Where is the ceiling?
If art has broken through all the barriers where do we go from here?
Modernism and its associated movements turned the course of art around from historical and religious genre pieces to art that was about us. Art became self centred, indulgent in the experiences of the artists who made the art. We sought to explain our existence and by proxy explain everyone else’s experiences as well. Rothko wanted his paintings to be religious experiences? They were his religious experiences that we have to want to understand to enjoy. Modernism posed answers, similarly to the paintings that came before it.
And then after the death of modernism rose the almighty post modernism with its rejection of the explanation. Post modernism just wants to question things, why does art exist? does art have purpose? can art have answers? and postmodern art does this it just poses questions and few answers. Warhol made his Marylins to question what death meant, what was the nature of celebrity, and not to answer why Marlyin Monroe was important or was significant. I often feel while being provocative and legitimately awesome, postmodernist art, especially that of the late 20th century, leaves a bad taste in your mouth for not giving you any meaning to latch onto.
What stage are we in now? Some put forward a type of post post modernism that strikes a line between the two extremes but I feel now art is in a state of confusion with an infinite amount of visual styles that draw meaning in an infinite amount of conceptual approaches.
My specific focus here will be painting but, it seems that after painting went from realism, to abstraction, to expressionistic abstraction, then to photorealism, then to all styles imaginable. Painting has been pulled inside, outside, left, right and all directions from the canvas it began at. It feels that in some ways everything may have been done and to continue exploring is pointless. If art has both asked and posed questions what is it’s purpose now?
It feels like this leads to the development of super conceptual art that leaves the realm of the real. However, if art is a series of reactions it seems difficult to see how art will react next.
