The postmodern condition

1
The postmodern condition

• One definition of postmodern
• the late 20th-century tendency (in art, thought,
  and society) to distrust objectivity, authority,
  universality, and moral and ideological
  absolutes. Postmodern artists tend to mix styles,
  cultures, techniques, and high and low forms of
  art. www.humanities.eku.edu/Glossary.htm

2
Modernist vs. Postmodernist style

• Modernism reflects belief in the transforming
  power of style (Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck).
  Represents nobility of human spirit in the face
  of cultural breakdowns.

3
Postmodernism

• Style as an autonomous aesthetic principle
  treated more like fashion or mere stylishness as
  a consumerist diversion (Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, et
  al.).
• Were powerless to reverse the breakdown, so we
  may as well play video games. Screw nobility. Pop
  culture becomes the lingua franca to describe the
  post-modern world.

4
Postmodernism (contd)

• Division between high and low culture
  disappearing.
• Ex In Pulp Fiction (note the title), hired
  killers Travolta and Jackson talk about what a
  Quarter Pounder with Cheese is called in France.
• Ex referring to mass death as Kool-aid time
  (Vonnegut)
• Less overtly political writing because politics
  seems disconnected from our actual social life.
• Irony of the modernist period has turned to
  cynicism, if not actual paranoia (Stones JFK).

5
Ron English, Money Is the Root of all Art
6
Andy Warhol
7
Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We?
Where Are We Going?
8
Bobs Big Boy Hamburgers