A friend of mine back in my undergrad by the name of Robert Allaire (who has some Hollywood music credits now) declared to me once that the Post-Modern period and style were done and dead. I disagreed.
We were both right.
Bob was correct in that post-modernism was more or less a dead aesthetic and a dead ethos that was already very old, and every avenue of it had been explored. However, that dead horse has been not so much beaten as dragged around the race track endlessly to the cheers of a small crowd of fans who don’t want to point out the flies and the bloating.
I saw this year that someone had sold an invisible piece of art at auction—in other words, a piece of art that does not exist. Many on the right jumped on this ridiculous event since it was a fraud so profound it made the banana taped to the wall seem honest. My big point, however, is that the artist was an entire 70 years late to the party.
John Cage did music that was mere silence in 1952. In that “musical” piece, the piano player enters, raises the cover of the keyboard, and waits for 4 minutes and 33 seconds (the name of the piece) before closing everything up and walking away. The point of such a piece is debatable, and perhaps Cage might think that the debate was the art itself, but usually, the idea is to listen to the noises of the hall and contextualize them as music. In the silence, the audience begins to attend to the sound of coughs and whispers, shifting bodies, the sound of the air conditioner, or the buzz of light ballasts.
Visual art was behind, but not by much. How do you sell it in 2024? I guess you sell the receipt.
This sort of meta layer is what defines the post-modern ethos, and to Cage’s credit, his art was very original when he first debuted it. But, to my point in this article, That debut is seven decades old. Shouldn’t we have moved on to something else by now?
We have in many ways. There were other styles that developed in the “classical stream” (what academic musicians very obnoxiously call art music), such as minimalism, and not all visual art is crucifixes in urine and piles of trash entitled Madona with Child (I’ve seen several of these. The artists must think themselves very original and edgy each time), much less rotten bananas or blank walls. These sorts of things get a lot of publicity on social media because of how offensive or stupid they are, but the real criticism should be just how absolutely boring it all is.
The fact that this sort of thinking is still promoted in the academy is an indictment of all arts programs. The Post-modern is a fun idea, and we should look at it according to its own ethos, acknowledge its message, then move on. So why haven’t we?
I don’t have a good answer for this, other than post-modernism can be worn as a cloak to shield an artist from legitimate criticism and protect their ego. It’s not meant to be good! I also think as the ideas permeate the academy, we end up with a degradation of skills. Drawing, painting, and sculpting have specific techniques that must be mastered to produce accurate and elegant forms. One requires a thorough knowledge of music theory to compose works equal to those of Holst or Wagner. Students aren’t required to master these techniques, and so they don’t. Then they go on to teach at the university…and this is not limited to art and music but infects literature as well.
People tend to attack Post-modernism without understanding what the whole thing was about. It can be fun, jocular, irreverent, experimental, meta… but after we laugh and consider the nature of art, perhaps discuss it, shouldn’t we be able to move on to doing things that are pleasing to others in a more direct fashion, rather than needing layers of irony and modern thought to enjoy? Aesthetics are not merely arbitrary, and I think it is best to view something like a John Cage piece as a question, not a statement: what is music? What does this aesthetic point to? Can you decide for yourself? Your decision is part of the art. But what next?
Anything, I suppose, and to be honest, our culture does not lack for art. I don’t know how to convince the rubes that buy securitized art at auction that post-modern “fine art” is not something to be valued in that way at all. A real post-modernist would make a chalk drawing on the sidewalk and invite you to watch it wash away in the rain.
But look on the bright side, the scam doesn’t always work:
I am an independent artist and musician. You can get my books by joining my Patreon or Ko-Fi, and you can listen to my current music on YouTube or buy my albums at BandCamp. This month, you can get a deep-cut book not available on Amazon - Farewell to Once and Future Kings
Gonna admit I bought the "Postmodern art is a CIA psyop" psyop.