Post-Modernism

"Post-Modern design is, in part, a development of accelerated 'dynamic obsolescence'".

Post-Modern Design, Michael Collins and Andreas Papadakis, 1989, pg 11, accessed 16.11.2011


"The search for a new idiom, expressed through the word "Post-Modern", is understandable from two points of view. First, Modern architecture had made a vital contribution during the period when it was revolutionary, when it held that 'less is more', secondly, it had in some ways failed in it's main aim, to realise through social engineering a better quality of life.

Post-Modern Design, Michael Collins and Andreas Papadakis, 1989, pg 22, accessed 16.11.2011


Post-Modernism is a philosophical movement that rejected the boundaries and restrictions of the past, embracing the new and innovative. It developed from and reacted against Modernism, emerged in the late twentieth century, and is essentially still in it's infancy. While it, like a lot of movements, cannot be pinned down by a single definition, it is basically an attempt to find new and more truthful versions of the world.
The term "Postmodern" was first used during the 1870's to describe art marked by the revival of historical elements and techniques. Characteristics of this include bricolage, simplification, appropriation, and performance art.

One particular Postmodern artist that I came across was American Lawrence Weiner. Since the early 1970's wall installations have been Weiner's primary medium, which consist solely of words in a nondescript lettering painted on walls. The lettering need not be painted by Weiner himself, so long as the painter complies with the instructions dictated by him. While this body of work explores the potential for language to serve as an art form, the subjects of his statements are often a physical act or process. The appearance of each piece veers between language and object. Even when they form sentences, the block capitals and lack of punctuation deny a point of origin or ending.
He developed a radical redefinition of the artist/viewer relationship and translated his investigations into linguistic structures and visual systems, also experimenting with the use of films, audio and performance art.