Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a movement art, launched in 1977 and theorized by Charles Jencks which involves a break with the conventions ironically ahistorical of modernism in architecture and urban planning, especially with the claims of the international style to conclude the 'in ignoring history and geography.
In the language of postmodern architecture, which is the first manifesto published by the movement Charles Jencks reinstated architecture in line with a general history of art movements, encouraging a return to the compositions and motifs the past an eclecticism based on a new look on both popular culture and its architectural expression (the "commercial vernacular" of Robert Venturi as high culture (the "neoclassical "of Ricardo Bofill).
Postmodernism is a major current of thought architecture of the second half of the twentieth century. It introduces a critical distance from a speech modern become hegemonic. Considered in the U.S. as a purely stylistic postmodernism is the reintroduction of the eclecticism in architecture, but also including Modernism and International Style, reconsidered as mere moments of architectural history with which we took its distance. But in Europe, this critical discourse is also decontextualization social policy and location of the modern urban admitting to cons-proposals like those of Christopher Alexander or François Spoerry
The term postmodern has been used and popularized by the title of an essay by Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition - A Report on Knowledge, released two years later (in 1979).
Although the terms postmodern, postmodernity and postmodernism are often used interchangeably, and should therefore distinguish postmodernism, understood as an artistic movement that is the subject of this article, the postmodern condition and postmodernity, all characteristics of postindustrial societies.
For Charles Jenks, the movement of postmodernism begins at the instant demolition of the residential complex of Pruitt-Igoe.
Apartment building built in 1984 vis-à-vis the old castle in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
The Hotel de la Region Languedoc-Roussillon (district Antigone, Montpellier) due to Ricardo Bofill.
The postmodernist aesthetic
Recycling of pre-existing forms: quotation, pastiche, parody
If modernism is characterized by the creation of new forms, postmodernism reuses pre-existing forms. Where Le Corbusier will completely renew not only the style of buildings, but the design of housing, as an architect Ricardo Bofill uses decorative elements borrowed from classical art or antique (columns, pediments, etc..). The modern innovation is always based on forgetfulness or ignorance of the traditions of each art are considered an obstacle to originality. What characterizes the contrary, the postmodern artist, and originality is that it has acquired a perfect mastery enough of the history and techniques of the most academic of his art.
References to past art can take many forms, from the use of stylistic details to the rigorous application of formal rules former, such as composition, symmetry, scheduling, etc. ... The rules may also vary, as a tribute to the ironic quotation. But most characteristic of the postmodern attitude is "ironic tribute" which plays on the ambiguity and the tribute to Nijinsky sculptor Barry Flanagan has a hare in a burlesque dancer's pose.
Syncretism aesthetic collage, mixing and blending
The postmodern work often appears as a collage of disparate elements without concern for harmony. A simple example is the novel At Swim-Two-Birds of the Irish Flann O'Brien who is the butt of text genres as diverse as Western and medieval epic, through the fairy tale and vaudeville .
The processes of collage and diversion are not in themselves the specificities of post-modernism as it is the surrealism that was proposed. The modernist novels of the trilogy USA from John Dos Passos, or those of the trilogy of The sleepwalkers Hermann Broch is also in the form of collages of texts belonging to different genera. But in both cases, the goal is to make a synthesis between these elements to capture a complex reality: the United States during the Great Depression for Dos Passos, the loss of values in Western Europe to Broch.
The postmodern artist search instead the contrast between different elements and the distancing effect that results.
Popular culture and high culture
If postmodernism erases time and space to make any immediate present culture, it also removes the hierarchy between high culture and popular culture. We can cite for example the adoption and the diversion of popular genres by writers in crime fiction Cosmos Witold Gombrowicz, a novel of espionage in Lake Jean Echenoz, etc..
A particularly striking example of this erasure is the convergence between contemporary art and advertising. Thus American Andy Warhol, leader of pop art, which was advertising before becoming an artist whose work is based on the popular imagination (marks, stars, pictures, etc..). Conversely, we see many ads distract works in the history of painting.
Indeed, the second half of the twentieth century is marked by the explosion of mass culture, relayed by the media industry ever more powerful. This culture media affects all social classes and became a cornerstone of the collective imagination.
