Editing Postmodern art (section)

==Avant-garde precursors==
Radical movements and trends regarded as influential and potentially as precursors to postmodernism emerged around [[World War I]] and particularly in its aftermath. With the introduction of the use of industrial artifacts in art and techniques such as [[collage]], [[avant-garde]] movements such as [[Cubism]], [[Dada]] and [[Surrealism]] questioned the nature and value of art. New artforms, such as cinema and the rise of [[reproduction]], influenced these movements as a means of creating artworks. The ignition point for the definition of modernism, [[Clement Greenberg]]'s essay, ''[[Avant-Garde and Kitsch]]'', first published in ''[[Partisan Review]]'' in 1939, defends the avant-garde in the face of popular culture.<ref>''[http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html Avant-Garde and Kitsch] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013040305/http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html |date=2007-10-13 }}''</ref> Later, Peter Bürger would make a distinction between the historical avant-garde and modernism, and critics such as Krauss, Huyssen, and Douglas Crimp, following Bürger, identified the historical avant-garde as a precursor to postmodernism. Krauss, for example, describes [[Pablo Picasso]]'s use of collage as an avant-garde practice anticipating postmodern art with its emphasis on language at the expense of autobiography.<ref>Rosalind E. Krauss, ''In the Name of Picasso'' in ''The Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths'', MIT Press, 1985, p39. {{ISBN|978-0-262-61046-9}}</ref> Another point of view is avant-garde and modernist artists used similar strategies and postmodernism repudiates both.<ref>John P. McGowan, ''Postmodernism and its Critics'', Cornell University Press, 1991, p10. {{ISBN|978-0-8014-2494-6}}</ref>

===Dada===
{{Main|Dada}}
[[File:Duchamp Fountaine.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Marcel Duchamp]], ''[[Fountain (Duchamp)|Fountain]],'' 1917. Photograph by [[Alfred Stieglitz]]]]
In the early 20th century, [[Marcel Duchamp]] exhibited a urinal as a sculpture. His point was to have people look at the urinal as if it were a work of art just because he said it was a work of art.<ref name="Tate">{{cite web|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573|title=''Fountain'', Marcel Duchamp, 1917, replica, 1964|publisher=Tate|website=tate.org.uk|access-date=5 October 2018}}</ref><ref name="Parkinson">[https://books.google.com/books?id=42zyAHflrxcC Gavin Parkinson, ''The Duchamp Book: Tate Essential Artists Series''], Harry N. Abrams, 2008, p. 61, {{ISBN|1854377663}}</ref><ref name="Judovitz">[https://books.google.es/books?isbn=0520213769 Dalia Judovitz, ''Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit''], University of California Press, 1998, pp. 124, 133, {{ISBN|0520213769}}</ref> He referred to his work as "[[Readymades of Marcel Duchamp|Readymades]]".<ref name="Tomkins page 158">Tomkins: ''Duchamp: A Biography'', page 158.</ref> The ''[[Fountain (Duchamp)|Fountain]]'' was a urinal signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, which shocked the art world in 1917.<ref>[http://www.golob-gm.si/5-marcel-duchamp-as-rectified-readymade/f-marcel-duchamp-fountain.htm#FNanchor_17 William A. Camfield, ''Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, Its History and Aesthetics in the Context of 1917'' (Part 1)], Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987): pp. 64-94.</ref> This and Duchamp's other works are generally labelled as [[Dada]]. Duchamp can be seen as a precursor to [[conceptual art]]. Some critics question calling Duchamp—whose obsession with [[paradox]] is well known—postmodernist on the grounds he eschews any specific medium, since paradox is not medium-specific, although it arose first in Manet's paintings.<ref>[https://www.artforum.com/print/201402/thierry-de-duve-on-the-salon-des-refuses-45017 ''THE INVENTION OF NON-ART: A HISTORY'' ArtForum International]</ref>

[[Dadaism]] can be viewed as part of the modernist propensity to challenge established styles and forms, along with [[Surrealism]], [[Futurism]] and Abstract Expressionism.<ref>Simon Malpas, ''The Postmodern'', Routledge, 2005. p17. {{ISBN|978-0-415-28064-8}}</ref> From a chronological point of view, Dada is located solidly within modernism, however a number of critics hold it anticipates postmodernism, while others, such as [[Ihab Hassan]] and [[Steven Connor]], consider it a possible changeover point between modernism and postmodernism.<ref>Mark A. Pegrum, ''Challenging Modernity: Dada Between Modern and Postmodern'', Berghahn Books, 2000, pp2-3. {{ISBN|978-1-57181-130-1}}</ref> For example, according to McEvilly, postmodernism begins with realizing one no longer believes in the myth of progress, and Duchamp sensed this in 1914 when he changed from a modernist practice to a postmodernist one, "abjuring aesthetic delectation, transcendent ambition, and tour de force demonstrations of formal agility in favor of aesthetic indifference, acknowledgement of the ordinary world, and the found object or readymade."<ref name="McEvilly27">Thomas McEvilly in Richard Roth, Jean Dubuffet, Susan King, ''Beauty Is Nowhere: Ethical Issues in Art and Design'', Routledge, 1998. p27. {{ISBN|978-90-5701-311-9}}</ref>