First of all, what exactly is Post Modernism? It is an art that has to deal with cultural identity. It is categorized by the lack of a single form or idea of art and instead, takes on pluralism. It abandons the normal in society and instead, takes upon a less original and odes to the so called "dead" styles. In order to best show you the post-modern style, I would like to introduce you to six, odd and meaningful pieces.
The Dinner Party - Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, and educator of her time. She was a pilot of Feminist arat during the Post Modern era and she wanted to change their lives for the better. She wanted a call to action in women's roles. As the ArtHistory.org states, she explicitly embraced female content. The Dinner Party was composed of 5 components. She has the entry banners, which welcomes visitors to the dinner party. Then we have place settings. There are a total of 39 place settings and these are spread around the giant triangle table, which is the symbol for equality, and are spread evenly. The floor, called the Heritage Floor, is where the table sits. On this floor are the names of 999 mythical and historical women directly connected to the 39 place settings. The Heritage and Acknowledgment panels are not in the picture, but are part of this piece as well. The former comes in seven parts and portrays the lives of the mythical and historical women on the floor and table. The latter depicts the 129 members of the team that helped Judy with this piece. It was worked on from the years 1974-1979 in where I presume to be Brooklyn, which is also where it is currently.
This piece is exciting and yet, very sophisticated to me. I like that she did a piece that depicts her Feminism. Even better, I like that she did this in an era that did not appreciate women's rights as much as it does in today's world. It seems like she put a lot of work into it, even so far as creating the floor from which the table stands. It portrays postmodernism because it is art that was made from anything.
Earth Birth - Judy Chicago
This piece is a sprayed vertex and DMC floss on fabric that was created in 1983. The exact location of where it was created was impossible to find, but it is currently in New Mexico. This piece used 130 needleworkers from several countries to complete it. Judy Chicago created this piece solely because she could not find many works that depicted women giving birth and she felt that this was a necessary action to show people. From the quilt, we can see that the focal points are the gold places on the quilt. These focal points are the mouth, the womb, and her breasts. These are emphasized because she felt that these breathed and worked most during the labor.
This is another example of her feminism idea in art and I actually really like this piece. It is not sexualized which makes it a likable piece. It lacks immense detail, and yet, it helps to deliver the message.
Hatching the Universal Egg - Judy Chicago
This piece is an embroidery on silk and again, it means to address the underrespresentation of the female gender. This piece was created between 1980 and 1985 and it shows a woman giving birth to the egg of life. With most of Judy's pieces, I cold not pin point a place that it was created. It is shown in warm, rich lighting that stems mostly from her womb. This piece needed 150 needleworkers to create this marvelous piece. To me, it is calming, even though the very thought of birth is frightening. I also like that she used silk because it shows just how much she wanted to incorporate in the piece.
Let's switch it up now. We are going to look at some pieces from David Wojnarowicz who was born in 1954 and died in 1992. He was most known for his collage art, but he also works on photography, writing and performance art. His art covered things like sex, AIDS and machine vs. nature. He included AIDS in his art, meaning he wanted to make it more known, because his friend died from it and he was also diagnosed with it in 1988.
Water
Created in New York, on 1987, Water is a collage with acrylic and ink on masonite piece. In this collage, he puts together different scenes in the deep ocean to portray a message. He is depicting sex in the main portion of the collage and in the window shown on the frog, we can see a black-and-white photograph of a automobile. There are three photos of erotic activity between two women, three men, and a nude male torso. Around the greyscale collage, we have a school of sperm swimming around the water. This is showing us how subjective we can make any subject matter. He is pitting mechanical vs. nature in the frog and human sexuality within those three erotic scenes. Personally, I like this collage because it is not afraid to talk about the forbidden, hence the sexual scenes. At the same time, however, I cannot seem to get a grasp about what type of message he is trying to portray exactly.
The Death of American Spirituality
This is a piece that was created in 1987. It is a media on plywood piece and it is divided into four panels. I would presume it is from New York. If you notice, the bull continues and creeps its way into two other pieces. (The top right and bottom right) Most of the components in this piece continue into another panel and do not end abruptly. However, the rocks on the left panels just stops instead of encroaching into the two right panels. The snake charmer in the bottom right panel and the kachina in the top right are the most terrifying images in this piece and I think it was meant to showcase his main theme in his works. Wojnarowicz is known, and criticized by his attacks on the American society and this is by the most grand piece he created for that reason.
My take on this piece is that it is great. He wanted to showcase his distaste for the American society and stand up for his beliefs. Doing this, he makes it physical and he did so without remorse, it seems. It is gutsy and it takes courage to make something like this. For my insight on this painting, I would say that the use of color and the two scary figures was enough to draw me in.
Peter Hujar Dreaming/Yukio Mishma: St. Sebastain
This piece was created in New York, on 1982, and it is a spray paint on wood. I wanted to write on this piece because it had very little context to draw from. I think this piece draws from gay iconography. It is interesting because in the title, it says he is dreaming and I would go so far to say that he is dreaming about a young man masturbating. At the same time, we see things that look like arrows and I think those symbolize the fact that there are so many judging eyes trying to look into our inner selves and him dreaming this means that he cannot do it because it is a somewhat of a forbidden topic. I like this piece because of the style. It is somewhat vulgar and yet the man seemingly being inside and outside the torso is intriguing.
David Wojnarowicz seems to be a very charged person and Judy Chicago was as well, but in very different ways. We've seen that Post Modernist art takes on a specific subject and uses that as a focal point for the artist.
"Components of the Dinner Party." Brooklyn Museum:. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2016. <
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home/>.
