Art and the postmodern: What is art?

Okay, in the [Books] thread in an argument that i didnt read because i was drunk i said this;

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

art is becoming more irrelevant to "average" people because it is becoming more and mpre postmodern, that is to say more and more relevant to our future selves and opinions of the future.

we may not see it now, but art is a progression, in my opinion. we have had realism, depicting what is there, and gradually we have changed into what isnt there, what we imagine etc. To me, this is postmodernism.

I know this is just my opinion, but I also know that it is shared by a number of other people in my lectures on the subject.

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Like so many drunken ramblings, I see no problem with it. So I will put it up here for discussion.

I would also like to ask the big question "What is art?". I am talking specifically about the postmodern works and if they can truly be called "artistic". Is it a natural conclusion reached through the course of changing ideas? What will come after it? What will we describe as post-postmodern?

"Post-modern" does not mean "relating to the future" or "relating to what isn't there and what we imagine". The "modern" and "post-modern" labels in art, literature, design, etc. have nothing to do with the normal meaning of modernity, so they shouldn't be taken to be speaking of the present or the future. They have to do with principles or ways of thinking, or perspectives, about history and culture and so forth. Post-modernism is a set of principles or perspectives or ways of thinking about these things, and it came to be in response to the quite different set of principles/perspectives/ways of thinking that is characterized as "modernism".

Also it's important to remember that these very broad labels don't refer to homogeneous chunks of thinking; the "modernist period" is often divided into several different phases with differing characteristics, for instance (1880 modernism is different from 1930 modernism). And what's called "modernist" or "modern" in, say, architecture (buildings that are big sheer-sided glass and steel boxes) might not have so much in common with what's called "modernist" in, say, literature (Proust, Joyce, Yeats, Eliot, etc.). Post-modernism especially is a pretty amorphous term and there's no limit to the amount of time and effort that people will spend arguing over what it is and isn't.

Post-post-modernism is also a term that already exists, and predictably, is used to refer to ways of thinking or principles that are perceived as coming after, and/or in response to, those of post-modernism. Since there is nearly unlimited debate over what "post-modernism" itself means, whether it's dead, etc., you can probably imagine that there is a similar lack of consensus surrounding "post-post-modernism".

As for "what is art", stacks of whole books have been written about that question. Defining it is probably one of the trickiest cultural problems that exists. I certainly can't do it. Whatever art may be, though, I don't see any grounds for claiming that post-modern art doesn't fit the bill. It would probably help for you to provide examples of some of the types of art you're talking about, though.

I know the term "post-postmodern" already exists and i know that the jargon used is extremely wide ranging. But my question is not "what is the answer to the question?". I'm trying to ask "what do you thinkis the answer to the question?". Art is all about the relationship between piece and viewer, in postmodernism anyway.

Jean-francois Lyotard said "The postmodern would be that which...refuses the consensus of taste permitting a common experience" refering to the ideology that the "art" of a piece is a very personal experience of what is presented to you.

Please also bear in mind that for the time being I wish to discuss "postmodernism" in the art sense only. I should have made this clear in the original post. Different rules can be applied to postmodern architecture, literature etc.

As for my question "what is art?", i should make clear that i do not want the official, universal answer, because i know it doesnt exist. I would like to hear opinion and discussion, rather than jargon traps and defeat of points which seem to have plagued so many AI threads. I respect the points you make Syme, and i agree with you, but i cant help feeling youre taking my words to literally and trying to beat me down. I would really like to hear personal responses, what you feel is right, rater than what is a common consensus.

Sorry, I'm certainly not trying to beat you down. Your OP, in which you talked about "modernism" relating to the present and "post-modernism" relating to the future, made it seem like you didn't realize what those terms really meant.

