dogs playing
cards:
powerbrokers of prejudice in education, art, and culture
dennis earl fehr, ed.d.
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dogs playing
cards: |
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SECTION ONE
A REVISED SURVEY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER 4
POSTMODERNISM
Imagine
there’s no heaven. And no hell
below.
—John
Lennon
In the 1960s the modernist arc of abstraction breathed its last in the conceptualist movement and we entered a new art historical period. While historians were busy looking for a real name for it, the rest of us began to use the limp label postmodernism, just to call it something. (I understand that since then, an idea with an even worse name, post-postmodernism, has emerged from what surely are the dankest dens of academe.) In any event, the label has inserted itself into current parlance. Another label, paradigm shift, a punchy term that is used too loosely, does describe the present moment without overstatement. We have entered a time in which a change in what it means to be human is occurring. Using another phrase, Flax (1990) states, “Western culture is in the middle of a fundamental transformation.... In retrospect, this transformation may be as radical...as the shift from a medieval to a modern society.”
The first use of the term ‘postmodernism’ occurred in the 1950s in literary criticism; however, in the arts it first referred only to architecture.
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| House
2 Walter Gropius 1938 |
Villa
Savoye Le Corbusier 1930 |
The International style of Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and the rest of the Bauhaus coterie epitomized the minimalist tendencies of modernism, which is why tedious glass and steel boxes define the skyline of virtually every major city today. On the other hand, the random historical borrowings of postmodern architects such as I.M. Pei and Frank Gehry symbolize this new period's penchant for blurring boundaries.
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| Rock
and roll hall of fame I. M. Pei 1998 |
Guggenheim
Museum Frank Gehry 1997 |
“The deliberate conglomerizing of purposes characterize[s] postmodern art and architectural styles” (Lather, 1991). This seems equally appropriate in describing postmodern philosophy, literature, and criticism. The fact that we even have postmodern philosophy, literature and criticism, not to mention architecture, dance, theater, painting, film, and music, points out its umbrella-like nature. Likewise found beneath this umbrella are the vortices of feminism, post-industrialism, deconstructivism, multiculturalism, and the host of other jargon-rich '-isms' that bridge the moat around the once-isolated art world.
The only certainty of postmodernism is its ambivalence. This ambivalence is found among some artists and social activists who perhaps take the worthy lessons of Marxism too far. They disavow material wealth, choosing instead to brighten the corner where they are by entering the low-paying "helping" professions, recycling the newspaper, wearing t-shirts printed with pithy commentary, and adorning unlikely parts of their bodies with body art including piercings and tattoos. All of this might be quite laudatory (I have done all of the above except the body art, the thought of which frightens me far too much). However worthy these acts, they change the big picture very little. In fact, this vow of poverty might be the biggest mistake the Left makes. A more helpful approach would be to acquire as much wealth as possible and then give it generously to good causes, especially the political campaigns of candidates sympathetic to health care and education for the poor, environmental concerns, equal rights legislation, and so on. Many Leftists seem deaf to the thunderous fact that Big Government has done a great deal to improve the lot of humanity. In the U. S. alone we look proudly to the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the granting of voting rights to women and Blacks, the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, and integration of the schools, just for starters.
But, some ask, what if we fall in love with our wealth and forego our humanitarian inclination to give? This is a legitimate question; however, by remaining proudly poor we fail to elect people we admire—even as we watch private sector capitalists stack the legislative, executive and judicial decks with impunity.
Some well-intended artists produce work that prods society's fat belly over its complacency toward marginalized groups, its violence epidemic, its now-fatal fear of sex education, its neurotic need to worship, and its capitalist fetishism. Such art very likely could change things if anyone saw it, but if the art world's self-imposed snobbishness has accomplished anything, it is that Middle America gives wide birth to art museums. When the snow-white queens of suburbia peel the bandages from their facelifts and coyly murmur, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall...” they find that nowadays the image might be Snow Black, Brown, Red or Yellow. That's the good news for us social theorists. The bad news is that their kings have plenty of cash with which to buy them different mirrors. Meanwhile on the street in front of the palace, we Leftists stupidly wave belligerent signs that no one sees. The TV cameras, owned by conservatives, point only at the king (and the queen too if she's a hottie).
One can overstate this point. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. made clear that nonviolent social protest can move nations with precious little funding. Great religious leaders of the past—the authors of the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, the prophets of Israel, the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad—have left us similar messages. And Thomas Paine reminded us that the pen is mightier than the sword.
