Post Modernism

The post modernism movement began in the mid 1960's, and is a move away from the Modernist era of photography which was the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by the horror of World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief (source: Wikipedia). Post modernism is formed around the idea that many apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place.

The following extract was sourced from Post Modernism in a nutshell:

"It [Post modernism] emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Rather, it holds realities to be plural and relative, and dependent on who the interested parties are and what their interests consist of. It upholds the belief that there is no absolute truth and the way in which different people perceive the world is subjective. It attempts to problematise modernist overconfidence, by drawing into sharp contrast the difference between how confident speakers are of their positions versus how confident they need to be to serve their supposed purposes. Postmodernism has influenced many cultural fields, including religion, literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, architecture, history, anthropology, visual arts, and music.

Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from modernist approaches that had previously been dominant. The term “postmodernism” comes from its critique of the “modernist” scientific mentality of objectivity and progress associated with the Enlightenment.

These movements, modernism and postmodernism, are understood as cultural projects or as a set of perspectives. “Postmodernism” is used in critical theory to refer to a point of departure for works of literature, drama, architecture, cinema, journalism, and design, as well as in marketing and business and in the interpretation of law, culture, and religion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.[1] Indeed, postmodernism, particularly as an academic movement, can be understood as a reaction to modernism in the Humanities. Whereas modernism was primarily concerned with principles such as identity, unity, authority, and certainty, postmodernism is often associated with difference, plurality, textuality, and skepticism."

Some examples of post modernist photography are shown below. They were copied from and pasted into this blog from www.theclotheswhisperer.co.uk :

A Postmodern photography example. Author unknown.

Personal note: I LOVE this image and the use of the many hands to form one image. I had found this last year when researching hands for another photographic assignment.

Comme des Garcons for H&M 2008

David LaChapelle

Hyper and pseudo realities David LaChapelle

 Introduction to Post Modern Fashion Guy Bourdin

 

The influence of Japanese street style by Larien Celebrindal

Martin Margiela Fragrance Ad

 

Creating "Pop Art" styled images

From Blue Lightning TV on YouTube, I found an easy to follow instructional video Photoshop: How to make a POP ART portrait from a photo!  Using the tutorial I was able to convert a photo of a little baby into an Andy Warhol styled pop art image. However, I didn't like my attempt that much so reverted to downloading an app on my trusty mobile phone, InstaPopArt from Google Play and was able to - within seconds - create, save and upload - these two collages.

 

That is just two ways to turn ordinary images into Pop Art styled images, however a simple Google search will reveal there are a zillion ways to do this. 

Pop Art

The art movement - Pop art - originated in London art schools in the 1950's. Pop art is characterised by its

Extract from Wikipedia on the origins of pop art:

"The origins of pop art in North America and Great Britain developed differently. In the United States, it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art as a response by artists using impersonal, mundane reality, irony and parody to defuse the personal symbolism and "painterly looseness" of Abstract Expressionism. By contrast, the origin in post-War Britain, while employing irony and parody, was more academic with a focus on the dynamic and paradoxical imagery of American popular culture as powerful, manipulative symbolic devices that were affecting whole patterns of life, while improving prosperity of a society. Early pop art in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture viewed from afar, while the American artists were inspired by the experience of living within that culture. Similarly, pop art was both an extension and a repudiation of Dadaism. While pop art and Dadaism explored some of the same subjects, pop art replaced the destructive, satirical, and anarchic impulses of the Dada movement with detached affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture. Among those artists seen by some as producing work leading up to Pop art are Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, and Man Ray. Some of the work of Alex Katz anticipated Pop art."

"Drowning Girl" by Roy Lichtenstein

 

 

An interesting website is Pop Art Photographer by David Siqueiros. I didn't realise there would be a market for an a pop art dedicated photographer, but it seems there is. It is said that you learn something new everyday. I'm now done for the day.

What is Pop Art’s relationship to the dada movement?
"Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them. And due to its utilization of found objects and images it is similar to Dada ... pop art was both an extension and a repudiation of Dadaism.". (Source: Wikipedia)

How did the American take on Pop Art differ from that of the UK?
"The origins of pop art in North America and Great Britain developed differently. In the United States, it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art as a response by artists using impersonal, mundane reality, irony and parody to defuse the personal symbolism and "painterly looseness" of Abstract Expressionism. By contrast, the origin in post-War Britain, while employing irony and parody, was more academic with a focus on the dynamic and paradoxical imagery of American popular culture as powerful, manipulative symbolic devices that were affecting whole patterns of life, while improving prosperity of a society. Early pop art in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture viewed from afar, while the American artists were inspired by the experience of living within that culture. Similarly, pop art was both an extension and a repudiation of Dadaism. While pop art and Dadaism explored some of the same subjects, pop art replaced the destructive, satirical, and anarchic impulses of the Dada movement with detached affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture. Among those artists seen by some as producing work leading up to Pop art are Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, and Man Ray. Some of the work of Alex Katz anticipated Pop art." (Source: Wikipedia)

How has the visual aesthetic of Pop Art influenced contemporary artists/ photographers?
"Artists still use today most of the features of the pop art style as inspiration for their artworks. Andy Warhol’s and Roy Lichtenstein’s works are the most often used as models for their contemporary works. You will see that today’s artists are creating cool illustrations, prints and posters with details like: dotted image, strong and multiple colors, series of images on one print, famous people faces and home utilities like tv, radio, cameras. Pop Art artwork, because of it’s bundle of colors represents a great inspirations for designers, whether we’re talking about product prints, posters, canvases, t-shirts or many other things." (Source: http://www.pixel77.com/the-influence-of-art-history-on-modern-design-pop-art/) Go to that website to see some applications of pop art onto various products.