At any rate, when I said I couldn't define art, I wasn't just trying to offer up an "official" answer, I was being personally honest. I don't think I can clearly articulate any definition of "art" that's satisfactory to myself. I'll think on this some more and get back to you if I come up with something, though. But I do stand by my earlier assertion that whatever art may be, I see no reason to suggest that "the post-modern works", as you put it, can't be called truly artistic.

Also, I hate to seem like I'm engaging in more jargon traps or whatever, but a lot of people would suggest that architecture and literature (along with music, film, etc.) are all forms of "art" along with painting and sculpture, which are what I presume you were thinking of when you stipulated postmodernism "in the art sense only". I am guessing you want only to talk about painting and sculpture?


EDIT: Okay, somewhat bizarrely, Wikipedia actually has a definition of 'art' that makes a bit of sense to me: "The process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions". That comes reasonably close to my own ideas about what art is. Obviously this is extremely broad and would encompass music, architecture, literature, performance art, film, fashion, various sorts of visual design, and so on and so forth along with what are traditionally considered visual arts. That's not a problem for me, and as I mentioned above many people would agree that "art" includes all of these things and more, but it may be a bit more over-arching then what you are asking about.

2nd EDIT: Cooking would also be considered an art under that definition.

This is a good point and is sort of what i was after.

I asked the question "what is art?". Some traditionalist critics, followers of classical and even modernist art, refuse to recognise the postmodern as "art". Yet, by your definition, which is shared by me and probably by many of the traditionalist critics, art can encompass many things over a wide range of disciplines. So why is postmodern art overlooked? Why is it not "art"? I agree with you when you say "I see no reason to suggest that "the post-modern works", as you put it, can't be called truly artistic." But there are some that disagree.

So, I guess I'm saying, I need someone to disagree with me before I argue a case.

Hah, sorry I couldn't help. Who are these critics who categorically state that post-modern art isn't art?

The question is more, "Does it make sense to differentiate between a 'high art' separate from the broader category of what's considered art?"

The movement since the late 19th century has been to expand what one considers to be art more and more until stochastic or even completely coincidental things are considered art. Barber wanted the noise of the city to be brought into his symphonies; now, a recording of city noise could be submitted as a musical piece itself. And so much for Dada being "anti-art" when it is now being displayed in museums right next to the works of the great masters.

What do I think? I have a more complex but inchoate idea of the state of art (none of my ideas are complete because I'm intellectually lazy and woefully ignorant), but I'll post that here later.

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Originally Posted by Syme

Hah, sorry I couldn't help. Who are these critics who categorically state that post-modern art isn't art?

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Most of them are probably people completely outside of the established art community altogether. My dad would be among their numbers. He's an art-lover, but not a lover of moder and post-modern art.

And frankly, yes, there is some validity to what they claim. Art use to be relevant to the population at-large. It is not anymore, and it's becoming less so with each decade that passes. The only people who can even name a contemporary living artist are those who are in their elite art community. Most people neither know who they are and don't care because their work simply doesn't speak to them. By contrast, last I checked people were still awe-inspired by the Sistine Chapel. And then these art cognoscenti turn around and blame the general public for not understanding them. That just seems like nonsense.

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Originally Posted by sycld

And frankly, yes, there is some validity to what they claim. Art use to be relevant to the population at-large.

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I'm not necessarily trying to argue with you, but what is your basis for this claim? I have heard this claim before but I have no idea how true it is. It would be interesting if true but I am somewhat suspicious of it. How do you know that art used to have a broader appeal or relevance? We'd have to establish that claim before we could even begin to wonder whether the decline in art's relevance to the general public is the fault of artists, or the general public.

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

I would also like to ask the big question "What is art?". I am talking specifically about the postmodern works and if they can truly be called "artistic". Is it a natural conclusion reached through the course of changing ideas? What will come after it? What will we describe as post-postmodern?