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| Truism Jenny Holzer 1986 |
Alphabet Mary Kelly 1978 |
Thinking
of you Barbara Kruger 1999 |
The work of artists such as Jenny Holzer, Mary Kelly, and Barbara Kruger
demonstrates the power of words to shape cultural values. Sticks and stones may break our
bones, but words can really hurt us. On the other hand, words are equally able to
help. Unlike
the artistic ayatollahs of modernism, who attempted to tell us the answers, many
artists today are more interested in asking the questions. Modern art, on the few occasions when it ventured
beyond art for art's sake, tucked its head back in at the slightest sound. Postmodern
art eagerly accepts invitations from all comers. Postmodern artists make a
healthy mess of things by appropriating each other's images, placing work at
sites other than galleries, making art that is impermanent, and blurring boundaries between their work and the media
coverage of it. Such gestures have helped to define the Communication Age. And
less and less of it is oil on canvas. A new syntax is in the
making. Nicholson (1990) nicely
frames the matter:
Postmodernists
describe modern ideals of science, justice, and art as merely modern ideals
[rather than] universals. Thus,
postmodernists urge us to recognize the...ideals of modernity in the West
as [particular] to a specific historical time and geographical region and also
associated with certain political baggage. Such baggage includes [the notion
that the West is supreme and that there is a quantitative difference] between art and mass culture.
A paradox of postmodernism, and
possibly its primary virtue, is that its
definition of truth is expanded to include deliberate uncertainty and self-aware incompleteness. We at last are realizing that everything is complicated.
Common sense is often only a conclusion based on inadequate information.
Nothing is black and white and we're starting to get that. Rorty
(1979) claims that the modern concept of Philosophy is no longer credible. We
are witnessing the 'de-proper-nouning' of categories.
Postmodern social criticism floats free of a universal anchor. It is local, contextual, and ad
hoc. Huyssen (1990) describes
the postmodern dissolution of binaries:
...postmodernism...operates in a field of
tension between tradition and innovation, conservation and renewal, mass culture
and high art, in which the second terms are no longer automatically privileged
over the first; a field of tension which can no longer be grasped in categories
such as progress vs. reaction, present vs. past, modernism vs.
realism, abstraction vs. representation, avant garde vs. Kitsch....
Postmodern art meanders from crystal clarity to clouded confusion. Duchamp's readymades made clear, in the early years of modernism, that art is whatever we say it is, but it took decades for the rest of us to catch on. The postmodern notion of art as another kind of text signifies the instability of an artwork's meaning—the artist's explanation is just one more opinion, not the final word.
Some interpret all of this to mean that with
postmodernism, anything goes. This erratum can undo its promise.
Hartsock (1990) criticizes postmodernism for criticizing modernism and
then offering no replacement for it. This complaint is invalid.
The claim of postmodernists that meaning is defined by context analysis
is deliberate; it is theory. Postmodern
theory is not as tidy as modern theory. Hartsock suspects that postmodernism is
just another tool of dominance engineered by the same old powerbrokers, noting
that, as the armies of the marginalized circle modern citadels of power, these
citadels evanesce into the postmodern mist only to reappear later when it's safe. The
realist in me acknowledges that Hartsock might turn out to be right,
which would mean that
writing this book is an exercise in futility. But more seems to be at work here than modernist
sleight-of-hand. The impresarios who attempt to stuff our oppressive institutions up their sleeves
and make us believe they have disappeared are caught in flagrante delicto. Oops,
oppression is too big to fit up a sleeve. So healthy suspicion well serves the
postmodern mind—the magician's hat may hide not a fluffy bunny, but the attack
rabbit of Monty Python. Those of us who work to undermine modernism's errancies find ourselves at the fork in Robert Frost's road. One path is
more traveled on. Is that because those who choose it can see better, or simply
that they
are less brave?
Postmodern ways of knowing emphasize the construction rather than the acceptance of knowledge, and our knowledge is constructed in part by our art. An example of the degree to which shifting contexts keep meaning fluid is found in “The Wizard of Oz.” In Kansas, witches are ugly, period. In Oz, witches can be ugly or beautiful. So there we can choose our witches. Give me Oz. Yet in Western history's broad morality plays, religion's definitions of God are expressed in the singular. We never get out of Kansas. Prior to the nineteenth century, when historical criticism of the Bible developed, the "Word" was held to be infallible. Yet after two centuries of careful debunking of Biblical myths, we still suffer conflicts between the scholarly canon of the university and the concerns of the confessing community—both of which range from the ridiculous to the sublime (and to make matters worse, both professors and television preachers wear such dreadful outfits).
My
response is to propose a postmodern
psychological model that I call locus of control to explain contemporary
behavior. At the locus of external
authority/external knowledge are those who feel that they lack
control of their destinies. Thus their behavior often disregards the future. Such people are vulnerable to a variety of oppressive
forms, ranging from materialistic obsessions to drug abuse, acts of violence,
and religious fundamentalism. They feel not only
that authority lies with others, but that knowledge does as well. They feel that
they are able to receive knowledge, but not generate it, or in some cases, even
pass it on to others.
