1. Modernism

2. And Now For Something Completely Different
Modernism began as a rejection of the ideas or cultural baggage of the past in the 19th Century.
New ideas such as evolution, psychology and socialism (Marxism) changed the way people looked at the world.
God was suddenly dead, everyone was driven by their subconscious and all people were equal.
Modernism was (is) about new ideas, new ideas all of the time.

3. What is modernism? Rejection of traditional style and values
A cultural movement
Late 19th – early 20th C
Literature (Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Franz Kafka and T.S Eliot)
Architecture (Frank Lloyd Wright, Norman Foster, Le Corbusier )
Art/ Design
Rejection of traditional style and values

4. Functionality in architecture
Rejection of distinctions between high and low culture
Rejection of how texts ‘should’ be received
Celebration of plurality
Radical individualism against social forces in literature

5. Old traditions were outdated
Overtly self conscious
Favoured form over style
Sees the past as different and over
Traditional authorities to be questioned
Modernism attempted to rethink science, art, culture, ethics, philosophy and psychology

6. MODERNism Masculinity- most modernist masters were male.
The term Modernism refers to an approach to art making defined by certain common characteristics.
(Some of )These commonalities are:
Masculinity- most modernist masters were male.
European- most modernist masters were European.
Utopian- most modernist masters sincerely believed in a better world through better art (their own)
Media before subject matter- most modernist masters thought the best, most honest art was to use the technique of art as the subject matter. They believed this would get them closer to what art was really about.

7. Culmination of Modernity (industrialism, capitalism, nation states, technology) - Transformation of the world

8. Examples of Modernist Art at Home and Abroad
Paul Cezanne (FR) 1885

9. Examples of Modernist Art at Home and Abroad
Rita Angus (NZ) 1936

10. Examples of Modernist Art at Home and Abroad
Franz Marc (GER) 1912

11. Examples of Modernist Art at Home and Abroad
Philip Clairmont (NZ) 1977

15. A Girl
The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast - Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child - so high - you are, And all this is folly to the world. Ezra Pound

16. Modernism Vs. Postmodernism
Modernism began in the 1890s and lasted till about Postmodernism began after the Second World War, especially after 1968.
Modernism was based on using rational, logical means to gain knowledge while postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking.

17. Rather, the thinking during the postmodern era was based on unscientific, irrational thought process, as a reaction to modernism. A hierarchical and organized and determinate nature of knowledge characterized modernism. But postmodernism was based on an anarchical, non-totalized and indeterminate state of knowledge.

18. Post Modernism Post Modernism began from scrutiny of Modernism.
The artists and intellectuals of the 1970s began to look at Modernism as being a bit dodgy. This attitude reflected upheavals in society: feminism, equal rights and protest movements.
Where were the women? What about their art?
Where were the Africans? The Asians? What about their art?
Utopianism? Look at what Stalin did (millions dead)! Who controls the media? You can’t trust anyone!
Media before subject matter? That’s a dead end. And what about other stuff like comics? Can that be art?

19. Modernist thinking asserts that mankind progresses by using science and reason while postmodernist thinking believes that progress is the only way to justify the European domination on culture. Modernist thinking believes in learning from past experiences and trusts the texts that narrate the past.

20. POST MODERNISM
Post Modernism (in Art) covers the period from the end of the 1960s with Pop Art until the present.
The following quote by Italian philosopher, art critic, literary scholar and novelist Umberto Eco sums up the post modern attitude :
“The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her ‘I love you madly’, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say ‘As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly’. At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that it is no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of lost innocence. If the woman goes along with this, she will have received a declaration of love all the same. Neither of the two speakers will feel innocent, both will have accepted the challenge of the past, of the already said, which cannot be eliminated; both will consciously and with pleasure play the game of irony… But both will have succeeded, once again, in speaking of love.”

21. On the other hand postmodernist thinking defies any truth in the text narrating the past and renders it of no use in the present times. Modernist historians have a faith in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it. This is not the case with postmodernist thinkers.

22. They believe in going by the superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show no concern towards the depth of subjects. Modernism considers the original works as authentic while postmodernist thinkers base their views on hyper-reality; they get highly influenced by things propagated through media.

23. POST MODERNISM
Post Modernist art shares some commonalities, these include:
Irony: the use of low brow imagery in a high brow context.
Questioning what Art is.
Appropriation: the use of another's imagery in a new context to create a new meaning (also referencing)
Juxtaposition: using incongruent styles together, abstract and figurative.
Pluralism: multiple viewpoints (political), openness to difference in sex, race etc.
Deconstruction: looking at the multiple meanings in imagery/text to find bias.

24. Art and literary works began to be copied and preserved by the means of digital media. People no longer believed in art and literary works bearing one unique meaning; they rather believed in deriving their own meanings from pieces of art and literature.

25. Interactive media and Internet led to distribution of knowledge
Interactive media and Internet led to distribution of knowledge. Music like Mozart, Beethoven, which was appreciated during modernism became less popular in the postmodern era. World music, Djs and remixes characterized postmodernism. The architectural forms that were popular during modernism were replaced by a mix of different architectural styles in the postmodern times.

26. Post Modernism in Film- “Blue Velvet”

27. Some Examples of Post Modernism from at Home and Abroad
Cindy Sherman (US)

28. Some Examples of Post Modernism from at Home and Abroad
Yvonne Todd (NZ)

29. Some Examples of Post Modernism from at Home and Abroad
Jeff Koons (US)

30. Some Examples of Post Modernism from at Home and Abroad
Michael Parekowhai (NZ)