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Well, in my opinion, PoMo is not an independent cultural movement in the same way I would argue Modernism was and is, but rather a reaction to modernism across a wide variety of disciplines.
In literature, whilst Modernism is to me characterised by a deliberate subversion of the themes and styles of "traditional" literature (and so I would naturally see Don Quixote as the first Modern novel, subverting the traditional "Knight Errantry" Genre as it does), culminating in writers like Joyce; to me PoMo in literature is broadly characterised by a loss of these themes and styles (You see the distinction, Modernism subverts tradition but recognises it, whereas Postmodern works struggle to accept OR dispatch with tradition). As an example I would present The Satanic Verses, which struggles to unite traditional Indian concepts with those of modern Britain, but also struggles to recognise either tradition at all.
In Philosophy, Modernism is characterised by confidence in the ability to know and the flourishing of huge systems of thought (the biggest being Positivism in it's confidence of True Knowledge and it's naive assumption that human thought is inevitably progressing, becoming more scientific etc., Existentialism and Phenomenology in their championing of human experience and subjectivity, and I would argue Hegelian Idealism (although appearing much earlier) bears the traits of Modernist thoughts, championing an Absolute Idealism replete with a totally teleological history culminating in knowledge of Absolute Spirit). PoMo is again a reaction, this time characterised by a rejection of any confidence of knowledge, focused on individual subjects rather than totalities, preoccupied with the dislocation between author and work, trying to pull the subjective and the objective back together, an undercurrent of pessimism and so on (See Derrida and Baudrillard).
In Art, the Modernist tendency is away from traditional forms of representation such as romanticism and classicism and towards the disjointed, the irrational, the non-representative, the geometrical as opposed to the representative, proportional, the rational. For me the ultimate examples of this are Mondrian and Matisse. By contrast, the Postmodern loses all sense of the canon whatsoever (i.e. the loss of a "high" and "low" distinction), attempts to imitate traditional styles become kitsch by default, traditional kitsch is, by contrast, exalted, art refers more to other pieces of art than to anything in the "real world", and artists become preoccupied with the Art Gallery (for me, this is the meaning of "modern Art" like urinals in public and so on, it is a fascination with the way in which anything becomes art when it is put where art belongs and/or is expected i.e. coming from an artist, being on display in a gallery).
To me, then, the "postmodern" is Art, but it is art only responding to and in light of Modernism, it is art trying to find itself again. Art has become unsure of what art is and that is why it is preoccupied with places of display and the privileged position of the artist, as this is an indication of where art comes from and where it is put, in the absence of knowledge of what it is.
The post-postmodern will likely be characterised by historical holism, the rehabilitation of a canon, the interplay of different historical periods with each other, less irony and less intellectual distance from itself. In essence it will be syncretic (the appropriate historical analogy would be scholasticism's uniting Greek philosophy with Christian theology). This is what I predict not only for art but across the whole spectrum of fields, and in fact I see The Satanic Verses, mentioned above, as an early indication of this sort of reconciliation.
But I admit that I don't really know that much about the subject (especially in relation to art) and that this post was full of generalities, suppositions and speculations.

Yeah, Think has stated it very well. I would have said that modernism was rational, pessimistic review of what has come before, and in the arts it was characterized by symbolism forming webs of association, existentialism, a greater attempt to render things from a particular person's perspective, and to these ends the beginnings of questioning symbols from the past and subverting them to the purpose of trying to determine how they have subverted and controlled us as humans.

Postmodernism, on the other hand, is the exploding apart of any intellectual framework or constraining form. Well, perhaps more accurately as Think put it, it is focused more on turning an eye upon itself and trying to understand the places, forms, and frameworks that Western art has used for centuries. Sacrosanct symbols and things which were once considered inviolable are profaned are twisted and altered in surprising or shocking ways (famously in Francis Bacon's set of Screaming Pope paintings, based on Velasquez's series of paintings of popes). Art becomes more of a playful game.

I really don't know what post-postmodernism is, and I haven't devoted any thought to it, so I'll take Think's explanation at face value. I thought that syncretism was a mark of postmodernism, but perhaps Think is correct. I remember hearing a contemporary composer praising compositional form and a return to form.

