Postmodernism Art Quotes & Sayings

Postmodernism shifts the basis of the work of art from the object to the transaction between the spectator and the object and further deconstructs this by negating the presence of a representative objective viewer. — Arnold Aronson

Everything you see that makes you think about the comics, I think you should read into it. — Avi Arad

I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog. — John Steinbeck

That little cabin belongs to my dad, and I just happen to have the keys. Wanna see it?"
Was he nuts? Of course I wanted to go into a dark cabin in the woods with him. "Sure. — J.B. Hartnett

In the end the soul is itself the longing of the soulless for salvation. — Theodor W. Adorno

Deconstruction seeks neither to reframe art with some perfect, apt and truthful new frame, nor simply to maintain the illusion of some pure and simple absence of a frame. Rather it shows that the frame is, in a sense, also inside the painting. For the frame is what "produces" the object of art, is what sets it off as an object of art - an aesthetic object. Thus the frame is essential to the work of art; in the work of art. Paint a $5,000 abstract painting on a railroad boxcar and nobody will pay a cent for it. Take a torch, remove the panel of the boxcar, install it in a gallery, and it will be worth $5,000. It will be art because it is now framed by the gallery. But at the same moment that the frame encloses the work in its own protected enclosure, making it a work of art, it becomes merely ornamental - external to the work of art. Thus is the frame central or marginal? Is the frame inside the work of art, essential to it, or outside the work of art, extrinsic to it? — James N. Powell

The dominant theories of elite art and criticism in the 20th century grew out of a militant denial of human nature. One legacy is ugly, baffling, and insulting art. The other is pretentious and unintelligible scholarship. And they're surprised that people are staying away in droves? — Steven Pinker

I wanted to say, for the love of God, if you want freedom, can't you see it's not anywhere outside of you? Say you have it, and you have it! Act as if it is your's, and it is! Richard, what is so damned hard about that? But they didn't hear, most of them. Miracles - like going to auto races to see the crashes, they came to see miracles. First it's frustrating and then after a while it just gets dull. I have no idea how the other messiahs could stand it — Richard Bach

Postmodernism does not help us understand good art. It encourages art that can be easily understood and throws in something catchy to cover the loss of mystery. — Walter Darby Bannard

I leave scientists mentally scarred,
Triple Extra Large,
Wild like rock stars who smash guitars ... — Inspectah Deck

High modernism is numinous through and through, as the work of art provides one of the last outposts of enchantment in a spiritually degenerate world. Postmodernism, with its notorious absence of affect, is post-numinous. It is also in a sense post-aesthetic, since the aestheticisation of everyday life extends to the point where it undermines the very idea of a special phenomenon known as art. Stretched far enough, the category of the aesthetic cancels itself out. — Terry Eagleton

What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants. — Robert Hughes

Postmodernism does not facilitate better art. It rationalizes inferior art by wrapping it in words - a suit of armor with nobody inside. — Walter Darby Bannard

After a while, the character sort of took over. — Peter Mayhew

He was a badass when badassness was called for — Ednah Walters

When someone's really good at encapsulating human emotion and putting it out in a form that can reach a variety of people, that's going to have a big effect when he's no longer there. — Albert Hammond Jr.

That's what healthcare reform is about: the middle class's economic security. — Sander Levin

There's nothing that you can't overcome with God on your side. — Joyce Meyer

The world, every day, is New. Only for those born in, say, 1870 or so, can there be a meaningful use of the term postmodernism, because for the rest of us we are born and we see and from what we see and digest we remake our world. And to understand it we do not need to label it, categorize it. These labels are slothful and dismissive, and so contradict what we already know about the world, and our daily lives. We know that in each day, we laugh, and we are serious. We do both, in the same day, every day. But in our art we expect clear distinction between the two ... But we don't label our days Serious Days or Humorous Days. We know that each day contains endless nuances - if written would contain dozens of disparate passages, funny ones, sad ones, poignant ones, brutal ones, the terrifying and the cuddly. But we are often loathe to allow this in our art. And that is too bad ... — Dave Eggers

My grammar be's ebonics, gin tonics, and chronic. — Nelly

Postmodernism surely requires an even greater grasp of symbolism, as it's increasingly an art of gesture alone. — Andrew Eldritch

We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system. — Winifred Holtby

The assertion that only sex is power and the arrogation of creativity to the masculine sex and the rendering of all creativity as sexual - this is patriarchal aesthetics. Patriarchal passion sees violent sex as the essential creative act, even aesthetically, through a sort of metaphysical transubstantiation. This is their romantic belief that sex with the Master can produce the artistic spirit in the student. Male creativity is thus born in another, her work is given depth through the violent transgression of her boundaries. — Somer Brodribb

Postmodernism has not overcome the problems of modernism, but only compounded them with a dosis of cynicism, relativism and indifference. — John Walford