20th Century Art History and the Idea of Late Modernism

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The art movements and artists
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Charles Jencks, being among the scholars of modernist art, has built up a case for using the idea of late modernism in serious debates of architecture and other arts of the twentieth century. He assigns as “late modernist” the not-ceasing practice in the architecture of an avant-garde utopianism and moralism as well as the purist style at the time when the classic era of “international style architectural modernism” was over (Miller 9).

Late modernism includes all production (in general) of the latest art produced after the Second World War and during the early years of this century. The term “Late modernism”, normally explains the similarities between modernism and postmodernism though differences do exist. The common term introduced from the mid-twentieth century in the field of art is “Contemporary art”. Not all pieces of art termed contemporary art is modernist or post-modernist. This term is wide and includes the artists who go on working in the modern as well as late modernist arena, and also those artists who do not accept modernism and accept postmodernism.

The art movements and artists

Abstract Expressionism

Towards the end of the 1940s, the radical approach of Jackson Pollock to paint caused the prospective for the overall contemporary art to undergo a revolution. To a particular level, he realized that the move towards coming up with artwork was as significant as the work of art itself. Just in the same way as the innovative reinventions of painting as well as sculpture done by Pablo Picasso towards the end of the century through the constructed sculpture as well as cubism, Jackson Pollock defined afresh how art is supposed to be set up at the time when the century was in the middle.

Generally, abstract expressionism build up and made larger the descriptions and potentials that were at the disposal of the artists for the setting up of art’s fresh networks. In one way or the other, the innovations set up by Pollock among other artists like Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, and Mark Rothko just but to name a few made a way for the realization of the diversified and wide-scoped art that came after them.

Pop Art

This was employed by Lawrence Alloway to describe the paintings that made renowned the consumerism of the epoch that came after the Second World War. This movement did away with Abstract Expressionism and did not accept it. It rejected the focus of Abstract Expressionism on the psychological interior as well as hermeneutic in support of art that portrayed and normally made renowned advertisement, material consumer way of life, and iconography of wide creation era.

Some of the artists’ works considered to be the seminal examples in this movement include the works of such people as John McHale, Edwardo Paolozzi, David Hockney, and Richard Hamilton. Varied opinions have come up regarding whether this movement is postmodern or late modernist. Thomas MacEvilly and Dave Hickey suggest that this movement is postmodern. Thomas concurs with Dave and suggests that postmodernism in the visual arts came up with the initial display of pop art in the year 1962. The inclination of this movement towards being postmodern is seen in its breaking down of what is referred to as the “Great divide” by Andreas Huyssen between “popular culture” and “high art”.

Fluxus

This movement was organized in the year 1962 by George Maciunas who was an American artist. This movement boosted “A do it yourself” artistic simplicity that was highly prized and discouraged complexity. Just like Dada that had come up earlier on, this movement comprised a powerful anti-commercialism current and an anti-art awareness, disapproving the predictable market-driven field of art and backing a creative practice that is centered on the artist. The artists of this movement chose to operate with any available material and came up with their work and in other cases working together to create the work collectively.

There is criticism that comes from one person by the name of Andreas Huyssen in who opposes claims of Fluxus for postmodernism. According to him, he views this movement as a main “Neo-Dadaist phenomenon” in the tradition of the avant-garde. Fluxus was not a representation of a big step forward in the building up of the strategies of art (Huyssen 196).

Conceptual art

This movement turned out to be a significant development in contemporary art towards the end of the 1960s. The movement offered a critical assessment of the status quo. In the course of the 1960s, the late modernist grew bigger and then shrank and among some people, they regarded conceptual art as having made an absolute break from modernism. This movement is at times branded as postmodern since it specifically engages in the destruction of what builds a work of art. Dunchamp can be viewed as the pioneer of this movement.

Installation art

This is a kind of contemporary art that came to be renown in the course of the 1970s. Most people trace the origins of this movement to the artists who came up earlier on, such as Marcel Duncham and his utilization of the readymade art objects instead of the sculpture that is built upon the basis of the traditional craft. The artist’s aim is dominant in the installation art that came up at a much later time whose origins can be traced in the conceptual art that came up in the course of the 1960s. More so, this is a break from the traditional sculpture which concentrates on the form.

Installation art is a significant series of movements in art that have, continuously, acquired a description as postmodern, engaged installation art, and bringing about of artifacts whose nature is conceptual. This can be illustrated through Jenny Holzer’s signs which employ the art’s machinery to pass over specific messages. An example of such a messages is “Protect me from what I want”.

This movement has been quite significant in giving a determination of the spaces that are chosen for the contemporary art’s museums to enable the holding of the big works formed by huge collages of the objects that are either found or manufactured.

Intermedia and Multi-media

This is another movement in art that has been linked to postmodern terminology. This is a trend that involves the use of several media collectively. “Intermedia” refers to the concept that was used in the course of the mid-1960s by Dick Higgins – who was the Fluxus art – to describe the activities inexpressible, cryptic, and interdisciplinary that come about between genres that turned out to be common in the course of the 1960s.

Among the most renowned “multi-media art” forms is the utilization of the CRT monitors as well as the video tapes. This is generally referred to as Video art. Whereas the theory of coming up with a combination of several arts to come up with a single art is something that is very old and has been renewed over and over in the cause of different periods, the postmodern demonstration is normally in arrangement with performance art, where the spectacular suggestion is eliminated and what remains behind is the definite statements the artist under consideration or the conceptual statements of their deed.

Conclusion

In the field of art, the specific modernism behaviors which are quoted are in overall terms, medium specificity, the significance of general art truth, art for its own sake, formal purity, and the significance of avant-garde and inventiveness. But this point is among the sources of controversy in the field of art, where several arguments arise from various institutions on the basis that having a vision and foreseeing in the future and forward-moving are critical to the art’s mission in the current times and postmodern thus is a representation of a contradiction of the worth of art of the current times.

Works Cited

Andreas, Huyssen. Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia, Routledge, 1995. p196. ISBN: 0415909341.

Miller, Tyrus. Late modernism: politics, fiction, and the arts between the world wars. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN: 0520216482, 9780520216488

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