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But I admit that I don't really know that much about the subject (especially in relation to art) and that this post was full of generalities, suppositions and speculations.

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I think you're underestimating yourself and your knowledge.

Thank you all for your views, they have all been taken into account. However I have an issue with almost all of the comments. Not that I'm disagreeing with them in any way.

Most of these posts describe postmodernism and even modernism as going against the norm

Think said "In Art, the Modernist tendency is away from traditional forms"
Sycld said "Postmodernism, on the other hand, is the exploding apart of any intellectual framework or constraining form."

All of these comments link modernism and postmodernism with one being influenced by another. They also seem to describe modernism and postmodernism as soley avant garde (simply being something which opposses the "norm"). So my question now is: Can a piece be postmodern, or even modern, without being avant garde? This may seem like a contradiction in terms as the avant garde being anything other than normal, or anything other than what was before, and both modern and postmodern art being something which was not known before.

Think also mentioned "urinals in public" which he described as "Modern Art". Correct me if I'm wrong but if you are thinking of Marcel Duchamps piece "Fountain" then it is commonly agreed that this is a postmodern piece rather than modern.

I suppose my main questions or the purpose of all the questioning I do is this: Where do we stop? All this jargon, personal interpretations, this web of generalities and near unexplainable ideas seems to be endless. Is there a definitive result which we can reach? If so, why has it not been reached? This may seem like a broad question, and I have already been ridiculed by people more educated than myself, but I feel it necessary to look at the bigger picture.

My theory, or idea as it is hardly as substantial as any theory I've ever seen, is this: Our perseverence and endevour to find an answer to these questions fuels the perseverence and endeavor to create new ones. It might seem obvious or ridiculous. I know people on either side of the argument. I think the answer is too obvious and people like myself create new questions on different branches of an idea almost to just keep busy. Are we overlooking an answer that is right in front of our eyes? Maybe the answer to "why?" is simply because we can. Like any other cultural object, we create new tangents because we want to know where it will take us and if we can create a new tangent off of that. This takes me into a much wider question which i will post later but for now, what are your thoughts?

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

Think also mentioned "urinals in public" which he described as "Modern Art". Correct me if I'm wrong but if you are thinking of Marcel Duchamps piece "Fountain" then it is commonly agreed that this is a postmodern piece rather than modern.

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He was talking about "Modern Art" in quotes, i.e. the colloquial meaning of the phrase or what people think of when they hear "modern art." In that sense, it refers to contemporary art rather than art from the period of modernism.

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Originally Posted by sycld

Yeah, Think has stated it very well. I would have said that modernism was rational, pessimistic review of what has come before, and in the arts it was characterized by symbolism forming webs of association, existentialism, a greater attempt to render things from a particular person's perspective, and to these ends the beginnings of questioning symbols from the past and subverting them to the purpose of trying to determine how they have subverted and controlled us as humans.

Postmodernism, on the other hand, is the exploding apart of any intellectual framework or constraining form. Well, perhaps more accurately as Think put it, it is focused more on turning an eye upon itself and trying to understand the places, forms, and frameworks that Western art has used for centuries. Sacrosanct symbols and things which were once considered inviolable are profaned are twisted and altered in surprising or shocking ways (famously in Francis Bacon's set of Screaming Pope paintings, based on Velasquez's series of paintings of popes). Art becomes more of a playful game.

I really don't know what post-postmodernism is, and I haven't devoted any thought to it, so I'll take Think's explanation at face value. I thought that syncretism was a mark of postmodernism, but perhaps Think is correct. I remember hearing a contemporary composer praising compositional form and a return to form.



I think you're underestimating yourself and your knowledge.

