modernism/post

1.The Modern art movement began around the turn of the century when the imagery of painting became less photographic and more optical, its when art became more about what could be seen in the light and shadow than any actual objects. The height of modern art was when Clement Greenberg introduced Formalism and nurtured and promoted artists who became source material to support his argument of the evolution towards “purity”

2.Modern art ended with the destruction of Pruitt-Igoe, a modernist housing project that failed after a mere 20 years. This was one of the first demolitions of modernist architecture and has been called the “end of modernism”

3.Modern art movements, after Clement Greenberg “established a theory of artistic progress” became the expression of pure opticality. There was only the object flat on the wall or a mass of space in a room. No narrative or referential imagery were allowed, that was not an evolution towards purity. Artists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollok are examples of pure painting, only paint and canvas, it is not a window into another space or symbolic of anything it is only itself.

4. The Post-Modern art movement was a reaction against modernisms purity, but more than that it was a reaction against art history, the rules of the past were no longer acknowledged by Post-Modernists. Anything and everything was allowed in Post-Modernism if only to throw off the chains of formalism and “purity”. Minimalists made huge objects; which forced the audience to engage the work. Pop Art allowed references to popular culture, perhaps even including popular culture within the realm of “art”.

5. niche egotism, I call the current movement this because there are an infinite number of pockets of artist communities, all of which feel they are making the real art. This probably started around the late nineties when the internet took off because it made possible about a billion more kinds of art and aesthetics and fragmented the population to fit into all these new little mini-movements.