At
the locus of external authority/internal knowledge are those who believe that
ultimate authority resides in supernatural entities, but that behavioral
decisions lie with themselves. Thus their behavior may affect future events. Many at this level feel that individual
circumstances impact little on the general 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of human
behaviors; they feel that all are subject to the same standards. The criminal
born of a crack addict mother and an absent father
is to be subjected to the same punishment as the criminal born to privilege. Generally such people avoid behaviors destructive to themselves and others, partly out of
concern that such behavior would displease the deity. They seek to please their
deity because they feel that he (sic)
can affect their circumstances. These individuals hold that authority is
external, but that knowledge can be imparted from the authority to themselves. These people tend to be
moderately but not passionately concerned about correcting social
ills, since their focus is on life after death and "God has everything
under control."
Those
who exist at the locus of internal
authority/internal knowledge feel that they control their own destinies as
much as the vicissitudes of life will allow. They can conceive of themselves as
authorities, and they understand not only that they can receive and disseminate
knowledge, but create it. They
tend to be social activists, believing that people, not deities, bear responsibility for
attending to social ills. They may
be people of faith, but like John Lennon they can
imagine there's no heaven.
Since humans often respond more viscerally to the concreteness of images than to the abstraction of ideas, the role of visual art in healing, whether personal or social, can be powerful. But first a culture has to value it.
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| poster by Gran Fury |
Irony
of Negro policeman Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981 |
Paper
dolls for a post-columbian world Jaune Quick-to-see Smith 1991 |
A partially successful example is the imagery of marginalized groups. As these groups gain
increasing access to the
mainstream, their visions penetrate the consciousness of the majority.
Art educators in our schools and universities are in a powerful position to disseminate this new kind of
equality if they will only stop spending all their time teaching those damn
color wheels.
Postmodernism brings with it a re-emergence of pre-renaissance values, fueled in part by the activism of feminist and minority artists, both male and female. These values include the dismantling of the hierarchical demarcation between 'art' and 'craft'. Nontraditional media—including those associated with the crafts, such as fiber materials—are acquiring the legitimacy they possessed in the middle ages. Women and minorities in the art world have progressed toward the attainment of status equal to that of White males, although that status has not been achieved. Postmodern thought is turning to once-begged questions about comodified art and its ugly cousin, the heroic artistic genius.
Deconstructivism—the process of looking beyond intended meanings to find the unintended
ones—is the
Humpty Dumpty of contemporary philosophy. If the wall of culture beneath it is
as shaky as some insist, and Humpty should fall, the re-deconstructing (or is it
the de-reconstructing?) of deconstructivism may be too much for all the
king's horses and all the king's, well, persons to put back together again. The
postmodernist is ever watchful.
It is not selling out to the modernist cant of the 'transcendental artist' or the 'sacred creation' housed in church-like museums, to acknowledge that works of art can be records of artists' prescience, of their sensitivity to cultural change. But it's a painful fact that art removed from daily life and stuck in museums is partly wasted, no matter how good it is. Again, art can be a social bellwether only if somebody sees it. An important response to this dilemma is that artists are turning to contemporary media that reaches broader audiences. As their creations merge into the mainstream, social attitudes change.
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| The
war between civilizations Blue noses group video installation 2005 |
poster
for film Schindler's list Steven Speilberg 1993 |
Internet
image posted by 'scot' 2005 |
What effects do current trends have on the male artist? The
traditional male 'hero' has served neither male nor female. This hero's
journey has taken him away from his emotions, away from the earth, away from
gender harmony, but this 'new-millennium' male artist and his 'sensitive
and understanding' work is only beginning to appear. The
forms it will take is one of art's big question marks as we work our way through
the
twenty-first century.
How valid is the assumption that artists are the authorities in determining the meanings of their works? If it were discovered that someone other than Shakespeare had written the Shakespearean corpus, the work would remain the same. This is not to suggest that the artist can be replaced with a vacuum, but simply to adjust the role of artist to one of less importance. Before as well as after a work is finished, the artist is is less central to its production than the Western, humanistic concept of the artist implies, even (perhaps especially) as bearer of the artwork's meaning. Artists are like critics in that only a handful can express art's meanings verbally with any competence. Just note the incoherence of almost any exhibition catalog's artist's statement. The artist as Bearer of Meaning exemplifies Althusser's (1976) idea of the “fetishism of man.” The work of art is better considered a catalyst for debate (a 'beginning') than a monument (an 'ending').
Likewise Marxism—as opposed to
capitalism with its embracing of the humanist notion of ‘man’ as
ontologically primary—starts its analysis not with man, but rather with socio-economic
circumstances. It examines modes of production, how these modes
affect different economic classes, and the nature of the inevitable inter-class
struggle.
People form the point of arrival, rather than departure, of such
analysis. Wolff (1981) resurrects a definition of art that is both Marxist and
medieval:
Replacing
the vocabulary of 'creation', 'artist' and 'work of art' with that of 'cultural
or artistic production'...'cultural producer'...and 'artistic product' is no
sacrilegious demotion of the aesthetic to the mundane. It is a way of ensuring
that the way in which we talk about art and culture does not allow or encourage
us to entertain mystical, idealised and totally unrealistic notions about the
nature of this sphere, which the sociology of art has shown to be unacceptable.