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haha well thank you
As far as my speculations on post-postmodernism go, I would agree with you that PoMo has been characterised by a kind of syncretism but would distinguish two types of it. In PoMo, as you've demonstrated well, historical forms of art have been played with and combined primarily in the name of iconoclasm, and whilst PoMo has no particular conceptual or hermeneutic "worldview", these uses of historical art have nonetheless generally been ironic, playful, cynical and so on, so that art is dislocated from it's historical and hermeneutic context and viewed through the "lens" of PoMo (I would perhaps say "eclectic" rather than "syncretic"). When I say that Post-Postmodernism will likely be syncretic, I mean this in the sense that I anticipate that the canon will be reconstituted, irony and reflexive distance will disappear, and the actual hermeneutic structures of historical art will return. The beauty of this development will be that with this simple change of viewpoint, postmodern work will become post-postmodern retroactively. In Literary Theory, for example, I remember Mikhail Epstein arguing that postmodern concepts will become conventionalised, and as a consequence all the concepts PoMo struggles with and presents tongue-in-cheek will become "naturalised" and taken seriously again. Another early example of this change for me is the "New Sincerity" movement, which deliberately tries to overcome Postmodern Irony. This sudden re-emergence of the whole history and hermeneutics of art which happens as art becomes sincere and self-serious again would inevitably lead to syncretism of quite historically and culturally different forms of art into new systems of composition and interpretation, which would fuel a huge, potentially ahistorical, acultural art movement.
Essentially, I'm arguing that across the humanities and social sciences, I'm increasingly spotting the seeds of the cultural equivalent of the Baha'i faith, and I'm all for it.
Another potential thread of this movement, if you'll allow me to be incredibly speculative and credulous (and bearing in mind that I'm much more confident of the above than of this), is the movement of the left towards a "positive culture" (i.e. defined by independent goals as opposed to being merely a reaction to existing conditions), which started with counterculture but has grown to environmentalism, fair trade advocacy, localisation (in Europe, at least), and most tellingly, cultural syncretism. If you factor in increasing distaste for "consumerism" (particularly the bottling and selling of culture) and the growth of "spiritualism" in all of it's condescending, post-colonial glory, the left increasingly becomes not a negative opposition to right wing "traditional values" (i.e. the traditional leftist "respect and tolerance for different forms of life" with all the accompanying implications of incommensurability between different cultures), but a positive syncretist alternative which simply absorbs the right wing views into a culture of analogy, dialogue and ecumenism.
But maybe that's too much to ask for.

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

Thank you all for your views, they have all been taken into account. However I have an issue with almost all of the comments. Not that I'm disagreeing with them in any way.

Most of these posts describe postmodernism and even modernism as going against the norm

Think said "In Art, the Modernist tendency is away from traditional forms"
Sycld said "Postmodernism, on the other hand, is the exploding apart of any intellectual framework or constraining form."

All of these comments link modernism and postmodernism with one being influenced by another. They also seem to describe modernism and postmodernism as soley avant garde (simply being something which opposses the "norm"). So my question now is: Can a piece be postmodern, or even modern, without being avant garde? This may seem like a contradiction in terms as the avant garde being anything other than normal, or anything other than what was before, and both modern and postmodern art being something which was not known before.

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I would argue that it could not be either Modernist or Postmodernist without being "Avant-Garde", but for different reasons. In Modernism it would be impossible because Modernism is defined by it's compositional and hermeneutic rules, which are precisely different from and in conflict with traditional forms. If you create art in a Classical, Byzantine, Romantic style it is simply by definition not Modernist because it is incommensurable with Modernist paradigms. Now, as has been said, Postmodernism has no such paradigms; however, if you created art in the older styles, it would either be considered Kitsch, and so not art, or it would be considered ironic, and therefore art but for different hermeneutic reasons than for which the art would exist in it's "native" period. Or it would be considered Kitsch in it's naive, genuine attempt to belong to the traditional school, and because of this be considered Art because Postmodernism embraces Kitsch, but again you see the hermeneutic distinction from it's belonging to art simply by virtue of it's compositional and hermeneutic place in the paradigms of historical art.

