Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 'Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?'. Trans. Regis Durand. “The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge”. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1984. 71-82.
What is the foundation of what makes an artist now?
Jean-Francois Lyotard is a French philosopher and literary theorist who has been influential for laying down the philosophical foundation of what makes an artist now. In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard discusses why artists needed to move beyond reproducing the real. He discussed how an ‘unprecedented split is taking place’, whereby artists have a choice of communicating by the ‘correct rules’, as in realism, or whether they choose to re-examine the rules, as in postmodernism.(1)
The refusal to conform to the ‘correct rules’ of realism is how postmodernism came about. Postmodernism for Lyotard marked the collapse of the grand narratives, which ignored the heterogeneity or diversity of human existence.(2) It dismissed the chaos and disorder of the universe. Lyotard opposed the grand narratives, as they were inadequate to represent or contain us all.(3) Micro-narratives that characterised postmodernism gave a discursive voice to all. It broke away from art that focused on ‘formal refinements to the neglect of historical determinants and social transformations alike’.(4) It searched for new ways to impart a stronger sense of the unpresentable, by putting forward the unpresentable in presentation itself. Lyotard referred to the period as one of ‘slackening’ whereby anything goes. This social moment in art broadened the possibilities of a voice for all presentations of art.
Fredric Jameson, a literary critic and Marxist political theorist believed the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of consumer and multinational capitalism. ‘Postmodernism replicates or reproduces – reinforces – the logic of consumer capitalism’ ,(5) thereby laying the foundation of what makes an artist in culture and capitalism. According to Jameson, the manipulation through mass marketing brought about a ‘waning of effect’.(6) As a result of this, feelings and emotions diminished due to commodification under the pressure of capitalism. Andy Warhol's Marilyn (1962) commodified Marilyn Munroe through the repetitious use of her image causing art to become part of society thereby loosing its critical edge. Thus it had a 'waning of effect'.
Whether defined from a cultural or economic viewpoint, the resulting ‘slackening’ or ‘waning of effect’ became the foundation of what constitutes postmodernism in art. Art took on new territory of practice, one of conceptual determination that desired to communicate beyond the real and influenced by a rising capitalist culture. Postmodernist art became about 'art itself in a new kind of way'.(7) It became more about revelation rather than interpretation and required a consciousness on the part of the spectator to generate meaning. Postmodernism and the rise of capitalism occurred at the same time and art at this time had a loss of criticality due to the proliferation of imagery. As a result postmodern art took on a new practice that critiqued the socially dissolving contemporary society in a capitalist society of mass consumerism.
(1)Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 'Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?'. Trans. Regis Durand. “The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge”. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1984. 75
(2)Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 11 April 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 11 April 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative
(3) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 11 April 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 11 April 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Jean-Francois_Lyotard
(4) Foster, Hal. 'The Return of the Real : The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century'. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1996. 205.
(5) Foster, Hal. 'The Anti-Aesthetic : Essays on Postmodern Culture'. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”. Fredric Jameson. Washington : Bay Press, 1983. 125.
(6) Jameson, Fredric. 'Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism'. London : Verso, 1990. 18.
(7) Foster, Hal. 'The Anti-Aesthetic : Essays on Postmodern Culture'. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”. Fredric Jameson. Washington : Bay Press, 1983. 116.