In 1977, Barthes, referring to writers, snapped the petrified view of the artist as bearer of meaning. An image is not a bundle of shapes releasing a single 'theological' meaning—the message of the Artist-God—but an arena in which a variety of meanings, almost never original, blend and clash. The artwork is a conglomerate of quotations cobbled together from countless corners of culture. An irony is that the awareness that we, not Leonardo, decide what Mona Lisa means, is revolutionary.
Garber (1992) summarizes
an account by bell hooks which deconstructs the myth of the universal viewpoint—a favorite modern legend. hooks refers to
the differing criteria with which she and her grandmother evaluated the quilts
her grandmother made. Her
grandmother preferred the fancy quilts made later in her life, when she was free
of the need for a more utilitarian product. hooks preferred the quilts made for everyday use because to her they
represented the story of the daily life of the African American woman.
In 1991 Alice Walker, in the short story Everyday
Use, dealt with the identical issue and poignantly iterated the same
message.
Another example of referential bias occurs in the play, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Lily Tomlin's character, Trudy the Bag Lady, explains to outer space aliens the subtle difference between art and soup as they peruse the contents of her cart. She indicates a can of Campbell's tomato soup and declares, “This is soup.” Then she shows an Andy Warhol image of a can of Campbell's tomato soup and states, “This is art.” She repeats, “This is soup...and this is art.”
She conceals the two items behind her back, then shows one. “Now, what is this? No, this is soup and this is art!”
She
explains to the audience, “They find it hard to grasp some things that come
easy to us, because they simply don't have our frame of reference” (Wagner,
1986).
Part
of postmodernism's penetration of what in theater is called the fourth
wall—that between actor and audience—is to demand that the viewer, not the
artist, finish the image's story. Wagner (1986) gives a reminder of the frailty
of the barricade between artist and audience.
Trudy the Bag Lady takes her outer-space-alien friends to a Broadway play:
We
were at the back of the theater, standing there in the dark, all of a sudden I
feel one of 'em tug my sleeve, whispers, “Trudy, look.”
I
said, “Yeah, goose bumps. You definitely got goose bumps. You really like the
play that much?”
They
said it wasn't the play gave 'em goose bumps, it was the audience.
I forgot to tell 'em to watch the play; they'd been watching the audience.
Yeah, to see a group of strangers sitting together in the dark, laughing
and crying about the same things...that just knocked 'em out.
They said, “Trudy, the play was soup...the audience...art.”
And finally there is this:
A couple attending an opening at the National Gallery found themselves viewing a portrait that had them confused. The painting depicted three very black, nude men sitting on a park bench. Two of the figures had black penises, but the one in the middle had a pink penis.
The curator observed their frustration with the work and offered his assessment. For nearly half an hour he explained how it depicted the sexual emasculation of African Americans in a predominantly white, patriarchal society.
"In fact," he pointed out, "some serious critics believe the pink penis also reflects the cultural oppression experienced by gay men even today."
After the curator left, a Scottish man approached the couple and asked, "Would you like to know what the painting is really about?"
"How can you claim to be more of an expert about what this painting means than the curator of the show?" asked the couple.
"Because I'm the person who painted it," he replied. "In fact, there are no African Americans in it at all. They're just three Scottish coal miners. The guy in the middle went home for lunch."
* * *
If
there is one thing postmodernists agree on, it may be that modernism's
substratum
of dominance must be dug up and replaced with the proverbial
level playing field. One debate today is whether women and minorities should
work for increased recognition within the White male-dominated mainstream—with
the risk of being satisfied merely with higher quotas and thereby perpetuating
old censorship systems—or continue to develop alternative galleries and
educational programs—with the risk of perpetuating the status of 'annex' to
the mainstream. Both avenues should be pursued, but directing primary attention
to this debate misses a more important point: neither necessarily places women and minorities in the center of the
critical dialectic that defines 'important' ideas, 'good' art, and 'major'
artists. The highest level of power in today's art world exists no longer in
artists' studios, but within this discourse. The power
shift is away from the visual image—heretofore the obvious center—toward the
once-peripheral commentary of observers of that image—all of which leaves today's art
scholar muttering, “I know about art; I just don't know what I like”.
Prior to the renaissance, the artisan worked free of the notion of art as a suprahuman activity. Artistic production was typically anonymous, group-based and socialistic. Master builders and painters took novices, but even then, the products were considered communal efforts. Wolff (1981) points out that “although the formal communal organisation of artistic work has disappeared almost entirely, the idea of the artist as sole originator of a work obscures the fact that art has continued to be a collective product.” While sometimes described as the director's work, film obviously is a collective effort of director, writers, actors, technicians, producers, financiers, attorneys, marketing specialists, and others.