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

Think also mentioned "urinals in public" which he described as "Modern Art". Correct me if I'm wrong but if you are thinking of Marcel Duchamps piece "Fountain" then it is commonly agreed that this is a postmodern piece rather than modern.

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Originally Posted by sycld

He was talking about "Modern Art" in quotes, i.e. the colloquial meaning of the phrase or what people think of when they hear "modern art." In that sense, it refers to contemporary art rather than art from the period of modernism.

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uh huh

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

I suppose my main questions or the purpose of all the questioning I do is this: Where do we stop? All this jargon, personal interpretations, this web of generalities and near unexplainable ideas seems to be endless. Is there a definitive result which we can reach? If so, why has it not been reached? This may seem like a broad question, and I have already been ridiculed by people more educated than myself, but I feel it necessary to look at the bigger picture.

My theory, or idea as it is hardly as substantial as any theory I've ever seen, is this: Our perseverence and endevour to find an answer to these questions fuels the perseverence and endeavor to create new ones. It might seem obvious or ridiculous. I know people on either side of the argument. I think the answer is too obvious and people like myself create new questions on different branches of an idea almost to just keep busy. Are we overlooking an answer that is right in front of our eyes? Maybe the answer to "why?" is simply because we can. Like any other cultural object, we create new tangents because we want to know where it will take us and if we can create a new tangent off of that. This takes me into a much wider question which i will post later but for now, what are your thoughts?

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Well, obviously this is huge question and not one which we can perhaps ever answer with much confidence, but the provisional one I was going to give you when I read that first paragraph is by and large what you said in the second. It's known as reflexivity in social theory and it means we've got a much greater reason to be annoyed about observer effects than physics has. If we ever figured out how the totality of art, politics, psychology, sociology or economics worked, our very knowledge would increase the complexity of that particular system. I don't think this means that we should ever stop thinking about these things, but if the theory holds, it does mean that the humanities and social sciences are the cultural equivalent of a dog chasing it's own tail.

As to the quote cited in the OP, I think art is becoming less interesting to the "average Joe" because it's becoming so esoteric, as far as "popular" art goes. Sure, there's some people still shurning out paintings that have at least some resembleance to the subject they're intended to depict, or have a discernable message, but when I go to art museums I usually cruise right on through the "modern" sections because they just don't make sense. At the Art Institute of Chicago, for example, there's an installation piece (Clown Torture) that consists of TV monitors all showing a guy in a clown suit doing various things like reading the newspaper, screaming at the camera, and taking a crap. The Institute's web page describes it as "one of the artist’s most spectacular achievements to date" and says it shows "the poetics of confusion, anxiety, boredom, entrapment, and failure." Well, it sure did get me confused and, in my opinion, failed in the attempt to resemble art, so they at least got two out of five.

I think a lot of John Q. Sixpacks out there are like me -- can enjoy a Monet or Rembrandt, Titian, or David, and even a Picasso, Matisse, or Dali now and then (I, in fact, get a good deal of enjoyment from the Surrealists, just seeing their wild imagination combined with their exceptional painting skills), but are at a loss to explain "high art" like the aformentioned Clown Torture or Piss Christ which, in all honesty, anyone could do if they had nothing better to do.

But the classic argument is that "You could have done it, but you didn't"

which begs the question "Is the art in the concept or the final product?"

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

But the classic argument is that "You could have done it, but you didn't"

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Exactly, because I'm busier doing more productive things than filming myself on the crapper. If that's all you gleaned from that post, you missed the point entirely.

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which begs the question "Is the art in the concept or the final product?"

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I would say it's in producing an accurate and comprehensible representation of your concept. Clowns crapping conveys... nothing at all.

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Originally Posted by John Galt

Exactly, because I'm busier doing more productive things than filming myself on the crapper. If that's all you gleaned from that post, you missed the point entirely.


