Postmodern art

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Postmodern art (sometimes called po-mo) is a term used to describe art which is thought to be after or in contradiction to some aspect of modernism. As with all divisions the lumpers and splitters problem applies; there are those who argue against a division into modern and postmodern periods.

Thus it has been used to denote what may be considered as the ultimate phase of modern art, as art after modernism or as certain tendencies of contemporary art. Postmodern art uses a vocabulary of media, genres or styles as parts of an extended visual language that goes beyond the boundaries of the modernist vocabulary. Postmodernism is, by its very nature, impossible to define clearly. Some of the best expositions appear in the theoretical writings of Jean Baudrillard, who concludes that what motivates art historical change is not any 'authentic' or 'original' impulse, but simply fashion, pivoting on the desire for novelty, which he sees as an organic and integrated processes.

One possible premise behind postmodern art is that all forms of novelty and rebellion have already been explored, and that even if that weren't true the particular emphasis on rejection of that which is old or already done is only handicapping to an artists self-expression. Seeing as such, postmodernism is in a sense art's reconciliation of itself and its past, and postmodernists typically collect influences from all periods and schools, using several media in a given piece in a pastiche-like form. Artist Allison Hetter, when asked what postmodernism was, replied with the simple phrase: "Everything's been done already." Many observers feel that we are in the stage of post-postmodern art where: "Everything's been re-done already".

The alternative foundation is based on a belief that the artificiality of modernism was a deathtrap, while art is birth. This view has been articulated in the manifesto of the Transpressionism movement by the Canadian artist Guity Novin who believes a jugement of delight in beauty is a social trait, and has declared that the observer of painting must be involved in the creation of beauty. The artist role is to provide a platform for the observer’s imagination to give birth to a new creation of beauty. Thus, postmodernism in its Traspressionism mode rejects the braggadocio of high modernism which rejects all artistic achievements of the past. Instead, it adheres to a subliminal judgment, to the mystical collective recollection, and to the effigies in which it attains manifestation.