Editing Postmodern art (section)

== Characteristics ==
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| footer            = The juxtaposition of old and new, especially with regards to taking styles from past periods and re-fitting them into modern art outside of their original context, is a common characteristic of postmodern art.
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Postmodernism describes movements which both arise from, and react against or reject, trends in [[modernism]].<ref>The Originality of the Avant Garde and Other Modernist Myths [[Rosalind E. Krauss]], Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (July 9, 1986), Part I, ''Modernist Myths,'' pp.8–171</ref> General citations for specific trends of modernism are formal purity, [[medium specificity]], [[art for art's sake]], [[Authenticity (art)|authenticity]], [[Universality (philosophy)|universality]], [[originality]] and revolutionary or reactionary tendency, i.e. the [[avant-garde]]. However, paradox is probably the most important modernist idea against which postmodernism reacts. Paradox was central to the modernist enterprise, which [[Manet]] introduced. Manet's various violations of representational art brought to prominence the supposed mutual exclusiveness of reality and representation, design and representation, abstraction and reality, and so on. The incorporation of paradox was highly stimulating from Manet to the conceptualists.

The status of the avant-garde is controversial: many institutions argue being visionary, forward-looking, cutting-edge, and progressive are crucial to the mission of art in the present, and therefore postmodern art contradicts the value of "art of our times". Postmodernism rejects the notion of advancement or progress in art per se, and thus aims to overturn the "myth of the [[avant-garde]]". [[Rosalind Krauss]] was one of the important enunciators of the view that avant-gardism was over, and the new artistic era is post-liberal and post-progress.<ref>The Originality of the Avant Garde and Other Modernist Myths [[Rosalind E. Krauss]], Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (July 9, 1986), Part I, ''Modernist Myths,'' pp.8–171, Part II, ''Toward Post-modernism,'' pp. 196–291.</ref> [[Griselda Pollock]] studied and confronted the avant-garde and modern art in a series of groundbreaking books, reviewing modern art at the same time as redefining postmodern art.<ref>Fred Orton and Griselda Pollock, ''Avant-Gardes and Partisans reviewed''. Manchester University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-7190-4399-4}}.</ref><ref>Griselda Pollock, ''Differencing the Canon''. Routledge, London & N.Y., 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-415-06700-3}}.</ref><ref>Griselda Pollock, ''Generations and Geographies in the Visual Arts''. Routledge, London, 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-415-14128-4}}.</ref>

One characteristic of postmodern art is its conflation of high and low culture through the use of industrial materials and pop culture imagery. The use of low forms of art were a part of modernist experimentation as well, as documented in [[Kirk Varnedoe]] and [[Adam Gopnik]]'s 1990–91 show ''High and Low: Popular Culture and Modern Art'' at New York's [[Museum of Modern Art]],<ref>Maria DiBattista and Lucy McDiarmid, ''High and Low Moderns: literature and culture, 1889–1939'', Oxford University Press, 1996, pp6-7. {{ISBN|978-0-19-508266-1}}</ref> an exhibition that was universally panned at the time as the only event that could bring [[Douglas Crimp]] and [[Hilton Kramer]] together in a chorus of scorn.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_10_91/ai_109667921 ''Kirk Varnedoe, 1946–2003'' – Front Page – Obituary – ''Art in America'', Oct, 2003 by Marcia E. Vetrocq]</ref> Postmodern art is noted for the way in which it blurs the distinctions between what is perceived as fine or high art and what is generally seen as low or kitsch art.<ref name="purdue1">[http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/introduction.html General Introduction to Postmodernism]. Cla.purdue.edu. Retrieved on 2013-08-02.</ref> While this concept of "blurring" or "fusing" high art with low art had been experimented during modernism, it only ever became fully endorsed after the advent of the postmodern era.<ref name="purdue1"/> Postmodernism introduced elements of commercialism, kitsch and a general [[camp (style)|camp]] aesthetic within its artistic context; postmodernism takes styles from past periods, such as [[Gothic art|Gothicism]], the [[Renaissance]] and the [[Baroque]],<ref name="purdue1"/> and mixes them so as to ignore their original use in their corresponding artistic movement. Such elements are common characteristics of what defines postmodern art. [[Art Spiegelman]], when discussing his selection of a specific style for ''[[Maus]]'', described a postmodernist's ability to develop a wide "palette" of varying styles that they can draw from at will, where their predecessors would instead focus on improving and maintaining a single "trademark" style.<ref>Spiegelman. ''[[Metamaus]]'', p. 141.</ref>

[[Fredric Jameson]] suggests postmodern works abjure any claim to spontaneity and directness of expression, making use instead of pastiche and discontinuity. Against this definition, Art and Language's Charles Harrison and Paul Wood maintained pastiche and discontinuity are endemic to modernist art, and are deployed effectively by modern artists such as Manet and [[Picasso]].<ref name="Harrison1014">Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, ''Art in Theory, 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas'', Blackwell Publishing, 1992, p1014. {{ISBN|978-0-631-22708-3}}</ref>

One compact definition is postmodernism rejects modernism's [[metanarrative|grand narratives]] of artistic direction, eradicating the boundaries between high and low forms of art, and disrupting genre's conventions with collision, collage, and fragmentation. Postmodern art holds all stances are unstable and insincere, and therefore [[irony]], [[parody]], and [[humor]] are the only positions [[Art criticism|critique]] or [[Historical revisionism|revision]] cannot overturn. "Pluralism and diversity" are other defining features.<ref>Michael Woods: Art of the Western World, Summit Books, 1989, p323. {{ISBN|978-0-671-67007-8}}</ref>