I would say it's in producing an accurate and comprehensible representation of your concept. Clowns crapping conveys... nothing at all.

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I didnt miss the point, I'm just playing devils advocate to lead to more questions. I agree with you entirely, however the artist may argue that clowns crapping is an accurate and comprehensible representation of their concept and therefore the idea of whether or not it is art lies between the art and the viewer, as opposed to the idea which was almost unanimous in the "What is art" thread that it lies between art and artist. So I would ask you: does a piece become art if the artist sees it as such, or if the viewer accepts it as such?

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Originally Posted by John Galt

As to the quote cited in the OP, I think art is becoming less interesting to the "average Joe" because it's becoming so esoteric, as far as "popular" art goes. Sure, there's some people still shurning out paintings that have at least some resembleance to the subject they're intended to depict, or have a discernable message, but when I go to art museums I usually cruise right on through the "modern" sections because they just don't make sense. At the Art Institute of Chicago, for example, there's an installation piece (Clown Torture) that consists of TV monitors all showing a guy in a clown suit doing various things like reading the newspaper, screaming at the camera, and taking a crap. The Institute's web page describes it as "one of the artist’s most spectacular achievements to date" and says it shows "the poetics of confusion, anxiety, boredom, entrapment, and failure." Well, it sure did get me confused and, in my opinion, failed in the attempt to resemble art, so they at least got two out of five.

I think a lot of John Q. Sixpacks out there are like me -- can enjoy a Monet or Rembrandt, Titian, or David, and even a Picasso, Matisse, or Dali now and then (I, in fact, get a good deal of enjoyment from the Surrealists, just seeing their wild imagination combined with their exceptional painting skills), but are at a loss to explain "high art" like the aformentioned Clown Torture or Piss Christ which, in all honesty, anyone could do if they had nothing better to do.

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If you think that those sort of works embody or are representative of "modern art", you really have no idea what modern art is or what the term means. If you cruise right through the modern art sections of galleries because you don't see much meaning in a clown crapping (neither do I), you are doing yourself a disservice. And frankly, if you want to figure who to blame for John Q. Sixpack's disinterest in modern art, blame people like yourself who stereotype and dismiss the field based on a small number of particularly strange pieces.

I understand if you're not into abstract painting or kinetic sculpture or weirdly composed photography or whatever, but when you try to use Clown Torture and Piss Christ as the foundation of your argument about why modern art is crap or doesn't make sense, all you are really saying is "I am ignorant and lack exposure to the type of art I'm trying to criticize".

Art reflects the class nature of those who draw it. The totality of the class a person belongs too and the whole life experiences of the person of that class, etc. along with the natural development of the productive forces and of consciousness. Postmodernism is reactionary and "abstract" art reflects more upon the person who paints it than of the painting itself.

This is why socialist realism existed. As Hoxha noted in 1965: "In regard to literature and the arts which are developing in our country, as in regard to the other issues, there are not two moralities, but only one, the proletarian morality of the working class. The ideas expressed in the works should conform to this morality. A work devoid of ideas and of this morality may occasionally appear to be of some limited interest from the viewpoint of its artistic skill, but from the social ideological viewpoint it cannot have any value."

Also: "There are some who think, and think mistakenly, that by making a flying visit to the base, by sitting in a café, cigarette in hand, in order to see the various types whom they want to put in their work passing in the street, or who think that by walking through some factory or plant, they have gathered the necessary material and go home, where they start to write superficially, and sometimes entirely back-to-front, about those things and people that they 'photographed' in passing. Thus the world of such a person is restricted by the narrow petty-bourgeois concept of the role of the writer, and he thinks that his head is capable of doing great things. But can it be said that the engineers of the hydro-power stations or those who drain the marshes do not work with their heads, and that the writers alone have this privilege? No! But the engineer, quite correctly, works with the people, studies the environment, the nature, draws plans, checks them again with the people, with the best experience of others, encounters difficulties, struggles with them till he overcomes them. But should not our writer and artist work in this way, too?"

