Lecture 12/10/2011
Post-Modernism
Richard Mills
Modernism -
initially born out of optimism, an aspirational, reaction to WW1, with a view
to harnessing technology to improve peoples lives.
Form follows
function
Modernism is
associated with:
experimentation
innovation
individualism
progress
purity
originality
seriousness
The p-mod
condition is characterized by:
exhaustion
pluralism
pessimism
disillusionment
with the idea of absolute knowledge
reaction to:
modern life/ technology/ new materials/ communication
Jean Tinguely:
‘Homage to New
York’
opposite of art
start post -mod
Origins of p-mod -
1917
German writer
Rudolph Pannwitz spoke of nihilistic
1960’s - begins
1970’s -
established as term (Jencks)
1980’s -
recognizable style
1980’s &90’s -
dominant theoretical discourse
Today - tired and
simmering
Post Modernism
term:
after modernism
the historical era
following the modern
contra modernism
equivalent to
‘late capitalism’ (Jameson)
artistic and
stylistic eclecticism
‘global village’ phenomena:
globalization of cultures and races.
Quote 1 - Robert
Venturi: ‘Complexity and Contradiction in Modern Architecture’ 1962
‘I like elements
which are hybrid rather than ‘pure’, compromising rather than ‘clean’,
distorted rather than ‘straight-forward’, ambiguous rather than ’articulated’,
perverse as well as impersonal...’
1972 learning from
Las Vegas: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown & Steven Izenour
Charles Jencks:
the language of
post modern architecture (1977)
Missouri 15th July
1979, 3:32 pm - He states that at this time Modern Architecture died, when the
Pruit-Igoe housing development was blown up
Arch controls you,
rather than you control it
Post - Mod:
post-mod has an
attitude
i am a movement
no rules
critique of the
international style
celebrates what
might otherwise be termed ‘kitsch’
sea-gram building
1957
Park hill
Sheffield - failed project, residents wanted to be knocked down because it
wasn’t a nice place to live! Government wouldn’t knock it down so they gave it
a post mod make over.
Frank Gehry -
guggenheim museum, Bilboa 1998
James Striling,
nelle staatrgalerie, Stuggart, Germany 1977-1983
bits look modern
but bits classical
post mod- try’s to
do the opposite of modernism, reacts to it.
Quinlan Terry
(1992-93) the maitland Robinson library at Downing College, Cambridge uni -
conservative post mod.
J-F Lyotard:
‘The post mod
condition’, 1979 (trans. Manchester 1984)
Fragmentation,
loss of belief, confusion regarding legitimation - especially criteria of
judgement... Result - crises in confidence
Quote 2
‘Generally post
modern artist like to mix the highbrow and the populist, the alienating and the
accessible, and to ‘sample’ elements from different styles and eras...
..now you can
reinvent yourself endlessly, gaily pick ‘n’ mixing your way through the gaudy
fragments of a shattered culture’.
Instead of looking
at new materials - post mod aesthetics
complexity chaos
mixing
High art/low art -
beginning to crumble high fashion
Las Vegas:
post modern city,
styles class, dystopia
Andy Warhol -
Marilynn Monroe
art becomes
advertising
Memphis Group
founded in 1981
Space for
Marginalized discourse: woman, sexual, diversity
Conclusion:
a vague disputed
term
questioning
modernism
post-mod aesthetic
= multiplicity of styles and approaches
shift in thought
and theory investigating ‘crises in confidence’
space for new
voices
rejection of
technological determinism?
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