Critical Studies Three - Post Modernism

French philosopher, Jean-Francois Lyotard's 1984 work 'What is Postmodernism' undoubtedly takes us through the history of demand. If we need the past to define the present, and it is the present that we have currently defined- what's after Postmodernism?

Just as Postmodernism did to Modernism, Modernism undertakes the rules of Realism- redefines in order to fulfill the 'demand' Lyotard speaks of with the end of to experimentation and united front of philosophy. As he quotes Habermas: "Changing the status of aesthetic experience when it is no longer primarily expressed in judgments of taste" (Lyotard 72) Easily could taste and beauty be overlooked, I believe he means taste to be more than first hand judgment that beauty is considered. Background information and concept must be taken into account.

The work of modern artists leaves concept to fulfill beauty as opposed to Avant Garde work which uses the medium- painting, the material to present the un-presented, that being beauty. Through way of brush strokes it is history that is painted not concept. In a forever attempt to achieve art in its purist sense, it seems that the un-presentable is in fact un-presentable. If true, then Postmodernism and by extension Modernism (in its latter) went the opposite way, by doing the negative - the 'missing pieces', looking at concept as a connection point to the viewer to relate to an experience where the un-presentable exists. What Zizek describes as the un-presentable only being real when one experiences either beauty or terror (Zizek 8).

What we take from this is the impossible. At what I consider the defining point of Lyotard essays: "Finally, it must be clear that it is our business not to supply reality but to invent allusions to the conceivable which cannot be presented" (Lyotard 81). In a belief that the un-presentable is impossible, and that creating an allusion can trigger that within the mind is where Postmodernism sits. Sartre's work of 'real and reality', describes each a reality of our own taken from the real. It is that little doorway from real to reality that could represent Beauty and complete the circle. Although to what would be considered a success may need to have the social popularity of Avant Garde painters, or that could possibly only be a status achieved through history.



Jean-Francois Lyotard, "Answering The Queston: What Is Postmodernism?", trans. Regis Durand, in The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesorta Press, 1984m pp.71-82.

Zizek, Slavoj. "Welcome to the Desert of the Real". Re:constructions. 2001. MIT Comparative Media Studies. 9 September 2009

Flynn, Thomas. "Jean-Paul Sartre." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 22 Apr 2004. Stanford University. 6 May 2009.