Postmodernism at its finest

1.) According to Andy Grundberg’s  Crisis of the real, postmodernism is “in its art and theory, is a reflection of the conditions of our time.”  (Grundberg, 165) He goes on to explain that how postmodernism was defined in different mediums in art. All mediums have a different interpretation and style postmodernism. For example in architecture, “postmodernism is involved with redecorating the stripped-down elements of architectural modernism, thereby restoring some of the emotional complexity and spiritual capacity that the best buildings seem to have.” (Grundberg,165) This definition of postmodernist architecture would not be exactly the same as the definition of other postmodernist art. Grunberg states, “The same condition exists in music, and in literature-each defines its postmodernism in relation to its own peculiar modernism.” (Grundberg, 166) I believe that postmodernism is a critique of modernist art, explanation of the new age, and represents art of its own style.

 

 2.) One main characteristic of postmodernist photography is the “self-conscious awareness of being a camera based and camera bound culture.” (Grundberg, 170) Also, postmodernist photography came from “assembling one’s art from a variety of sources.” (Grundberg, 169) Although postmodernist photography is very different from modernist photography, postmodernist is a response to the works in the modernist era. Instead of photography being thought of as an inferior form of art, it is thought of as significant. Culturally, it is more accepted, because society is more “camera bound”.  This can be related to the thought that postmodernism “is a reflection of the conditions of our time.” (Grundberg 165) Also, instead of creating “original” work to produce an idea, postmodernist photography was known to recycle ideas to make a new piece. In this sense, Postmodernism relates to modernism, because it was formed out of the modernist era. “Modernism required that photography cultivated the photographic.” (Grundberg, 175)  Postmodernism, however, has an “awareness of the act of photographing ad the two dimensional, cropped-from-a-larger-context condition of the photograph as a picture.” (Grundberg, 175)  In these aspects, postmodernism challenges modernism.