The postmodern irony
The irony is considered by some authors as the essential characteristic of postmodernism. More generally, we can consider that where modernism places the author and creation at the center of his aesthetics, postmodernism is playing this role in the interpretation. Simply bring a fresh perspective on a text or pictorial take to make a new work. The artist Jeff Koons has made famous and transforming objects kitsch into works of art.
This ironic look also arises naturally in the work itself postmodern, and leads to autocommentaire. We can cite the example of Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, formed a poetic narrative and commentary on this story, or the posthumous work of Thomas Pilaster of Eric Chevillard who works on the same principle. It is close here the effect of distancing theorized by Bertolt Brecht and Victor Shklovsky.
Epistemology modern and postmodern ontology
The critic Brian McHale compares the difference between modernism and postmodernism to that between the epistemology (theory of knowledge) and the ontology (theory of being). Thus, modernism seeks to build an accurate picture of the real world, transcending the limits of human perception. Postmodernism questions rather on the status of the fictional world created by the work of art and its relationship to the real world. The prime example is the breathtaking new Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (published in the Collection Fictions) by Jorge Luis Borges in which the real world is gradually colonized by the fictional world of Tlön. It is clear that postmodernism is very eclectic and wants.
The problem of precursors
Villa Melnikov Street near the Arbat in Moscow by Konstantin Melnikov.
Postmodernism is there a new era of development-related post-industrial capitalism or something that has always existed? We may indeed find that many characteristics of the postmodern aesthetic can be found in works of the past, especially "the exact duplicate of irony" or return to employment figures shifted from classical and baroque a kind of aesthetic bad taste that can re-enter without lyricism outmoded aesthetic values.
In literature, if the premises of postmodernism appear in At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (1939) or Quackgrass of Raymond Queneau (1933), we note that these authors are merely continuing a tradition that dates back to XVIII century with such works as Jacques the fatalist of Diderot and A Sentimental Journey Sterne, from Alfred Jarry (gestures and thoughts of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician).
In architecture, we find elements of postmodern architecture in the Viennese Secession, of the Melnikov, one of the Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik, principles found in Robert Mallet-Stevens, or much before the eighteenth century in works the strangest Boulée and Ledoux.
Draft Ledoux dating from 1804
It remains, however, that postmodernism in the visual arts becomes an artistic movement in the late 1970s with the manifest of the art historian Charles Jencks who gives his name and define.
Examples of works and artists postmodern
I present below a short list of works characteristic of postmodernism, without being exhaustive. Some specialty items or categories used to deepen various aspects of postmodernism.
Architecture
Stirling, State University music and performing arts in Stuttgart (1993-1994
Manolo Nunez, Les Arenes de Picasso, Noisy-le-Grand.
Philippe Panerai, the Administrative Tribunal of Versailles.
Mario Botta, the Round House, and part of his work in classical composition.
James Wines, Notch project, supermarket Best, 1977, Sacramento
James Frazer Stirling, Michael Xilford and associates, the Chamber Theater in Stuttgart, 1979
Michael Graves, the Portland Public Service Public, 1980, the Toll Juan Capistrano Public librairy 1981, etc. ..
Ricardo Bofill, Antigone district in Montpellier
Aldo Rossi, Il teatro del mondo, floating stage for the Biennial, 1981, Venice
Fashion
Vivienne Westwood
Christian Lacroix
Thierry Mugler
Music
Klaus Nomi
Philip Glass
Michael Nyman
Visual Arts
Samuel Bak
Claude Verlinde
Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog
Literature
Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy
Donald Barthelme, The King
Svetislav Basara, "Guide to Mongolia"
Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions
Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
Thomas Pynchon, L'Arc-en-ciel gravity
Ferenc Rákóczy, Aeolian
Philippe Sollers, Women
Alexander Vialatte
Philosophy
What philosophers call postmodernity and postmodern philosophy has little to do with the movement of postmodernism in the arts whose aim is precisely to propose an answer to the consequences of modernization, and does not accept modernity completed, or postmodernity. So, do not belong to the movement of postmodernism who declared themselves as postmodernist Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Richard Rorty, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, that is to say, as agents (or victims) of the deconstruction of cultures and languages, and Deconstruction.