Post-Modernism
Lecture
12/10/2011
Post-Modernism
Richard
Mills
Modernism
- initially born out of optimism, an aspirational, reaction to WW1, with a view
to harnessing technology to improve peoples lives.
Form
follows function
Modernism
is associated with:
experimentation
innovation
individualism
progress
purity
originality
seriousness
The
p-mod condition is characterized by:
exhaustion
pluralism
pessimism
disillusionment
with the idea of absolute knowledge
reaction
to: modern life/ technology/ new materials/ communication
Jean
Tinguely:
‘Homage
to New York’
opposite
of art
start
post -mod
Origins
of p-mod - 1917
German
writer Rudolph Pannwitz spoke of nihilistic
1960’s
- begins
1970’s
- established as term (Jencks)
1980’s
- recognizable style
1980’s
&90’s - dominant theoretical discourse
Today
- tired and simmering
Post
Modernism term:
after
modernism
the
historical era following the modern
contra
modernism
equivalent
to ‘late capitalism’ (Jameson)
artistic
and stylistic eclecticism
‘global
village’ phenomena: globalization of cultures and races.
Quote
1 - Robert Venturi: ‘Complexity and Contradiction in Modern Architecture’ 1962
‘I
like elements which are hybrid rather than ‘pure’, compromising rather than
‘clean’, distorted rather than ‘straight-forward’, ambiguous rather than
’articulated’, perverse as well as impersonal...’
1972
learning from Las Vegas: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown & Steven
Izenour
Charles
Jencks:
the
language of post modern architecture (1977)
Missouri
15th July 1979, 3:32 pm - He states that at this time Modern Architecture died,
when the Pruit-Igoe housing development was blown up
Arch
controls you, rather than you control it
Post
- Mod:
post-mod
has an attitude
i
am a movement
no
rules
critique
of the international style
celebrates
what might otherwise be termed ‘kitsch’
sea-gram
building 1957
Park
hill Sheffield - failed project, residents wanted to be knocked down because it
wasn’t a nice place to live! Government wouldn’t knock it down so they gave it
a post mod make over.
Frank
Gehry - guggenheim museum, Bilboa 1998
James
Striling, nelle staatrgalerie, Stuggart, Germany 1977-1983
bits
look modern but bits classical
post
mod- try’s to do the opposite of modernism, reacts to it.
Quinlan
Terry (1992-93) the maitland Robinson library at Downing College, Cambridge uni
- conservative post mod.
J-F
Lyotard:
‘The
post mod condition’, 1979 (trans. Manchester 1984)
Fragmentation,
loss of belief, confusion regarding legitimation - especially criteria of
judgement... Result - crises in confidence
Quote
2
‘Generally
post modern artist like to mix the highbrow and the populist, the alienating
and the accessible, and to ‘sample’ elements from different styles and eras...
..now
you can reinvent yourself endlessly, gaily pick ‘n’ mixing your way through the
gaudy fragments of a shattered culture’.
Instead
of looking at new materials - post mod aesthetics
complexity
chaos
mixing
High
art/low art - beginning to crumble high fashion
Las
Vegas:
post
modern city, styles class, dystopia
Andy
Warhol - Marilynn Monroe
art
becomes advertising
Memphis
Group founded in 1981
Space
for Marginalized discourse: woman, sexual, diversity
Conclusion:
a
vague disputed term
questioning
modernism
post-mod
aesthetic = multiplicity of styles and approaches
shift
in thought and theory investigating ‘crises in confidence’
space
for new voices
rejection
of technological determinism?
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