Thomas Demand’s new work is being shown at the museum of modern art. He has made the cycle from his art being an imitation of life, when he would build life-size models of scenes out of cardboard and paper, to the point where “his photographs are triply removed from the scenes or objects they purport to depict,” according to MOMA website. Demand started making photographs of his constructions as a means of documenting them, but he has since evolved into building sets for the sole purpose of photographing them. He no longer builds his sets to represent life, but instead to represent an already existing depiction, such as a journalistic photograph. Once more, he takes someone else’s photographs, builds a life-size set from cardboard and paper specifically for the purpose of being photographed, then photographs the scene, and his art is the photograph. (I know ‘his art is the photograph’ could inspire hours of debate because it is an oversimplification, therefore I offer a preemptive apology.)
Cindy Sherman’s film stills, which is now owned in its entirety by the Museum of Modern Art (purchased in 1997), is a prime example of this “triply removed” imitation of life. She depicted images which were supposedly iconic to baby boomers, because of their reflection of “b-movies.” Her images are faux-reproductions of scenes from movies which attempted to depict life.
As a side note: her 1997 show at the MOMA was sponsored by Madonna.
Outside of anomalies, such as Van Eyck depicting his own painting of a canvas in his painting, this triple removal of works of art appears to be solely a function of modern and postmodern art. However, if you can show this triple removal from the real world it automatically places the artist into the category of postmodern. The artist is now defacto reacting against art. What makes an artist postmodern? reaction against the modern movement? or is it reacting to a depiction of life rather than life itself?
The wall you can see as the background in my series Prophet No Longer was created solely for the purpose of being photographed, and it was based off of a wall I had seen in photographs by Jan Saudek, not a real life wall. Does this make that series postmodern?
Personally, I think that simply putting this much meta-level thought into the work makes it post-modern. However, I would want to limit that to thought prior to the production of the work, which might be an unfair limitation if I were applying it to the question of whether a particular piece counted as art proper.
On the other hand. What might separate your work, shown here, from the others, shown here, is that your wall seems to be more of an homage than how Demand or Sherman are using their recreations.
Demand takes and image (1st) and recreates it (2nd), then he photographs it(3rd). Sherman took scenes from movies (1st), recreated them (2nd), and photographed them (3rd). Your work creates a scene (1st) which is imspired by the work of another, and photographs it (2nd). Perhaps I am making this distinction based on the level of replication. I assume that Demand and Sherman recreated their scenes to be nearly identical. While your scene was recreated in spirit, based on the work of another. If Sherman and Demand haven’t done this then my distinction might fall away.
Mind you, I’m not saying anything normative about your work when I make a distinction between yours and theirs. I have never been entirely certain what post-modern is, except that as an era. I really like the question even if I haven’t given the best response.
I don’t really think my work would qualify based soley upon the influence of Saudek’s background wall. It is just an influence, not an attempted recreation.
Also, Sherman was not specificly recreating scenes from B movies; she was just recreating the feel. I took some definitive license with the application of my theory.
WAH, have you checked out James Casebere? He also makes models which he photographs; they are beautiful!
The question of post-moderism as an art label is tricky. For example, I don’t think I could justly label Casebere’s work as post-modern, however, I could say that his wife Lorna Simpson’s work draws upon many ideas that were prominent ideas of post-modernism.
Personally, I associate post-modernism with specific theories and types of analysis, such as those which deal with race, class, economics, colonialism, ideas of marginalisation, kitsch, pastiche, semiotics, etc. Hud’s reference to the meta-thinking was a good one, as post-modernism was all about the meta, but meta has come to stand alone these days because of it’s relationship to the evolution of the internet.