OUGD401 Study Task 02 - Modernism & Postmodernism

OUGD401 Study Task 02 - Modernism & Postmodernism

Modernism 

Carafe, Jug, and Fruit Bowl, 1909, Pablo Picasso

Cubism, of which this painting is an example, is regarded as the most important modern-ism. Like many modern-isms, it makes intellect central to art. It systematically explores the relation between art and what it represents, thereby completely abandoning the Naturalistic aim to paint things 'simply' as they appear to the observer. Instead, Cubists sought to convey an object's existence in time and space, representing the object from different vantages. The explored how paintings are constructed, and how they function as works of art, making explicit the questions: What is art? And: What does art represent? 

Postmodernism 

Marilyn Diptych, 1962, Andy Warhol

Pop Art, with its interest in mass media, marketing and advertising, can be seen as an early form of Postmodernism. Warhol's work explores the cult of celebrity and the way an individual can be consumed by, or lost behind, in their own image. The loss of an original and its displacement copies is a central preoccupation of the postmodern art which Pop was a forerunner. Warhol's diptych was produced in the months following Monroe's suicide. It is an exploration of the way individuals, after death, can achieve 'immortality' through endlessly replicated images in magazines and advertising.