Etc. See: http://www.enver-hoxha.net/librat_pd...per_people.pdf

On socialist realism in literature specifically, see: http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/...ress/index.htm

Okay, first of all, like everything else you have ever talked about, you are changing the argument because you cannot bring yourself up to it. Congratulations on your knowledge of Hoxha, im sure he would have been very pleased to know that he could put his penis in you any time he wanted. But you have to stop distorting arguments to bring them to your subject are. It is detremental to the argument as a whole (as in the discussion, not either sides opinion) and it solidifies your status as a one trick pony, and the trick the pony does is extremely boring and has been performed by many ponies before it.

Start bringing yourself to an argument, rather than bringing the argument to you.

As for your claims, you are wrong entirely. You are thinking of the philosiphical theory of postmodernism rather than the art trend. there are major differences. For instance, you said that postmodernism was reactionary. It can be seen as that, certainly in a philosophy sense, but only because it can differ from the traditional. When it does, the uninformed call it a "reaction". The actual reactionary movement to traditional art was modernism, which actively sought to contradict traditional art rules. Postmodernist are removes itself from this linear pattern of actions and reactions in order to make a tangental form of progress, in which a piece may or may not follow rules, and whether it does or does not, it will not be labelled as one or the other. A postmodern piece should say "I am this" and whether you can attribute a framework for why it is what it is, or come to the conclusion that it does not follow any rules is besides the point. It is not a reaction. It just is.

I'm stating that it's reactionary in the framework of class struggle and historical materialism. Obviously we'll have differing views on what constitutes "reactionary."

Since art is a reflection of class, postmodern art cannot be "just is."

well thats because art is not a reflection of class, so again, reconsider the argument based on the fact that you are considering the point in terms of history, when it is clearly meant in terms of art.

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Originally Posted by sailor jack

well thats because art is not a reflection of class, so again, reconsider the argument based on the fact that you are considering the point in terms of history, when it is clearly meant in terms of art.

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I would caution against spending your time arguing against Husein at all, but assuming you want to, you're not doing a very good job of it. He's asserted that art is a reflection of class; you aren't making a good counter-argument by just saying "no it isn't" and telling him to think about art the way YOU think about it instead. Husein affects Hoxhaism (as far as I can gather), which is a sort of Marxism-Leninism and therefore has a certain view of history and of human existence in general. Through this lens, EVERYTHING is a reflection of class. Every aspect of human activity or endeavor, certainly including art. To him, when you say that he should consider the question in terms of art instead of in terms of history or class struggle, you are displaying ridiculous naivete and blindness. Like demanding that someone explain the origins of certain rocks without mentioning geologic processes. In other words he has a philosophy that DOES view art as a reflection of class and it doesn't do you much good to just tell him to drop that philosophy because you don't like it. You'll have to engage with and dispute Marxism as a whole in order to begin arguing against what he's said. That's why I recommend just ignoring him; that discussion would take your thread waaaay off the rails even if you had a chance of winning it, which you don't for several reasons.

And really, generally speaking, when posting in AI and responding to a statement that you disagree with, please don't just say "nu uh it isn't" as if that is a refutation that the other party (or anyone observing) should accept or respect.

Im not telling him to drop his philosophy, i am just stating that the wider ranging philosophy of Hoxhaism must also be integrated with a more concentrated defenition of what the subject is within that general philosophy. I'm not going to spend any time arguing with Husein, which is why I adopted the "Listen buddy, fuck off" approach to his argument because I see him only as a troll and he is just removing the focus from a specific to a generality.

As for the reflection of class issue, yes EVERYTHING is a reflection of class, but that does not mean to say that it sets out to reflect class, which is how I read Huseins post because he linked that idea with the idea that art cannot be something. The idea that art can be "just is" is, albeit a flimsy, reflection of class in itself, but that is not its main objective as a work.