2015.3.31 Postmodernism 後現代主義

2015.3.31

Probably the most fascinating postmodernist work I found.

Couple days ago, the professor in my photographic class introduced the postmodernism. Apparently, based on the subject of the class, we focused more on photography, but I did gain fair amount of knowledge about Postmodernism. (Well...at least some basic and general ideas)

In essence, Postmodernism is a genre that NOT emphasizes on the originality, process, material and individual. Which is actually the betrayal of modernism haha (of course there were some transition.)

Thus, in terms of the definition, "post-" merely means the later period.  

Here are some examples.

-- Sherrie Levine <After Walker Evans>

-- Richard Prince <Cowboy>

So...after the basic introduction, what's the fascinating part?

Truth be told, in the first place, none of them I found was fascinating!!!! since others' works aren't their original works. In other words, they literally took photographs of photographs... 

-- The ad from Marlboro and <Cowboy> from Richard Prince

Are you guys serious? I can still remember when the professor asked us what they were doing for? and the student behind me were mumbling "Nothing..." haha I was so puzzled by that time indeed.

(This actually got on my nerves couple days later while I was reading the relevant articles... The most irritating part is that people love that unreasonably)

Somehow I just realized that emerge of this kind of genre all of sudden when I found that I was constantly thinking about these annoying pieces for couple days. They are just so annoying to be obsessed with. 

In fact, I also realized I became partially postmodernist if its definition could be expanded to this degree. The reason why postmodernism would catch everyone's eye is that it's about criticism. By this time, we no longer want originality because it's relatively hard to be much more creative than our ancestors. (Or we just couldn't find it anymore. We are constrained in the world imbued with tons of information.) Therefore, we become picky somehow. It seems that it is a habit to use the same material over and over and freakin' over again to create the new messages via the old methods and to stimulate the new points of view. 

They are actually brilliant enough to trigger the critical thinking.  

I am a vintage aficionada most of time. Thus, I was blaming the hatred towards postmodernism on the weird sort of obsession. After more insights of postmodernism, I rethink about the fact that people are usually attracted by other places or other time. (Such a cliche though)

It reminds me of the quote from "Midnight in Paris(午夜巴黎)"

“Nostalgia is denial. Denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.” 

But I think in the other way around. Can it be possible that it's exactly because we have dealt with the presence as well that we are able to have extra time fantasizing other stuff? 

We are not living in a depressed period; instead, we are still trying to be the most innovative of all time and it seems that we are still moving forward. 

Still remembered that day was a bit cold and the professor gave us an early break since the museum next to us was throwing a party...