go on.</p>

<p>Yes, there's cultural borders to ideas.</p>

<p><strong>Anders - "</strong>I try not to use the term postmodernism because I'm convinced it is a buzzword that covers anything as long as it is different from what came before: modernism."</p>

<p>Needless to say, I disagree. Was it reactive? Yes. So was Modernism. Manet's ushering in Impressionism was as much<em> </em> of a subversive/revolutionary act as it was about a new way of seeing. It was an attack on the status quo of his day, and not just in art. And while Modernism was largely different than that which preceded it, it would be unfair to call it a buzzword that covers anything as long as it is different from Academic Art. For me, it is the same with Post-Modernism.</p>

<p><strong>Anders</strong>-"The whole recent history of "schools" of art periods can mainly be understood through power interest and markets..."</p>

<p>...and sociologically, in terms of physics discoveries, linguistically, and many other ways, though I have a feeling Anders already knew that...</p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

<p><strong>Luis</strong> I agree that no art movement really ends. Painters not adhering to abstract expressionism have been painting what some have call "the hidden art" all along - but they surely have not ,had the same heavily supported attention. Google "abstract expressionism" and the "cold war" and see what I refer to.<br>

Postmodernism as a buzzword <a href="http://lateral-thought.blogspot.com/2008/06/postmodernism-critical-concept-or.html">see this short article</a>. The argument is that postmodernism has been used for almost any current activity inside and outside the realms of "art" that is deemed different from "before". This has never been the case of impressionism that almost exclusively was referring to painting. With expressionism things become more complex covering first paintings as well as poetry and became a cultural movement. <br>

Your last point, Luis, I fully agree on of course.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Anders - </strong>I'm aware of the "weaponizing" of Abstract Expressionism by the CIA. That's one thing we'll never see with Post-Modernism, what with its anarchist underpinnings. Although, if one knows their history, there were Abstract Expressionists that had solid links to organizations McCarthy had disbanded as "red". I do agree with the idea that US Culture is the ultimate WMD.</p>

<p><strong>Anders - "</strong>Postmodernism as a buzzword <a rel="nofollow" href="http://lateral-thought.blogspot.com/2008/06/postmodernism-critical-concept-or.html" target="_blank">see this short article</a>."</p>

<p>A lot of the same things were said about Modernism, of which Impressionism was a part of. There was also Impressionistic music and literature, but that quickly transformed into <em>Modernist </em>versions. I won't say it again, but if you care to look at the history, Impressionism was about a lot more than a new way of seeing (one that happened to have neurological underpinnings which would propel it to the #1 art movement with the public in the US). </p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

<p>You are right Luis, impressionism was more. I was too exclusive.</p>

[falcon7]

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=3885114">Julie Heyward</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub4.gif" alt="" /></a>, Dec 15, 2010; 05:24 a.m.</p>

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>"... for Witkin, whose photographic trances ...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Do you know what the writer meant by 'photographic trances?'</p>

<p>To conclude, I think that overt references to named historical, narrative or mythical characters or events in <strong>still photography</strong> can and too often does degenerate into the equivalent of what, in Hollywood movies is "gratuitous." Stuff that is there for no other reason than a cheap thrill. Gratuitous violence, gratuitous sex, gratuitous reference.</p>

<p>When you use the term, "still photography" in this context, do you mean 1) still photographs as isolated images, for example, as exhibited in an online or actual gallery, or do you mean 2) still photographs that are 'co-opted' in the service of a commercial or conventional enterprise, like a magazine advertisement or a high school yearbook, or both?</p>