Comparable
lists can be made for music and the stage. Production in the static visual arts
is more similar to than different from film, music, or the stage. Someone trains the artist, someone makes the artist's materials, someone
sells the work, someone criticizes it, someone places it in its historical
context, and someone buys it. The process of artistic production is completed
only when consumption has occurred.
The study of the art of the past is called archaeology; the study of the archaeology of the present is called art. This non sequitur reveals the misperception underlying the classification of art as a separate category of cultural production. Until postmodernism, the art history field was much too tidy. Every artist and movement had its own drawer. Now the entire chest of drawers is being called into question. Who made the chest of drawers, and why? Who wanted to make it but could not get a job at the furniture factory? And is it only a chest of drawers? Is it even a chest of drawers? Is it furniture at all, or is that just a label imposed by powerbrokers to create an artificial line between furniture and the rest of cultural production? And last, who sells the chest of drawers, who buys it, and how is the money divvied up?
What emerges from this Proustian haze is a scenario in
which power lies more and more with the historian, who defines the past; the
critic, who establishes the present; and the media, through which both must
work. They determine the hierarchies, set the agendas, and make the rules.
It is as important for oppressed groups to establish representation in
this circle as within the circle of artists themselves. As Wallis (1991)
observes, the issue may now be less how critics can serve artists than how
artists can serve critics. And none of this matters unless the media sprinkles
its holy water over the entire teeming throng.
The
following joke reflects the leviathan presence of the media:
Someone tells a new mother, “What a beautiful baby.” The mother
replies, “Oh, that's nothing. You should see her picture.” The media creates
pseudo-events, celebrities become pseudo-heroes, and the themes touted on TV
commercials become pseudo-values. The relations of leaders with their spouses
eclipse their relations with their constituents. To become famous replaces doing
great deeds. Basketball celebrity
Irvin “Magic” Johnson, regarded a hero because he is an athlete, further
elevated his heroic status when he announced that he is HIV positive and became
an activist for AIDS education. He admitted that he had frequent, unprotected
sexual intercourse with numerous sex partners. His confessions have been
followed with outpourings of support. Johnson is to be applauded for his
activism, and his public support is not begrudged.
However, as McPhail (1991) points out, a woman who has unprotected sexual
intercourse with numerous sex partners is labeled something less than a hero,
whether she confesses to having AIDS or not. Prior to Johnson's announcement,
hundreds of thousands of gay men, some of them celebrities, had died from AIDS.
It was the infection of one heterosexual sports figure that was hailed as the
nation's 'wake up call'. May this call ring not only for AIDS awareness, but for
awareness of our culture's misogyny and homophobia as well.
Until
now, decisions governing the path of Western art have been made by now-dead
European males. How powerful is this slice of the West's
demographic pie? Art majors take what are called art history survey courses,
courses that portend to offer an overview of our world's artistic heritage. This claim affronts the dignity of humanity. These surveys begin with
prehistoric work, followed by the work of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and
then ancient Greece, beginning at c. 1000 BCE. (What continent are we on now?)
Greece is followed by Rome, the early Christian period, the middle ages
(whose 'middle ages'?), the gothic period, the renaissance (whose 'rebirth of
learning'?), baroque, neoclassical, and modern. We stay in Europe until World
War II, when Adolf Hitler drove Europe's artistic talent to New York. You and I
pay for this discrimination in two huge ways: by being denied access to most of the
art made by people other than European males (this of course constitutes the bulk of the
world's art); and all of the art that was never
made because the makers were denied opportunity (which may total an amount
greater than all the art that ever was
made).
We can intellectualize these tragedies, wringing our hands briefly before turning back to our TVs, but perhaps we can understand them in a more concrete way. Picture this: It is a heavy tourist day in Rome. A troubled individual known to us only as Art Ed hovers near the entrance to the Vatican Museum, awaiting the opportune moment. The crowd thins. Art Ed approaches the Swiss Guard. “Look!” he shouts. “There's the Pope! Distributing condoms!”
This
clever ruse enables him to slip inside with an electric belt sander, an
extension cord, and sixty feet of scaffolding slyly concealed beneath his tank
top. Art Ed makes his way to
the Sistine Chapel, where he unobtrusively erects his scaffold, plugs in his
sander, and spends the afternoon defacing Michelangelo's masterpiece. He fields
inquiries from curious security personnel with the assurance that he is a member
of the restoration team.
Scholars
would rank the destruction of the Sistine ceiling among the greatest tragedies
in the history of art. My question is this: How many Sistine ceilings were never
painted? If Michelangelo had
been born Michelangela, she would have
been lucky to scrub the Sistine floor. How many masterworks never existed
because the artist did not belong to the correct group? Thus we see that all
classes, including the oppressive one, pay for oppression.
