Focusing upon the body of art that was considered oppostional, by Hal Foster and other influential critics, we consider the possibility of critically engaging with the culture of late capitalism. Featured artists include Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger and Sherrie Levine.
2. Subjectivity and Identity âself awareness Society, Schizophrenia and Pastiche Against Pluralism: Defining an oppositional postmodernism. Case Studies: Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman, Paul McCarthy. Conclusion: What ever happened to postmodernism?
3. Society, Schizophrenia and Pastiche âIf, indeed, the subject has lost its capacity ... to organize its past and future into coherent experience, it becomes difficult ... to see how cultural productions of such a subject could result in anything but âheaps of fragmentsâ and in a practice of the randomly heterogeneous and fragmentary and the aleatory.â (Jameson [1984]1993, p.25)
4.
5. Schizophrenia Jameson used the word schizophrenia, not in a clinical sense, but to describe a âbreak down in the signifying chainâ which âconstitutes meaningâ (Jameson [1984] 1993, p26 ) âWhenâ, he continues, âthe links of the signifying chain snap, then we have schizophrenia in the form of a rubble of distinct and unrelated signifiersâ. (ibid.) Nam June Paik (1963) Exposition of Music â Electric Television Nam June Paik (1993) In-Flux House.
8. Society, Schizophrenia and Pastiche âWe have seen that there is a way in which postmodernism replicates or reproduces â reinforces â the logic of consumer capitalism; the most significant question is whether there is also a way in which it resists that logic.â (Jameson [1982] 1985, p.125)
9. Against Pluralism: Defining an oppositional postmodernism. Against Pluralism: Defining an Oppositional Postmodernism
10. Against Pluralism: Defining an oppositional postmodernism. â... Postmodernism is not pluralism â the quixotic notion that all positions in culture and politics are now open and equal. This apocalyptic belief that anything goes, that the âend of ideologyâ is here, is simply the inverse of the fatalistic belief that nothing works, that we live under a âtotal systemâ without the hope of redress...â (Foster [1983] 1985, p. Ix.) Against Pluralism: Defining an Oppositional Postmodernism
11. Against Pluralism: Defining an oppositional postmodernism. âIn opposition... a resistant position is concerned with a critical deconstruction of tradition, not an instrumental pastiche of pop â or pseudo - historical forms, with a critique of origins, not a return to them. In short, it seeks to question rather than exploit cultural codes, to explore rather than conceal social political affiliations.â (Foster [1983] 1985, p.x.) Against Pluralism: Defining an Oppositional Postmodernism
12. Jenny Holzer 1983 Abuse of Power comes as no Suprise (T-shirt modelled by Lady Pink) Shown in New York. Part of the Truisms series.
13. Jenny Holzer 1986, Protect me from what I want. From the Truisms series. Spectacolor electronic sign. Times Square, New York
25. References Foster, H (1985) (ed.) Postmodernism: A Preface, in Postmodern Culture. London, Pluto Press. Foster, H ([1996] 2002) What ever happened to postmodernism? In The Return of the Real. London, MIT Press. Heartney, E (2001) Postmodernism. London, Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd. Jameson, F ( [1982] 1985) Postmodernism and Consumer Society, in Postmodern Culture. London, Pluto Press. Jameson, F ([1984] 1993) Postmodernism: or, The Cultural Logic or Late Capitalism. London, Verso.