James G: Hamilton, Walker, McGee, Sikander

I feel like all the artists we read about are postmodern, with maybe the exception of Ann Hamilton. Modernist ideology was to reject tradition and be part of the avant-garde, while postmodernism rejects this notion of progress. Perhaps most obviously, Shahzia Sikander rejects this idea of the avant-garde and directly works within her traditions. Her personal identity is a strong influence in her miniature paintings, mixing her traditional Pakistani technical background with more Western ideas about content and expression.

Kara Walker is much like Sikander in the way that her personal identity is very relevent in her work. Her vinyl silhouettes draw reference to, as she mentioned, olden silhouette artists while, as the NYT article mentioned, keeping an “Old South Flavor.” The ambiguous figures and mini narratives call on the audience to piece it all together, a very postmodern idea.

Barry McGee, also following postmodernist ideas, makes an interesting distinction between what is and what is not “high” art. Preoccupied with his “street cred,” he works both inside and outside of the gallery space, using graffiti art as his aesthetic and medium. The use of low-brow medium in a high-brow place, such as a gallery, seems directly related to postmodern thinking. Interestingly, and perhaps hypocritically, Barry McGee desgined a shoe for ADIDAS, which I think is somewhat ironic considering he that he has complained about “trying to maintain a level head under the constant bombardment of advertising” and expressed many concerns about “selling out” in the video.

It is harder to get a read on where Ann Hamilton is coming from, because she very much is rejecting the traditions of classical art, and makes very conceptual installation pieces, which are definitely “advancing the guard.” But her highly abstract installations are also highly open to interpretation and rely on the viewer to take away their own interpretation. She is definitely in contrast to the other three artists we looked at this week. The others seem to be rejecting this idea of progress, that their work has to be “new,” but Ann Hamilton seems to be interested in this idea of progress.

James