How do these complex issues play themselves out in the institutionalized art setting? How are art masterpieces determined? By a consensus of experts who gauge artists' degrees of influence. The greater the number of artists whose work changes because they have seen your work, the greater artist you are. Until recently, this amounted to living Euro-males judging dead ones. From the work of this tiny sample was anointed the world's supply of masterpieces. Art is always someone's story. One hears the phrase 'art for art's sake'. Let's look instead for the agenda. Let's deconstruct the message. Let's make trouble. And let's get our students to help us.
On
college campuses, the phrase 'political correctness' (pc) is a euphemistic code
coined by conservatives to categorize, and thereby control, Leftist thought.
One notes that conservatives have been calling themselves “Right” for
two hundred years. It is not entirely discomfiting to hear them suggest that the
Left is “Correct.” Opponents of pc (cf. D'Souza, 1992) cite affirmative action policies
which at times result in the admission of minorities and women over more
qualified White male applicants, while ignoring the widely practiced double
standards used to admit athletes, not to mention children of alumni and major
donors. Why should leftists give up concepts as dear as 'values', 'family' and
'patriotism'? Why should we give them up to the likes of
Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafly, David Duke, Jesse Helms and the
other frothing ethnophobes foundering in the foggy fringes of the far
forest of fanaticism?
(I wanted to write, “...and the rest of the rabid reactionaries rooting
in the rancid regions of the radical Right?” but there were all those r's.) The
fact that postmodernism emerged roughly with Reaganism led some to perceive a
kinship, when in fact postmodernism, the roots of which are in 1960s activism,
is an antithesis. Note the suspicion with which American conservatives regard
it. But then, they regard everything with suspicion.
Examples
abound in art of women defined by what men are not; of minorities defined by
what Whites are not; of religious nonbelievers defined by what believers are
not; of the underclass defined by what the middle class is not; and the middle
class defined by what the upper class is not. Henry Giroux (in McLaren, 1990)
said, “You can live standing up, or you can live on your knees.”
Choosing not to choose condemns one to one's knees, a position more
appropriate for pleading than for action.
How are today's art students trained? Historically art students studied in studios of established masters willing to take them on. Their work reflected the regional and personal qualities of their mentors' work. Today almost all of our artists are products of university programs, products of the Great Homogenization known as the BFA. Art majors study under a gaggle of professors according to curricula that differ little from institution to institution. The core of these curricula is studio training in rendering the human figure. This approach develops an artist the way George W. Bush develops an African-American constituency. The emphasis—revealing a lack of understanding of how one becomes an artist—is on making art, rather than viewing it. The core of any university visual art curriculum might better emphasize art history and criticism—not life drawing—in the beginning, with a gradual increase in studio classes throughout the four years. Life drawing classes were relevant to only a slice of today's serious artists. As students look at art (presumably with informed guidance from their instructors), they assimilate a visual database from which to draw when they begin their own work.
To start beginning art majors in a curriculum centered on making art, and focused on the figure, only fills their heads with baggage they must unload later if they are ever to become good artists. It seems reasonable to expect all third year art majors to be able to explain, for example, why conceptualism represents the end of modernism, why pop and minimalism signaled the emergence of a new direction—postmodernism—and why photo-realism represents the beginning of this new direction. It seems reasonable that they be able to explain that photo-realism responded to the near death of imagery by swinging art's pendulum back to pre-modernist stylistic definitions while retaining a content that was of the late twentieth century, and that photo-realism refuted modernism's movement away from photographic imagery by competing with the camera head-on.
It further seems reasonable that
they be familiar with the art of women and men throughout Western history and
conversant with the art of at least one tribal or Eastern civilization. Only
then are they ready to begin serious studio work. It is equally true that small children
should begin to acquire a mental library of images as they begin to make their
own art at age two or so.
In
the 1970s, European critical theorists—the Frankfurt School, Roland Barthes,
Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan, Continental feminists, and
British film theorists, among others—fueled change in American art and
criticism. By ignoring the definitions of art object as Art Object and artist as
Artist, they shifted attention to the agendas behind modernism. One effect of
this extensive new body of theory was to reintroduce representational imagery to
visual art. This development was inevitable: if art was to become politicized, it needed recognizable references to
convey its socially critical messages. That familiar ideologeme, the modern
artist, dies hard; many young artists regard activist art as beneath 'pure' art,
which parallels the claims that 'craft' is beneath 'art' or that 'folk' art is
beneath 'fine' art.
Thus far the art of this still-nascent era called the postmodern has drawn heavily on recognizable imagery, although often presented in abstract visual terms that reflect late twentieth century life (e.g., neo-expressionism, installations, graffiti art, performance art, and computer and video imagery). Sociopolitical subject matter has reappeared, advocating the concerns of ethnic, religious, and other minorities as well as women and environmental groups. The repercussions of this activism have generated developments on the international front.
