Post-Post-(post post post post) Modernism Suggested Reading?

[Emoree]

does anyone have any suggestions for some books/articles/authors who write in a post-post-modernist vein?  i'm interested in things like sincerity, empathy, emotion, compassion, and honesty in art--- no snark?  No cynicism?  I know, how unfashionable.  Those things are fine for what they are, but they're not what I'm interested in at heart.

[ImaGirl]

post-post-modernist?   oh gosh please don't tell me this is a buzz word lately.  

well, definitions aside, are you just basically looking for contemporary art writers who leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling inside?  

I can't think of many off the top of my head, but if you haven't already then u should read Homi K Bhaba, the Location of Culture.  
If that is too heavy, then maybe see if Bob Ross wrote anything about happy tree, clouds etc. 
 Also, going back into the 20th c. I know Donald Judd was not a fan of post-modernism, and if you can stomach it, try reading Ayn Rand's art theory.   I'd love to have those 4 people at a party, give them a bunch of whiskey and see what happens.

[Emoree]

yeah i figured that writing this post would bring some derision, but if there's anyone on here with any helpful info i figured it was worth it.

 

obviously i don't know how to totally express what i'm looking for since i don't know whether/where it exists.  and if i knew how to express what i was looking for i wouldn't be posting here (except maybe to say-- hey! i found it!).

 

i'm a fan of derrick jensen's writing, if that helps, but he isn't concerned with art at all.  i don't like ayn rand so that won't help either (she wrote art theory???? ugh).  i don't care about reading about anti- post-modernism so forget donald judd.

 

see, the fact that "sincerity, empathy, emotion, compassion, and honesty in art" is automatically equated by some people to Bob Ross and "warm and fuzzy" is problematic to me.  if someone can read A Language Older Than Words (derrick jensen) without crying, precisely because of those "warm and fuzzy" things he indulges in like honesty and compassion (weaving in memories of being raped nightly by his father with the most amazing and perceptive insights into our culture), then that person is so immersed in cynical narcissism i don't know what would reach them and i don't care to find out. 

[ImaGirl]

yeah i figured that writing this post would bring some derision, but if there's anyone on here with any helpful info i figured it was worth it.

 

obviously i don't know how to totally express what i'm looking for since i don't know whether/where it exists.  and if i knew how to express what i was looking for i wouldn't be posting here (except maybe to say-- hey! i found it!).

 

i'm a fan of derrick jensen's writing, if that helps, but he isn't concerned with art at all.  i don't like ayn rand so that won't help either (she wrote art theory???? ugh).  i don't care about reading about anti- post-modernism so forget donald judd.

 

see, the fact that "sincerity, empathy, emotion, compassion, and honesty in art" is automatically equated by some people to Bob Ross and "warm and fuzzy" is problematic to me.  if someone can read A Language Older Than Words (derrick jensen) without crying, precisely because of those "warm and fuzzy" things he indulges in like honesty and compassion (weaving in memories of being raped nightly by his father with the most amazing and perceptive insights into our culture), then that person is so immersed in cynical narcissism i don't know what would reach them and i don't care to find out. 

These things you are looking for are also including within "post-modern" art theory. I think you are just misunderstanding what this even means. I would say that the majority of post-modern artists have elements of "sincerity, emotion......etc" in their work, so I am still completely confused about what you are looking for.  You don't want "anti post-modernism", you just want "post-post(post-post-post-post) modernism"  What did you even mean by that?  That title in itself sounds a bit cynical if you ask me.  

[Emoree]

These things you are looking for are also including within "post-modern" art theory. I think you are just misunderstanding what this even means. I would say that the majority of post-modern artists have elements of "sincerity, emotion......etc" in their work, so I am still completely confused about what you are looking for.  You don't want "anti post-modernism", you just want "post-post(post-post-post-post) modernism"  What did you even mean by that?  That title in itself sounds a bit cynical if you ask me.  

 

yes!  absolutely--- i am/have been extremely cynical, drowned myself in irony, etc. and still use that part of myself, i just want to learn what place sincerity (etc) has in contemporary art.  i really don't care what the theory is called (hence the crazy title) i just don't want to read more about the same old outdated crap--- i want to read new things.

 

basically, i should have just asked what contemporary art theorists people would recommend-- theorists who look mainly forward, while of course drawing on the past, but not being limited by it.