How has the “subversive” movement of Pop Art influenced contemporary art/ photography?


 

Cubism

The Cubism art movement began between 1907 and 1911, pioneered by artists such as Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, and joined by a number of other artists who together revolutionised European painting and sculpture, and also inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubist artworks take objects that are analysed, broken up and then reassembled in an abstracted form. What makes cubist pieces interesting from the norm is the change to viewpoint. A number of viewpoints are used to showcase the subject in greater context (source: Wikipedia).

Some examples include

 

L'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud) by Albert Gleizes, 1912, oil on canvas, 195.6 x 114.9 cm (77 x 45 1/4 in.), Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

 

La Femme au Cheval, Woman with a horse, by Jean Metzinger, 1911-1912, Statens Museum for Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark. 

 

 

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso, 1907, considered to be a major step towards the founding of the Cubist movement

 

Figure dans un Fauteuil (Seated Nude, Femme nue assise) by Pablo Picasso, 1909-10.

 

Quarry Bibémus by Paul Cézanne, 1898-1900, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.

Simultaneous Windows on the City by Robert Delaunay, 1912. This is an example of Abstract Cubism.

A good resource providing tips on how to prepare your own cubism photo montage can be found at Incredible Art.

Attempting Surrealism

Here is my first (rather quick) attempt at photographic surrealism:

To achieve this image I combined three images to create this one image:

1. a wine glass
2. a photo of a young boy with his hand pressed against a glass, trying to escape (albeit, looking rather happy)
3. a bubbly background texture to finish the image (the texture was a free texture download)

Individually and in their the images looked like this:

I began with the glass image, added the image of the boy, then the texture. Then I darkened the edges to tie in the whole shot. I distorted the original image of the boy so that he looked curved to suit the wine glass, as opposed to just flat. I did this using the manual correction facility of the lens correction options in Adobe Photoshop. The image was converted to black and white.

I think this image is rather average, however it does qualify as an image that fits within the surrealism genre.

I learned that my photoshop skills have improved incredibly, and yet I acknowledge that still have a long way to go before calling myself a digital artist. Next time I may spend time to learn about the Photoshop mapping (?) feature where I can adjust the contours of the layers so that they match better.

Surrealism in photography

The works of Joel Robinson (see some of his fabulous work on flickr) and Jerry Uelsmann provide wonderful photographic examples of surrealism.

Joel produces amazing images where he breaks the norm by taking scenes and transforming them, allowing us to see his imagination come to life.

Here are three links to images I think are great and I found inspiring:

Joel hanging off a stack of books Taken May 13, 2013, Joel commented that "This image has been in my head for a few months now. It was inspired by a book that even after I finished reading it, it left me hanging on for more." On the same theme of books, there is also Joel in magnifying glass in book

I love those above books, as they remind me of my children who are book worms, in particular my son. It draws me into the image, and like Joel, I have read a few great books that have left me hungry for more, more, more, so I understood the story behind his photographic interpretation/story telling.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joel_r/8402458142/ Taken January 19, 2013, Joel commented this image was done in collaboration with Ted Craig Photography, creating photos based off of the fortunes that come with Yogi Tea. Joel - "This fortune/message hit home for me, I tend to focus on the past alot. Sometimes in a good way, as reflection or acknowledgement of where I've been and what I've overcome, but sometimes I analyze every little bit of what I could have done differently or better. I'm starting to realize that it's true, the more time you spend looking at the path you've taken, the less time to have to enjoy the path you're about to be on. My image is inspired by taking something from the past and using it to propel yourself forward."

(For copyright purposes I was unable to share the image directly on this page).

Jerry on the other hand could be seen as a visionary, a man ahead of his time. A modern day surreal story teller. Married to Maggie Taylor, whose work can be seen here, is a woman who too is a visionary. She creates sensational images, which emerge as a result of combining various techniques to make a final image.

The Modernist era of photography

When the modernist era commenced in the photographic realm is questionable with various dates being thrown around in various sources. However, it could be said that it is an ongoing era which commenced from the 1860's.

What is modernism? Here is an extract from Wikipedia that I think explains it well:

"Modernism, in general, includes the activities and creations of those who felt the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, philosophy, social organisation, and activities of daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and political environment of an emerging fully industrialised world. .... A notable characteristic of Modernism is self-consciousness, which often led to experiments with form, along with the use of techniques that drew attention to the processes and materials used in creating a painting, poem, building, etc. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody."

Modern photography, specifically in Australia commenced in the mid-20th century. It was European settlers who brought with them a modern aesthetic and training. Such Modernists included the likes of Wolfgang Sievers, Helmut Newton, Henry Talbot, Athol Shmith and Norman Ikin.

Today, photography in Australia is highly competitive.