The modern version of 'internationalism'—Paris in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, Moscow and Berlin in the 1920s, and New York in
the 1940s—compares poorly to that of postmodernism. The phrase 'art world' is
taking on literal meaning. A welcome emergence onto the scene is being
experienced by the nations of the newly-christened 'Pacific Rim', from Indonesia, the
Philippines and Taiwan...
 |
 |
 |
| Packaging Yuli Prayitno 2004 Indonesia |
Underpass Elmer Borlongan 1999 Philippines |
untitled Chen Chu-yin Taiwan |
...to China, Japan, Korea and Australia. Each is at last being recognized for its artistic heritage (Madoff, 1992).
 |
 |
 |
 |
| File
No. 230 Mao Tong-qiang 2001 China |
Astroboy,
king of audio Hiroshi Iraki 1993 Japan |
Holding
her breath Lee Yong-deok 2003 Korea |
untitled Melinda Harper 2000 Australia |
Postmodernism is acknowledged as a welcome break with the past. Modernism in its infancy was regarded similarly. One finds the rhetoric of the avant garde in the manifestos of both. The term avant garde, today pejoratively linked with the modernist 'Artist as Hero' idea, was defined by filmmaker Germain Dulac in 1932 as “...a renewed expressiveness of image and sound, [a] break with established traditions to search out, in the...visual and auditory realm, new emotional chords...detached from motives of profit, march[ing] boldly on towards the conquest of the new modes of expression...” (in Wallis, 1991). This sounds eerily like the rhetoric of postmodernism. It can talk the talk, but can it walk the walk?
Perhaps. The
postmodern awareness that visual images form as well as reflect reality signals
a redrawing of the boundaries that define Western
civilization. One could liken
today's artist to Samson who, gripping the pillars of his captors' temple with
regained strength, stands ready to collapse it. Unlike the blinded Samson,
however, today's artist—as with artists throughout the ages—possesses
heightened keenness of vision. This vision produces images which shake the
belief—heretofore held by the oppressed as well as the oppressor—that the
oppressed are inferior. Art since the renaissance has been little more than a
Richter scale sending its skittering lines across a canvas that measured
society's tremors. Art today is becoming the earthquake itself. Art since the renaissance
has at times possessed the substance of wallpaper with a frame around it, a
diversion that attracted comments such as, “Isn't that interesting?” Art
today is becoming politicized—and this time not only by powerbrokers. Its
disquieting messages are entering everyday life. Such art will come to be
respected by society as a social force if art
educators in our public schools and universities push for these conditions,
beginning in preschool programs. Such programs can encourage oppressed groups
to disclaim their unworthy inheritance by making truthful images—no matter how
painful—that educate society, and by generating positive images of themselves.
Until these images are globally internalized, the groups that make them will at
times fall prey to their own self doubts. If they succumb to the cultural amnesia that
anaesthetizes the middle class, their struggle will possess the poignance
and permanence of hearts scratched in sand. So far, however, they continue
to sow the seeds of enfranchisement, and the first harvest has already begun.
Attempting
to insert minority and women artists retrospectively into a visual art canon
constructed by White males is not enough. Such approaches miss the point. Time
shrouds the gender definitions, political structures, economic constraints,
religious currents, and racial prejudices under which such artists worked.
Scholars must assign significance by reading between lines that are
suspect. A new canon must be constructed, but this canon must be more fluid than
canons have been defined in the past. Postmodernism must be more than a
chronological term; it must possess an ideology informed by the past.
Modernism viewed media purity as an end. Historicism was the function of
the museum; comodification the function of the gallery. The artist was
visionary; the artwork unique. Oppression made the world go 'round.
Postmodernists seek to dismantle these constructs. Foster (1982) submits
that postmodernist art exists:
...between,
across, or outside [reified modernist conventions] or in new or neglected
mediums (like video or photography).... Postmodernist art occurs in alternative
spaces and in many forms, often dispersed, textual, or ephemeral. As the place
of art is re-formed, so too is the role of the artist, and the values that
heretofore authenticated art are questioned.
The
modern artist ignored society and consequently had precious little impact on it.
Postmodernism must learn from this lesson. It must honor the power of art to create an egalitarian world.
The
mindset that accepts oppression of 'wrong' groups as an appropriate means for
resolving social ills is the enemy. Advancement will occur when all
groups become as well educated in the 'why' as they are in the 'how'. After
all, let it be said, the sword cuts both ways. Some minorities are guilty of
racism, some women of sexism, and some religious believers of bigotry, in
prejudging Whites for their race, men for their sex, and nonbelievers for their
skepticism. Feminist men, on the
other hand, are viewed by male chauvinists as traitors. Anita Hill (1992), who nearly derailed Clarence Thomas'
nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991, observes that speaking out rarely pays
dividends for the victim, but may for those who come after. “Speaking out is
not easy,” she comments. “To speak out is to look into the face of power....” But, she adds, “silence is betrayal.”
