Jameson on Postmodernism

The main argument for Jameson’s Chapter reflects on the changes and growth, or lack there of, from art in the modern era to art in the postmodern era. Jameson emphasizes that one is not an element of the other, but rather he focus’ on what he believes to be a clear and unfavorable distinction between the two. He argues that postmodern art has lost its depth and meaning when compared to the modernism era. As Jameson sees it, like other modernists, Van Gogh grasps the truth behind his image with just the raw materials using certain hues and depth to stimulate the viewer with emotion and produce a “Utopian realm of the senses” (7).
Jameson’s motivating question, therefore, attempts to identify what has been lost in meaning when we look at the postmodern era. He argues that its features come from depthlessness, schizophrenia and lack of historicism, lack of individual style, new technology as a figure for a new economic world system, and the connection to multinational capital. He uses work by Andy Warhol to show how the “external and colored surface of things has been stripped away,” and that with postmodernism emerges a flatness in the art. Art like his Coca Cola bottle and Campbell’s soup can only portray the “fetishism of a transition to late capital and political dimensions” (9). Unlike Van Gogh’s work, Jameson refers to Warhol’s Diamond Dust Shoes as more of a “random collection of dead objects hanging together on a canvas” (8). Any potential that such art might have had has been stripped away by new methods of photography and contemporary art like that of Warhol’s.

To Jameson, the postmodern era lacks the gestures and compliments that are offered in modernism that are meant to give the viewer a sense of emotion. In a sense, the larger picture or story behind the meaning of such later art is lost by it’s visual effects and new photographic technology. He argues that the subject of works such as Warhol’s are alienated and lost as a result of its fragmentation, which creates a sense of lost meaning, lack of individuality, and not much overall significance. Overall, Jameson thinks that postmodernism has lost what artists such as Van Gogh were trying to capture and create with their work.

1) “For with the collapse of the high-modernist ideology of style…the producers of culture have nowhere to turn but to the past: the imitation of dead styles, speech through all the masks and voices stored up in the imaginary museum of a now global culture.” I kept coming back to this quote to figure out what exactly is it saying, but it seems a little unclear and contradicting to me. Doesn’t the past consist less of dead styles and more of work like that of modernists?

2) Even though we consider the modernism era to be over, is there still art that reflects the same interests and meaning as artists like Van Gogh? It is hard to believe that we have completely abandoned modernism styles.

Postmodernism and Culture

This James chapter focuses on postmodernism and argues that is not to be seen and studied just as a period, or even a specific style, but as something a part of culture, something that transcends all that.  It takes issues in society such as capitalism, mass production, commercialization, -"death of the world of appearance" and envelopes them in art as generic, flat, and empty (in the traditional sense) but yet still very vocal and convincing.  

He also spends a lot of time arguing and positioning modernism vs. postmodernism.  The contrasts are centered around the cultural and political backdrop of the times.  I also liked that he pointed out the technical artistic points that differ between the two styles -specifically how art techniques moved towards relying on photography more and more, how the viewer no longer can grasp the artist's individuality - his/her unique brushstroke, colors, etc.  These changes in technique reflect on changes in society and popular culture.  

I found that he also presented many contradictions (or so they seemed to me... perhaps I didn't understand them fully).  For instance (Q1), James emphasizes that postmodernism is not devoid of feelings, but rather that these feelings are free-flowing and impersonal, which in a sense, I agree with.  But at the same time I don't fully understand how such impassive feelings become powerful statements.  Is the the lack of strong and passionate feelings that is what stands out?

(Q2) Later in the article James focuses on schizophrenic art and emphasizes that meaning does not lie in the signifier nor what was signified, but the movement, the way in which the message was delivered.  We see this everywhere in our world, from marketing trashy reality tv to marketing health eating habits, yet our world is still inherently materially and image centered, and focused on the end point.  How do these two ideas coexist in the same society?  Does the method or movement have a strong effect on the actual outcome?  On the way we perceive the outcome?

Jameson

Jameson in this article argues that postmodernism became integrated into our society as the society itself changed to a more capitalist, consumer driven environment. The disappearance of the depth and emotion in the postmodern works symbolized the simultaneous loss of individuality through the spread of commodification and superficiality. Jameson's comparison of Warhol's shoes to those of Van Gogh's shoes helped me to clearly identity the evident differences that emerged with postmodern art from previous works. Warhol's choice of shoe (high heels) and the quantity depicted reflects the changing times where consumerism was taking off and people began to buy not only out of necessity, but they began to take a step into a simplified version of the consumer world that has engulfed our nation over the years.

Jameson's motivating question is to define and expand on his discussion of postmodernism. He admits, "it would of course be inaccurate to suggest that all affect, all feeling or emotion , all subjectivity has vanished from the newer image" (10).

Questions:
1) Jameson discusses on page 14, how the anxiety and alienation depicted in The Scream as no longer appropriate in postermodern works and also how there is no longer a "self present to do the feeling) (15). I feel as though Warhol's painting can be looked at superficially, yet I see much deeper into the potential meaning of the painting. Why do women shop? Why do people buy things? To improve their self-esteem, to wash away their sorrows, to preoccupy themselves from a life they do not wish to live, etc. Therefore I am confused on why Warhol's painting lacks a sense of self and feeling.
2) On page 20, I do not understand Jameson's explanation of the "death of the subject" for actors.

