(After Death or After Modernism)
I'm looking at a cartoon in an old magazine in my hand; a man is standing in front of a sculpture that looks like an abstract work in the museum of contemporary arts. “What does this work represent?” " he asks the person next to him. Just then, a voice comes from the work: "What do you represent?"
This problem of representing and carrying meaning has been one of the most discussed topics from the modern period to the present day. The only problem that arises in the art of the 21st century is: "How far can one go in terms of the disappearance of meaning?"
It is certain that the art world no longer has the old deep meaning and faith in art. Everyone now claims that they are not an artist, both in fashion and social art. (Everyone outside the art market is also an artist). There is no Dandy attitude behind this disbelief. There is no Buddha on an inner journey looking into the void. There is nothing. Behind this disbelief there is only a harsh reality, which is; art market and capital.
Maybe that's why artists do exactly what they need to do. They create works that feed this disbelief. That's why contemporary art continues on its way with quotes from many old works. That's why it has no claim to be new. Because for contemporary art, there is always the present instead of the future. That's why everything is instantaneous and temporary...
In this context, it can be said that Post Modernism is a period in which all kinds of thoughts and actions are candidates for a second birth. If European (Renaissance) art once represented "culture" and life, today American (Contemporary Art) art represents a second birth and "culturelessness".
Whether we are artists of Eastern or European culture, we follow this modern lack of culture in a ridiculous way. For a long time, we have preferred this unhappy unconsciousness and melancholy in order to learn this lack of culture.
In the past, there was a tradition like this: - Since photography was a very new and expensive method - many people could have their photos taken (as a last memory) only when their loved ones died. The dead were photographed dressed in their best clothes and with make-up applied (with the help of pedestals that allowed them to stand upright behind them). In order to have a beautiful and last memory, posing the dead as if they were not dead at the end of the 19th century was called Post Mortem photography. (This was called Post Mortem photography. (This was called Post Mortem photography.) At that time, it was a wonderful thing to be photographed beautifully. Because dead people always looked the most alive in the photo compared to other living people.)
Nowadays, contemporary art carries out the photography of the dead. It re-presents to us the make-up versions of the concepts that have already passed and have already left this life. (The works we watch are constantly posed/made to pose by saying that they are real, thinking that they still carry a meaning and content.) In fact, we know that the works presented to us have abandoned their content a long time ago and do not have any meaning, but just like the people in the photographs of the dead, we continue to believe in their existence and the meaning of art.
This "temptation" somehow reveals the attraction that lies at the basis of the idea called Postmodernism. In art, which has moved from production to production monstrosity, it has long been revealing images that are attractive but have lost their aura.
Because Postmodernists know that things that have been thought and philosophized for a long time have come to an end and they no longer need the discourse of culture. For them, the culture of the new age consists of technology, cars, trendy places, phones, fashion and make-up. That is why Postmodernism pragmatically accomplishes what the Modern era could not achieve today.
Therefore, there is no need for a radical discourse or an avant-garde attitude. He does not feel the need to produce an alternative to the existing system. He does not have any expectations. He has no utopia. The power that the modern period derives from nothingness appears before us as an excess in contemporary art. (too aesthetic, too real, too ironic...) It can be said that contemporary art has already reached the level of banality with this much excess. The meaninglessness of the word contemporary art becomes more noticeable at this point; while it is absurd and meaningless, it is more absurd and meaningless. striving to be… That's why we are no longer able to see again what is new, but only what has been produced so far.
Going back to the beginning of the topic, if the Modern era is dead in art, the Postmodern era is doing dead photography. (Postmortem) Postmodernism stands before us as a reflection of the regret felt by man in the face of the exhaustion of his own culture... Perhaps this is the success of Postmodernism. The dead can manage art better than the living. Because they no longer have great claims and concerns.
Ali Alışır
2014