Postmodern Art

One thing about Postmodern art is that there seems to be no limit to what a person can do. It appears that there is nothing off limits. In fact, it seems to me that many artists are going for the “shock factor” – kind of like the “shock jocks” like Howard Stern on radio. Their attitude seems to be “let’s see just how far I can go before I get shut down. How far can I go before the public becomes enraged?” Are they trying to say something? Are they trying to get a point across? It seems that if they are, it is lost in the absurdity of their work. There is some Postmodern work that I like – tending to like more of the sculpture and realist type works. The works that do portray a message or make a statement can be very enjoyable. I don’t like Jackson Pollock – it’s more of the principle of the matter. No one should pay the outrageous sums of money they ask for the work of a drunken adulterer who admitted he didn’t know what he was doing – he just dripped painted all over a large canvas. I could get drunk and do the same thing, but I doubt that anyone is going to pay $20 for it, let alone $20 million. I also don’t care for some of the horribly pornographic, raunchy pictures and performance art that some artists are doing. I just can’t call that art.

This period of art history will end up like the others before – shocking and setting the art world on its edge, but in the end it will be accepted as normal. They’ll just say artists like Pollock were “ahead of their time”. The next big thing will most likely be the further emergence of digital photography that is photoshoped or altered video. It will undoubtedly be disturbing and odd.