Modernism v. Post-Modernism

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #33, 1979

 Modernism and post-modernism are two eras that still reside in today’s art world. These two eras have impacted our current techniques, styles, muses, and themes of art. Women artist, previously pushed out of the practice are now pushing back and becoming even more prominent in the art industry. Without modernist and post-modernist women artist like Cindy Sherman , Georgia O'Keefe, Frida Khalo, and Yoko Ono then we would not have the influential works we still admire and inspire off of today. 

Georgia O'Keefe,
Pink and Blue Music II, 1918

Georgia O'Keefe,
Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue,
1931

Beginning with modernism, this is the era where art became a rebellion. Artist continuously trying to combat the traditions that history had laid out for us and reinvent our environment. It is imperative for us at that time that we reinvent ourselves as a society because the modernist era peaked sometime after World War I which severely damaged our country. With the burning desire to alter our morals change, art during modernism was meant to pull emotion from the audience in an attempt to effect change. With art being a symbol of elite and intelligence, by using emotion to guide its viewers, it pushed the agenda for the future which was an optimistic outlook. During modernism, abstract art became the main techniques used as abstract art was not meant to be representative but rather symbolic and the embodiment of the feelings the artist was pushing onto the viewers. Similar to German expressionism, the physical techniques used for abstraction were geographical shapes and simple lines, even brushstrokes. Women influenced the techniques of modernism because they based their art on this abstraction and their work depicted emotion rather than the realism that has been neglected during this era. Because the modernism era was about expression and experimentation, O’Keefe’s ability to exude her confidence through her work and utilize her intelligence in every piece she created. For example, on the right we see O'Keefe's Cow Skull: Red, White, and Blue. This particular is piece is depicts O'Keefe's idea of the American patriotism which is symbolized in the red, white and blue, that adorns the painting. With women not being allowed to discuss politics because it was a "man's game

", it is evident that O'Keefe is in charge of her own topics of discuss and blatantly crosses the lines draw by society. This is the main idea of modernism and it is why Georgia O'Keefe was considered the Mother of Modernism. The Guerilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art, uses a quote from O’Keefe that captures her confidence in her work and her impact on the art world. O’Keefe says, “’The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I’m one of the best painters.’—Georgia O’Keefe” (Guerrilla Girls 75). This reinforces the notion that modernism is all about rejecting the societal norms up until that point and redirecting attention to more pressing matters like political stances and thing within that nature. The reason why women played such a large part in these two eras were because they already understood the complexities that came with turning their faces away from what society claimed to need in order to reach an equilibrium. Women have faced oppression for years and slowly but surely more and more women have joined the fight so once modernism was deemed a time for rejecting the status quo women had already become pros and gracefully entered this time period and claimed it for themselves. 

Frida Khalo depicts her miscarriage at
  Henry Ford Hospital in 1932

          Similar to Georgia O'Keefe, Frida Khalo used her art to cross boundaries that were typically shied away from in society. Although Frida was not an abstract worker and her painting were more representational than O'Keefe, both women were able to express the most vulnerable and provocative parts of themselves. Frida Khalo was a big part of the Mexican modernist movement and it is unfortunately a wonder how her and her became so recognizable because women, especially women of color, were not highly regarded when it came to art. Khalo has produced a large number of provocative paintings that allowed her audience to be deep in her personal life including the tragedy of her infertility. In the painting Henry Ford Hospital, Khalo depicts her physical and emotional pain after having a mother miscarriage. After a trolley accident at 18, Khalo was rendered immobile for a long time and the side effects from that accident continuously peeked its ugly head at every corner in Frida'a life. It is paintings like Henry Ford Hospital that really embody the true essence of the modernist movement because this is a paining that provokes emotion seemingly normalizes the pain that women have always hid from the public eye. Now that modernism has become a time of rebellion against the norm and producing things that pull deeply rooted emotions from the viewers, works like Frida's have been accepted into society as fine class art.

          Introducing post modernism was basically the anti of modernism. Where the central goal of

Yoko Ono and her husband on the set
of their film Rape  in 1969

 modernism was to reject societal norms, the central goal of post- modernism was to reject modernism and completely reshape it into something new. The two eras were completely different in that art took on a different form, a different meaning by the tim post modernism began. Post modernism was a time when art was for everyone and everyone's experiences and forms of expression were accepted and equal. Performance art, for example, was a very unusual art style that previously was not considered to be art but then women like Yoko Ono came along. Yoko Ono is famous for many performance art pieces including her "Cut Pieces" performance where the only rule was that the participant cut off a piece of her clothing. It began very conservative as women and men cut from the sleeves, the shoulders, the tips of the dress-- staying away from her most private areas. As the demonstration progressed it is evident that the women were much more respectful toward Ono and her body as opposed to some of the men who even went as far as to cut her bra straps exposing her chest. Additionally, not only did Ono produce live performance art, but she made instructional poems, instructional paintings, and even created 16 films including one her more famous films, Rape. 

In this film Ono depicts the terror women feel every day doing simple task like walking home alone from work. This is an important example of post modernism because, while it does battle the idea of only the "elite" can understand and receive art it a contain modernist ideas such as provoking emotion from the audience. Whitney Chadwick's Women, Art, and Society explains how Hollywood used films that were specific to women and the female struggles of the time. Chadwick writes, "Hollywood was producing the first of a series of films popularly known as 'weepies.' Addressed to a female audience, their female protagonists confronted issues or problems specific as 'female'— domestic life, the family, maternity, self-sacrifice, and romance" (319). 

          

Works Cited

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, And Society. Fifth ed., Thames & Hudson, 2012.
Guerilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books, 1998.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/52.203/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AQex3Awa88