Snapshooters of History: Passages on the Postmodern Argument.

A critical examination of postmodernist theory and practice. As
the author states: '..the themes of postmodernism have attained
the status of "radical" common sense'....'While some of this
work has been productive, particlarly in relation to gender and
race, exposing many reactionary assumptions as cultural
productions, increasingly it has come to silence other
arguments'. After discussing Rosalind Krauss's 'The originality
of the Avant-Garde', Sherrie Levine's appropriations, Cindy
Sherman's filmic stills, the author critices the discourse of
representation and claims that 'Any attempt at a systematic
critique of postmodernism requires the elaboration of a
different theory of representation'(such as the Russian Bahktin
School), in order to escape from the post-Saussurian
'condemnation to dwell in the world of eternal NOW'.
'Representation may be problematic (it's certainly never
self-evident) but the problematic is not the same as chaos.' The
author points to the swing to the right of the Parisian
intelligentia and pleads for 'a theoretical system that has
built contradiction into it as the possible site of resistance'.
Under the chapter 'Modernism's Other, Enlightenment's Opposite',
the author criticises post-modernism's choice of modernism to
oppose i.e. Greenberg's, as being Eurocentric and masculine. The
author focuses his attention on the modernism of Heartfield and
Rodchenko, and their underlying concepts of Enlightenment, and
human emancipation. The author fiercely criticises Burgin and
his School: 'The difficulty of producing a representational
practice which can deal with the density of history is reduced
to a fetishistic picturing of its surface images'. A concluding
chapter on 'Economics' observes that 'the theorists of the
post-modern are unconscious of the way their own discourse is
produced as part of the global (industrial and economic)
transformation'.


Citaten:
Tagg, J.: The Burden of Representation (1988)
Crimp, D.: The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism (October 15 1980)
Lyotard, J.-F.: The Postmodern Condition (1979 tr. 1986)
Baudrillard, J.: The Ecstacy of Communication, Postmodern Culture (tr. 1985)
Dews, P.: Logics of Disintegration, Post-Structuralist Thought and the Claims of Critical Theory (1987)
Krauss, R.: The Originality of the Avant-Garde ( October n.18 1981)
Lomax, Y.: When Roses are no Longer Given Meaning in Terms of Human Future (Camerawork n.26 1983)
Eagleton, T.: Wittgenstein's Friends (in: Against the Grain 1986)
Slater, D.: The Object of Photography (Camerawork n.26 1983)
Anderson, P.: In the Tracks of Historical materialism (1983)
Jameson, F.: Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (New Left Rev. n.146 1984)
Tagg, J.: Practicing Theories (Afterimage jan. 1988)
Baudrillard, J.: The Beaubourg Effect (October n.20 1982)
Eagleton, T.: The Politics of Subjectivity (Identity, ICA Doc 6)
Eagleton, T.: Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism (in: Against the Grain 1986)
Benjamin, W.: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (tr. 1970)
Williams, R.: Towards 2000 (1985)
Deitch, J. / Guttman, M.: Art and Corporations (Flash Art n.139 1988)