Postmodern Margins


The art historical literature dedicated to postmodernism grows from a series of articles, exhibitions, and debates amongst artists, scholars, and curators articulated between 1977, when Artists Space hosted Douglas Crimp’s exhibition Pictures, and 1989, the year Ann Goldstein and Mary Jane Jacob opened A Forest Of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation at MOCA Los Angeles. Scholarship on this period has developed into two distinct branches, one linked to the temporal engagement of audience with performative artwork and the other emphasizing the critique of art institutions and mass media. This bifurcation undermines the significance of those who fall between the two, including artists incorporating subjective or affective content and those working in intermedia or in political collectives. How do these historically marginalized practices deform our understandings of postmodernism from within? How might attending to their minor narratives necessitate a rewriting of art historical genealogies of the period? Shedding light on artists, activists, and projects that currently lie at the border of postmodernism’s confines allows for a reassessment of still-dominant art historical origin stories: that Pictures art derives from Walter Benjamin’s notion of baroque allegory; that it can be directly traced to the post-studio practices of John Baldessari and Allan Kaprow; that it is always already inflected by readings of Baudrillard. We invite papers investigating artists, exhibitions, texts and spaces that have been, until now, unsung or peripheral, and especially presentations that examine interfaces between these marginal postmodernisms and feminist and queer politics.

Field of Study:
United States of America
Twentieth Century
Words/Writings
Video (history and studio)
Time-Based Media

Chairs:
Janina Marshall,Columbia University - jm2286@columbia.edu and Nicholas C Morgan, - ncm2136@columbia.edu
Discussant:
David Joselit,The Graduate Center, City University of New York - Djoselit@gc.cuny.edu

Richard Prince's Mythical Norm
Alex Kitnick, Bard College