Thoughts --> Post-Modernism

Jameson's main argument of this chapter proves that the economic system and culture deeply influences the art of a time period. Post-modern art, varying from paintings to structural buildings, has become more aesthetically pleasing and "integrated into commodity production". The author uses paintings by Van Gogh and Andy Warhol to explain the differences between modernism and postmodernism. He explains that Van Gogh's painting, "A Pair of Boots", should be seen as a "Utopian gesture". These peasant shoes may seem to lack importance, but Van Gogh compensates by using beautiful colors to instill life and feelings. On the other hand, Warhol's painting, "Diamond Dust Shoes", seems to lack any meaning. His painting is a good example of how postmodern art has become more commercial and depthless. Especially with the invention of photography, the flatness of black and white pictures was very different from Van Gogh's method of using color to evoke emotion.

Throughout the beginning of Jameson's essay, he repeatedly repudiates periodizing because of its tendency to homogenize a whole time period. Rather postmodernism should be recognized as a "cultural dominant", allowing heterogenity and the "coexistence of a range of very different, yet subordinate, features". In doing so, other theories aren't ignored and the reader is given a chance to analyze and debate the topic.

Question #1: There is a chart on pg. 88 relating Van Gogh, Warhol, Magic Realism, and Realism of the Old age. What are the cross arrows representing? I want to understand what the chart represents.

Question #2: The explanations of the four models repudiated by comtemporary theory is hard to understand. What are some examples of the kind of art these models represent?

Postmodernism

Frederic Jameson's chapter argues that postmodernism is the "waning or extinction of the hundred-year-old modern movement" (1), that all the art during the period of modernism were the final extraordinary pieces. (The motivating question is the loss of meaning in postmodern art- sort of a downward path.) Jameson claims that postmodern art lacks much of what made modern art so great, such as emotion, individuality, and depth. Postmodern pieces were art from a "postindustrial society." The periodization of the modernism and postmodernism is very important. These two occured at times where society was at different stages, and postmodermism had a different positioning in the economic system of late capital. The culture and situation during a time period has a big influence on the art that is created.

Expressions of art such as Andy Warhol and pop art, and also photorealism, were not as exceptional as modern art. When we look at Van Gogh and Andy Warhol's works, we see that the postmodern piece has a certain flatness and is superficial, when compared to the high-modernist piece. Van Gogh's "A Pair of Boots" has much feeling in the piece, while Warhol's "Utopian Gesture" did not. Post art tended to be in the mass media and the meanings of the pieces are lost because of its reproduction in the media.

Questions:
I'm not too sure about the section on page 15 about Munch's painting. It would be nice to go over that part.
Also going over the explanation of the four modelts repudiated by contemporary theory could be helpful as well.

Postmodernism

The main argument of the James chapter is that “aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally” (4). He is tying a knot around postmodern art and capital. He pushes this idea even further when he writes “this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world: in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and terror” (5). Slash! Zing!

His motivating question focuses on a definition or description of “modernism” and a repudiation of the idea that it is simply a subset or mere continuation of modernism, or that it is not set apart in a critically significant way. While he approaches this point from many angles his basic focus is on the financial/political backdrop against which the aesthetic forms are glued; specifically the “multinational capital” (6) which underpins postmodernism. He writes that another main differentiating factor is that
modernism is characterized by a distinction between high and low art whereas postmodernism is characterized by a blurring of the two or an abandonment of the distinction altogether.

He then describes some of the signifiers of postmodernism. One such signifier is a lack of a personal style and the adoption of pastiche. He also identifies a nostalgic historicism (Body Heat, American Graffiti). Another theme James focuses on is depthlessness, superficiality or “waning of affect” (10) (Warhol) and goes so far as to claim this is the “supreme formal feature of all the postmodernisms” (9).

James highlights the essential clash between these features of postmodernism and their modernist counterparts – again vigorously underlining the fact that modernism constitutes a fundamental break from modernism rather than simply being an extension or component of it. Where postmodernism lacks a personal style, for example, modernism is intricately tied in with the notion of one’s style. It had, he suggests, a cultural/aesthetic norm against which it could develop its personal styles and idiosyncratic voices. Postmodernism, lacking in a homogeneous culture, simply can’t follow that recipe and must abandon it in favor of things like pastiche, surface, mimicry and nostalgia.

Questions 1: What is the “complicated situation” that Munch’s The Scream reflects which is described on page 15?

Question 2: Why are the concepts of anxiety and alienation “no longer appropriate in the world of postmodernism”? (14) Also, why/how have the 4 fundamental depth models been repudiated? (12)

modern vs post modern

In the article, “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” Frederic Jameson argues that postmodern art is the deconstruction of expression. Modern art was individualized; it was symbolic, and talent centered. Its artwork was filled with anxiety and alienation like Munch’s The Scream. He argues the end of modernism was the result of the post-industrial society in which society switched from a goods producing industry to a service economy. With the end of the individual and the “bourgeois ego,” this came the end of individualism, “of style, in the sense of the unique and the personal, the end of the distinctive individual brushstroke” (15). Furthermore Jameson claims that postmodern art lacks the feelings and emotion that embodied modern art- anxiety for one. According to Jameson, he believes “the liberation from the older anomie of the centered subject may also mean not merely a liberation form anxiety but a liberation form every other kind of feeling as well, since there is no longer a self present to do the feeling” (15). Post modern art lacks the individuality and meaning that modern art created. On the other hand, postmodern art is playful, uses pastiche, and lacks critical distance. Basically, it is a fragmentation of a subject. Artists like Andy Warhol use this technique, it can be seen in the painting, “Diamond Dust Shoes,” as Jameson argues that there is no subjectivity and thus the meaning is lost.

Jameson maintains that modern art exemplifies four models of depth whereas postmodern art represents three models of depthless ness. The four models of depth include essence and appearance, Freud’s structure of consciousness, existentialism, and structuralism, while on the other hand, postmodern art consists of three models of depthless ness: lack of subjective depth, simulacra, and schizophrenia.