Modernism/Postmodernism

Modernism/modernist art sought to break free from the years of academic art tradition. According to guerilla girls, "From the end of the 19th century to the first of the 20th, a revolution was on everybody's mind, including the artist. Some wanted to change the world, others just wanted to change art." Guerilla 59. As a result, many movements like Abstraction, Abstract expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Fauvism, to name a few, were born. Many art history books have been silent or excluded women artist and their contribution in the modernist movement. In retrospect, one realizes that the modern women played a pivotal role in breaking free from the traditional modes of painting. Thus, they influenced the techniques and development of modern art.

Artist like Sonia Delaunay began to design outfits like her coat designs to cater for the new woman's liberation in 1925. As Chadwick puts it "By the last quarter of the 19th century, the issue of reforming women's dress had become one aspect of wider feminist concerns." Chadwick 254.  The way women presented themselves had a lot to do with the shift in the mindset and will to challenge he status quo. The new woman like Sonia was no longer holding on to old ideas "… applied their ideas about colour to design and made "simultaneous" fabric, clothing, furniture, environments, and even cars." Delaunay’s "work pushed the envelope between art and life" guerilla 61. The crafts began to influence Delaunay's Appliqué outfits, and quilt designs began to influence her paintings. Her painting Simultaneous Contrast in 1912 began her journey into abstraction. She played with geometric shapes and designs in creating her a quilt which was also  influenced by a folk design. This in turn also began to influence her paintings. Her treatments of paints became just about laying the blocks of colours down. She paid attention to the surface of the canvas that has nothing to do with representation space but rather only about the representation of colour and shape, which was not what painting had been about. This is what abstraction was about. She was learning to use colour freely, primacy of colour and colour experiments.

Simultaneous Contrast

1913 Oil on canvas  46 x 55cm

Hannah Hoch, who is under the modernist umbrella, is considered as one of the most successful Dada Artist. Under Dadaism artist were essentially creating new works from a variety of other places, thus collage and assemblage. They were sourcing the things that were being made from the industrial world when the industrial revolution was in full swing. As “the machine” takes over daily life. As mechanization of almost everything, trains, steamships, communication,  steam-based presses, newspapers, these become the materials by which the Dadaist employed to create critical conversations in art. Hoch  challenged   gender  norms  through androgyny and masculine clothing.  Hoch used her art as a space for conversations about sexuality/lesbianism conversations about identity.it was highly feminist and incorporated the politics of her life as well as challenging the male gaze. The Dadaist Collected things from the mechanized world. Newspapers, magazine, packaging, were all brand new luxuries coming up. Dadaist took them and create art with it.

Hoch cut from newspapers and magazines to create a collage. As a modernist, she was already incorporating the mechanism she was already working. Which is an art-historical dialogue within Dadaism. Before the era of modernism, there wasn’t an awareness of the movement you are making work in. This changes in modernism as there is the birth of hyper awareness among artist. They were also using objects to make political commentaries. She Created works that are ingrained in the critical cultural conversation about power, identity, violence. In general Dadaist artist sought to make art from anything they want and call it art. Unfortunately, “Even though Hannah was one of the first artists to make photomontages, using images lifted from the media, the Dada didn’t want any Mamas and opposed her inclusion in their first international exhibition in 1921”.  Post modernism soon began to challenge this kind of exclusionism within the art historical discourse.

Dompteuse(Tamer, 1930. Hannah Hoch.

According to Chadwick “the term postmodernism [was used ] to characterize the breaking down of the unified( though hardly monolithic) traditions of modernism.” Chadwick 380. It also sought to critique how the media positions women in the mainstream popular culture. Advertisement.  Artist such as Cindy Sherman . “postmodernism[drew] heavily on existing representation, rather than inventing new styles, and that it often [derived] its imagery from mass media or popular culture, has focused attention on the ways that sexual and cultural difference are produced and reinforced in these images. Chadwick 380. A lot of questioning characterized it. Political if we have male art genius being innovative That doesn’t include anyone. Post-modernist starts to questions the exclusionism within modernism. Artist such as Cindy Sherman, Marina Abramovic, Sherrie Levine, Babara Kruger to mention few, start to break that “purity”. What art is, who is for, and who has the authority to create art. Post modernisn ushered the emergence of a political shift of power.

One of the most famous and post modernist artist was Cindy Sherman. Cindy Sherman trained as a painter but realized that painting is unnecessary. She came to the realization that kind of images she wanted to make can be resolved with a photograph. And so she experiments with photographs. Post-modernist artists embraced pluralisms instead of innovation. Using that same protest language, they worked in several mediums and championed diversity. They believed there is no one universal experience. They addressed multiple point of view at the same time. All art forms are valid and anyone can make that art out of anything. 

Cindy Sherman

Untitled Film Still #21

1978. Gelatin silver print, 7 1/2 x 9 1/2" (19.1 x 24.1 cm)