Where My Work Sits - Postmodernism

It had previously been mentioned to me that my work has some aspects of post-modernism within it. I decided to research this to understand how and why this is, so I know how much work sits in relevance to postmodernism. Through this research, I now know that my work relates to the postmodernism movement because of how my images take not just inspiration from, but almost repurposes, classic painting;

It has become clear to me that postmodernism, which originates in around the 60's but gained attention in the 80s and 90s, is a movement of many, many layers. I, therefore, will only be focussing on the things I have heard and read that my work can relate to, or on the other hand, rejects the movement's principles. My concise post on my work and postmodernism, being more of a way of thinking will focus on the thoughts behind the work as well as how and why it was made rather than the style of work itself.

Some say Postmodernism isn't a 'movement' as such, but a way of viewing things - a stance on the world. It is very much a reaction against the Modernist movement (which started in the late 19th century), yet Postmodernism is not a direct opposition to modernism, however, but instead, they twisted it and criticised it. Modernism was a movement which believed that they could discover a universal truth to make the world a better place, by understanding the individual conscience at depth to then move towards a universal and unified answer. Art came in to play by using it as a tool for understanding oneself, and make the world a better place as a whole. Postmodernists viewed this as trying to get everybody to think the same, and labelled it as fascist. Instead, they took the view that everything is relative and subjective, and there is no absolute or objective truth to reality because of this. Reality, they believed, is made up of our experiences and the discourse we surround ourselves with, all of which varies. Therefore, modern science is no more true than astrology or witchcraft. Modernism was rooted in making things new and better, and improving on what we have using advancing science and technology. Postmodernists most often disagreed with this, and saw it as dangerous - they denied that humanity will progress because of the development of science and technology.
Postmodernism was born scepticism, believing that we have a far from perfect future, far removed from the utopia that the modernists saw. There was a fear of knowledge and what it may mean for the future, scepticism that it would bring more positives than negatives. There was very much a loss in faith in human reason, a bleak prognosis of the human condition and offers no real solutions. We must make our own meaning of life.

It's difficult to see how I may apply to either the modernist or postmodernist ideologies at first.
One one hand, now we are many decades since the birth of the postmodern movement, I find it more and more understandable that they believed science and technology wouldn't help us as we would hope. We have a government trying to sell off our healthcare service, despite having the knowledge it saves lives that would otherwise be lost, despite looking at how other countries cope badly. We have the science in the world that can save the planet if we act now, and yet the people with the money won't do anything about it out of pure greed. Although perhaps that doesn't reflect badly on the science, but moreso the people that benefit from our class and social system. But then postmodernists also believed that our experience, our culture, history, language and society is all imposed by oppressive power structures, which can also be seen as matching what is happening today. And yet, I very much believe in technology and what it can do for us, only I am angry that those in the top of the hierarchy are taking control and stopping this development being used for good. And then there my views on reality. While I wouldn't go as far to say that there is one objective reality, I also know I do not believe in, as my above example, astrology and witchcraft. I am all for proven facts and possible scientific theories. I do not believe in souls, demons, fate, that life has a meaning, that things happen for a reason etc, I am rather straight forward with these views. And yet that is why I make the art that I do.

In terms of art, postmodernist artists introduced the idea of having both high and low art as one as a way to criticise society and the modernist movement by declining their grand narratives of artistic direction. Artists started using collage, bold colours, collision, fragmentation. Everything is seen as unstable and insincere. Often, they recycled ideas, styles, media and conventions from previous art periods to create their own work.  The don't believe that you can improve art so it reflects the real world in a better manner, as the modernists did, they view this as impossible, suggesting that there will always be a distance between the real world and the art - the referent and the represented. Take for example, The Treachery of Images by René Magritte.

The text beneath the image says 'this is not a pipe'. While some will say that of course it is a pipe, it is not. It is only the image, a representation of a pipe. There is a difference between this and the referent. You cannot use the thing that you see in front of you, as it is a 2D representation of the 3D referent. Much as a movie prop pipe is also not a pipe if it is not functional. 

As such, my images are not images of Goddesses, they are images of me dressed as my idea of these particular goddesses, whos representation I have thought about and used research to form. I also used paintings, and stories and myths. And it is because of this that I feel that my work does have links to postmodernism. The work of postmodernism, as previously mentioned, often used referenced to previous art eras in their work.

For example, we can look at The Water Bearer (1981) by Sandro Chia.

As per the conventions of postmodernist art, the painting uses multiple mediums, both oil paint and pastel on canvas. On the Tate website, it says "The artist said in conversation (17 April 1986) that the origin of the ‘Water Bearer’ was his chance sight of an illustration of a classical sculpture of the same subject." - he gained inspiration from an already existing piece of art in another medium. Further on, "The boy carrying a fish recalls the story of Tobias in the Apocrypha (Tobit 6, vv. 2–3), who was told by an angel to take a large fish with him on his journey to find a bride. The story was often painted during the Italian Renaissance". Again, Chia has used a story told within history, and a topic that has been used as inspiration for years, in order to create his own version of the story. 

And thus, this is how I feel my art fits in with postmodern art conventions, even if my own ideologies are very mixed. I have used the stories of the Greek myths, I have used previous paintings as my own inspiration and then translated that into photography, therefore merging three mediums, text, painting and photography to create my vision of the Goddesses. The postmodernism had no solutions to their beliefs that the world would not progress into utopia, and this was also reflected in their art as they took and recycled previous ideas. I have no answer to how I can make my own individual life, nor the world, a better place, and so it seems I have done the same - taking comfort in what was.