Western
culture is good at recouping radicalism. It has had a lot of practice. Postmodern philosophy has been accused of yielding to efforts to recast
it in the modernist mold. Establishment co-optive efforts are inevitable—if the
anger of marginalized artists cannot be bought out, perhaps it can be stomped
out—but counter-efforts have been adamant. As long as we artists and teachers lie
down and beg for cultural crumbs, powerbrokers will be happy to pat our heads
and keep the little treats coming. Again, when artists and teachers get angry,
they change the world. We need only reject the lie that we cannot. A degree
of cooptation is certain, but marginalized groups of today have drop-kicked a
space for themselves that will not be easily
reclaimed. Huyssen (1990) observes that “...the landscape of the postmodern
surrounds us.... It's our problem and our hope.” Panegyrics to the promise of postmodernism are premature.
Many
who staff our museums, our galleries, our universities, and most of all our
public school art classrooms, are poised and eager to expand their
understanding. As things are, the well-intended but damnable naiveté of many of
them does not impede their efficiency in unwittingly perpetuating that which they
despise. They applaud fairness as they acknowledge only European models.
Unlike Orpheus, these players do not turn and face Eurydice, the object
of their affection—gender-inclusive, multicultural, politically-empowering art
education. Eurydice is not compelled to return to Hades; hell, she never left in
the first place.
Whether one identifies postmodernism with the emergence of electronic capitalism, or the multinational corporation, or political activism in the arts, or the communications explosion, or the bristling militancy of marginalized groups, or the demise of the Communist World, or the imperializing of unindustrialized nations, such global changes in how we all live demarcate a new agenda with its own critical features. The question is this: after scratching away the hoo-ha, do we find anything new under the sun? One notes points of progress across the expanse of human experience, for example, democracy and socialism, both of which emerged from the radicalism of their day. But what developments within postmodernism occasion reason for hope? Which of today's radical rubrics is tomorrow's quotidian commonplace?
The redefining of
religious faith that has been ongoing in the West since the renaissance shows promise.
The kind of worship which forbids the worshipper to question is, regardless of
periodic fundamentalist revivals, much less widespread than it was even a
century ago. Likewise a growing awareness is spreading that we need not discard our ethics as we jettison our
superstitions.
Acts of 'charity' done under empyrean fiat—”Every buck you put into the
Sunday school collection plate buys another golden doorknob for your mansion in
the sky”—are not charity, but a cosmic real estate investment. We might contribute
instead to this world's global collection plate in the faith that the next world
can surely take care of itself.
But
how close are we to throwing away those approaches to religion that serve only
as crutches? Two
hundred years after Thomas Jefferson predicted that everyone then living would
die a Unitarian (Ross, 1992), the religious Right is experiencing a resurgence.
The U. S. version of fundamentalism reaches back into the nineteenth century.
Threatened by higher education and the proliferation of print media,
fundamentalists began to fight back, clipping their efforts to a clothesline of
issues that included abolition (on which they were divided), prohibition (which
they supported), and women's suffrage (which they opposed). Their battles of
course continue, but today it is even more difficult because the populace is
becoming better educated. Attempts to adapt
economically—from local Christian Yellow Pages to the investment portfolio of
the Southern Baptists, one of the largest in the country—are often effective.
Despite certain awkward attempts to adapt culturally—Christian rock music,
football for Jesus, Miss Texas witnessing her faith on television—the
religious Right is emerging into the middle class. Note their mall-sized
suburban churches.
The
trope that politics makes strange bedfellows is never more true than with
fundamentalists. Socially they prefer to be insular, associating only with each
other. However, their activism forces them to ally with Catholics over abortion,
although they seem to disagree on every other issue. They must ally with Jews since Israel,
after all, is where Jesus will return. To maintain such alliances, they must not
speak ill of any of their allies'
beliefs. As Ross (1992) puts it, the born again “have to start liking other people.”
Given how this weakens their insularity, it is conceivable that political
alliances will be the undoing of the religious Right.
The
cyclical nature of fundamentalist resurgences provides a measure by which they
can be gauged. Following the Scopes trial in the 1920s, fundamentalism revived,
subsided, and lay dormant for fifty years. The 1970s saw a resurgence that
peaked during Ronald Reagan's first term at about 20% of the U. S. population. Despite the perceptions of some,
this percentage has remained roughly the same since then.
In
one interesting sense, fundamentalism coalesces with postmodernism: both
question Western reason. Ross
(1992) comments, “...we have found [that reason is] not enough because it
doesn't give us a holistic sense, so we are learning to surround it with
intuition and memory and hope and affection.” The response of poorly educated
people is to turn to fundamentalism. A penchant for confusing technological
advancement with wisdom leads some to conclude that ours is the most informed of periods. Let us rather hope that a millennium from now, the
twentieth century is considered the end of the dark ages.