 

thank you for your answers, btw.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Emoree

[woodworked]

i think what you are looking for is metamodernism. i just read a really interesting article about it here: http://artpulsemagazine.com/beyond-postmodernism-putting-a-face-on-metamodernism-without-the-easy-cliches

[hwrios]

Blink: The Viewer as Blind Man in Installation Art

By Blocker, Jane
Academic journal article from Art Journal, Vol. 66, No. 4 

 

A Sidelong Glance: The Practice of African Diaspora Art History in the United States

By Thompson, Krista
Academic journal article from Art Journal, Vol. 70, No. 3 

Community for a Week

By: Hosni, Ahmad | Afterimage, January-February 2013 

Edited February 23, 2013 by hwrios

[Emoree]

Thanks so much woodworked and hwrios!  yay i have some reading

[michaelwebster]

I love Conversation Pieces and The One and the Many by Grant Kester.  Definitely about sincerety, empathy, honesty, and the ethical questions raised through art practice.

 

In regards to the naming, most of the good art historians I have read have mostly abandoned post-modernism unless they leave it between scare quotes.  Many have realized that art made in the 1960s-1980s was not the colossal shift that Greenberg and Fried made it out to be, and that we are still dealing with most of the same frameworks that artists were dealing with at the beginning of the 20th century.  So instead of jumping on the trend bandwagon many are going back to using Modernism for our current time.  Now I don't know about other fields, just what I have been noticing in art writing lately.

[miyamoto81]

Also check out Nicholas Bourriard's Altermodern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altermodern

 

I'm not necessarily condoning the thinking, but it's a part of the current discourse.

[Josholas]

i think what you are looking for is metamodernism. i just read a really interesting article about it here: http://artpulsemagazine.com/beyond-postmodernism-putting-a-face-on-metamodernism-without-the-easy-cliches

 

I really loved this article.  Thank you for posting it!  

[indigoconcord]

 Many have realized that art made in the 1960s-1980s was not the colossal shift that Greenberg and Fried made it out to be, and that we are still dealing with most of the same frameworks that artists were dealing with at the beginning of the 20th century.  So instead of jumping on the trend bandwagon many are going back to using Modernism for our current time.

 

'modernism' in the greenbergian sense relied on an essentialism that has been logically beaten to death. its principles were also exploited and brought to their fruition by minimalism (fried fought hard but lost). art that is aware of its condition and history will never be 'going back' to any such ideology. all of its aestheticisms are now accepted in the contemporary vernacular as valid, if thats what you mean... but this notion that we are once again viewing and making art as a developmental evolution working towards some self-aware transcendental apex (kantian/hegelian/greenbergian modernism) is malarky. i think were quite stuck, and probably always will be (unless the rapture comeslol or we learn how to hone time-warp), in a cycle of contextual relativism. philosophy has been out philosophized and were swimming in a pool of meaninglessness. some see this and can only conjure negativity/cynicism/etc, others see this and realize an existence without inherent meaning allows meaningFULness to be formed in whatever manner each individual sees fit. if sincerity, emotion, empathy, compassion, and honesty is what is meaningful to you, than so be it - but nothing will ever be universal, and you should probably evaluate whether or not your beliefs are held because of a sentiment of universality before you make them the core of your being.

i think that is the condition of contemporary art and life, and i think it is wonderful and terrible at the exact same time.

however, the only contemporary art that i know of which fits the criteria you (emoree) describe, without contradicting itself in an unaware manner, is certain forms of social practice. for example, theaster gates

[michaelwebster]

I wasn't talking about going back to the evolution towards a universal aesthetics, I am well aware of art history (no need to be condescending), and I am not talking about aestheticisms.  I am talking about art historians who have realized that the notion of art as a means of transgression, its attempts at freedom from external determination, and the remanants of avant-gardism place the struggle for pure abstration within the larger scope of modernism rather than define it.  Groups such as the constructivists, dadaists, surrealists, and cubism's challenge to perspective are good examples of work that fits a tighter lineage with today's work than the part of modernism whose goal was pure abstration.  Many art historians in the 70s-90s really highlighted that split as the difference between modernism and post-modernism, and now many good art historians (for example some I studied under at SAIC) are finding too many bridges across that split to keep believing in it.  Too many previous art historians villified Modernism as being all about univeralist pure abstration when in reality that was only a part of modernism.

Edited February 25, 2013 by michaelwebster

[indigoconcord]

? no intention to condescend - i highly respect and appreciate your posts on this forum, theyre an asset. its hard to have meaningful conversations via internet - apologies abound.

i was merely confused by semantics and trying to establish some sort of framework for the terminology. i agree with your premise, but it seemed like your referring to contemporary art theory as "going back to using Modernism" was confused with what you just elaborated on in the post above.

Edited February 25, 2013 by indigoconcord

[hwrios]

michaelwebster, 

 

did you mean "abstraction" or is "abstration" an art word that I haven't heard of yet?  Just wondering bc I'm always behind the times so...

