Jimmie Higgins
22nd September 2005, 03:45
Ok, so I'm getting a little impacient here! Why do post-modern ideas continue to hold such sway with so many people? In the academic rehlms, po-mo reigns supreme (despite the claims of right-wingers that marxist ideas are dominant in universities). In art, there seems to be some frustration with post-modernism, but there dosn't seem to be any visable art movements against it.
Realistically, I think that it will take a popular political movement that challenges the self-deafeating and anti-humanist and atomizing ideas that underly po-mo by showing that people (when working and struggling together) are not isolated and helpless against the world. But, damn, that's not even the main reason we need to see a movement like that.
Maybe I am just not that hooked-in with the art world and there are new art movements challenging the ideas of existentialism (if so, please tell me where I can read their books or see their art). I tried to look up articals which argued against post-modern ideas, but all I could find were mostly reactionary and right-wing or christian arguments against "relativism" in postmodern thought and art.
Anyone have any suggestions for readings on this subject or radical art which challenges the assumptions of postmodernism?
I don't know that much about art, but it seems like in the early 20th century there were all these different art movements, some good, others crap, but it seems like all the art movements were trying to find new ways of expressing things and it was exciting. Now it seems like it's all simply business and fads and "if you don't get what I'm trying to say with this piece, well then that's the point of this piece" b.s.
I think some great works have been made in post-modernism, (even if I have political disagreements with the ideas behind the art) but post-modernism has far outlasted any progressive achievements it may have contributed. Now postmodernism just seems like cannibalism: art commenting on nothing and referincing itself.
end of rant.
Realistically, I think that it will take a popular political movement that challenges the self-deafeating and anti-humanist and atomizing ideas that underly po-mo by showing that people (when working and struggling together) are not isolated and helpless against the world. But, damn, that's not even the main reason we need to see a movement like that.
Maybe I am just not that hooked-in with the art world and there are new art movements challenging the ideas of existentialism (if so, please tell me where I can read their books or see their art). I tried to look up articals which argued against post-modern ideas, but all I could find were mostly reactionary and right-wing or christian arguments against "relativism" in postmodern thought and art.
Anyone have any suggestions for readings on this subject or radical art which challenges the assumptions of postmodernism?
I don't know that much about art, but it seems like in the early 20th century there were all these different art movements, some good, others crap, but it seems like all the art movements were trying to find new ways of expressing things and it was exciting. Now it seems like it's all simply business and fads and "if you don't get what I'm trying to say with this piece, well then that's the point of this piece" b.s.
I think some great works have been made in post-modernism, (even if I have political disagreements with the ideas behind the art) but post-modernism has far outlasted any progressive achievements it may have contributed. Now postmodernism just seems like cannibalism: art commenting on nothing and referincing itself.
end of rant.