[michaelwebster]

I must keep skipping over the C, haha, well yes I meant abstraction.

[hwrios]

I must keep skipping over the C, haha, well yes I meant abstraction.

Oh gosh, what a relief.  Seriously, I was worried because I try to follow art theory, contemporary writers etc. and I just felt like so out of it if it was meant to be "abstration".  thank you.   In that case, I LOVE what you said!.  

[Emoree]

thanks for the suggestions and leads (and conversation!).  can i venture one more question to narrow it down further for my own personal concerns... how about art/art historians that focus on the human/animal relationship--- in a way that doesn't hurt or exploit animals (ie, no fish in a blender crap, pickled sharks, genetically modified animals, etc.).  the only book i've been able to find is The Post Modern Animal by Steve Baker from 2000.  it was a decent survey, but seemed to only barely scratch the surface and didn't really offer a way forward from the cherished assumption in art that wild animals= "good" and domesticated animals= "bad" (among many other things).

 

i also wanted to reply to this:

 

if sincerity, emotion, empathy, compassion, and honesty is what is meaningful to you, than so be it - but nothing will ever be universal, and you should probably evaluate whether or not your beliefs are held because of a sentiment of universality before you make them the core of your being.

 

i'm well aware of the conflict between what i believe and what is "generally" believed--- i have no illusions of universality in terms of everyone having to believe what i believe.  for instance, every time there is a "discovery" that a particular animal (or insect, etc) has some remarkable feature (crows using tools for instance) my reaction is always "DUH, as if we have ANY clue of the reality and intricacies of nature, why are these findings always a surprise instead of a verification that we can't assume we know anything and we should act as such-- carefully, thoughtfully, respectfully and with restraint"--- while society in general is usually surprised/amazed and then immediately pigeon-holes the finding as something unique to that particular species and not to be thought about too much.  OR, even worse, and which is generally the case, society tries to find a way to make that finding useful to humans at great detriment and enslavement (or extinction, etc) to the other!  christ. 

 

well, i've probably said too much (and too vaguely) but if anyone has any suggestions on artists/theorists grappling with the human/non-human problem ie, what is our place in this void, let me know

Edited February 25, 2013 by Emoree

[hwrios]

I have no idea about authors, but for artists, do you know Tamara Tucker?   

[miyamoto81]

I just want to say how encouraged I am by this thread. Personally, I'm so over this nihilistic/apathetic trend in art making. This gives me hope that a new generation of artists, concerned about these issues, are rising up. 

[Emoree]

I have no idea about authors, but for artists, do you know Tamara Tucker?   

Thank you!!  I *love* her sheep sculptures and her drawings are interesting.  But guess what??  Her name is actually TARA Tucker (unless she recently changed it from Tamara).  i was looking for her website and only could find the Okaygreat article on her which has her name as Tamara.  but their link to her blog shows that her name is Tara.  weird! 

[Emoree]

I just want to say how encouraged I am by this thread. Personally, I'm so over this nihilistic/apathetic trend in art making. This gives me hope that a new generation of artists, concerned about these issues, are rising up. 

 

totally agree.

 

also, this is a nice interview with Tara Tucker. 

 

http://inthemake.com/tara-tucker/

 

she doesn't seem to be overly concerned with any over-arching theory but this is kind of nice:

 

"First of all, I’m a strong believer in not having any rules in art. So, in my fantasy world where there aren’t any humans left on earth and animals have filled in that space, domestic animals have gained some new and fascinating symbiotic relationships with one another. I also love the subliminal idea of domestic animals meeting up with their much more wild and unpredictable buddies."

[kaleidoska]

Hmmm. The Breathless Zoo is a book on taxidermy I browsed recently - I'd read a review of it in the LA Review of Books some time ago - you can read that here: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=955&fulltext=1 . The book itself is a bit airy, though. And I know this is very old news, but just in case, Baudrillard has an essay about animals in Simulacra & Simulation - among other things it touches on sentimentality, and the silence of animals. Also Deleuze & Guattari discuss animals at various points in A Thousand Plateaus.  I really should know more. I'll try to think of something more current.

[Erpnope]

Have you read a history of love by nicole krauss?

[hwrios]

Thank you!!  I *love* her sheep sculptures and her drawings are interesting.  But guess what??  Her name is actually TARA Tucker (unless she recently changed it from Tamara).  i was looking for her website and only could find the Okaygreat article on her which has her name as Tamara.  but their link to her blog shows that her name is Tara.  weird! 

lol

you are right.  I have no idea why i put "Tamara".