David,

My apologies for not writing sooner but a) you left me with a trailing "in" which led me to believe that some part of your post went missing, b) I left it a little while to allow anyone else the time to join in, and c) the Inland Revenue have been pestering me to fill in loads of forms.

There are a number of points I wish to take up about your previous posts.

I had thought that my assertion that terrorism was the current dominant art form on the planet was pretty depressing. But you may have topped that with your comment about younger artists finding these things too difficult to think about. I agree, without reservation, with this assessment. If we, as a society, are raising our children without the ability to think for themselves - to view the world with uncritical eyes - then we have failed them and, through it, are failing ourselves.

One of the main problems with discussing postmodernism is that there are as many views of what it is as there are people wanting to comment upon it. We have post-modern culture, post-modern politics, post-modern social structures, post-modern art etc each with different timeframes. My comments were directed exclusively toward post-modern art theory. I visited the 'Theorizing Vs Doing Art' site and was surprised to find that their material assessment of post-modern art agrees almost exactly with mine. (The only material thing I disagree with is their explicit claim that POP is post-modern.) But while we review the same evidence we come to different conclusions. I maintain that post-modern art theory is a fraud and the best textual evidence for this come from this site.

In an attempt to précis post-modern art theory we are led to believe, for example, that the post-modern existed from 1960's to 1980's and that from the early 1990's to now we have, wait for it, post-post modern art. It gets better. One of the characteristics of modernism, we are told, is triumphalism in art, post-modernism preferred a 'new' triumphalism to replace the 'old' triumphalism, and post-post modernism has evolved an anti- triumphalism triumphalism. This is great! This is the solution to the problem of our younger artists. It is instant art theory. Already we can postulate what the next art theory will be. It will be called post-post-post modernism and one of its key features will be a triumphalism anti-triumphalism triumphalism. Young artists need not worry that art theory is too difficult to think about, they need do no more than some nifty textual manipulation and Bob, as they say, is your uncle. Come to think of it, since we already know so much of what the future art theory will be, they needn't actually go to all that bother of painting canvasses or pickling sharks.

Barthes, Foucault, (especially) Lyotard, Baudrillard and Jameson (you left out Craig Owens) are exactly the usual suspects I charge with fraudulently perverting the course of artistic evolution.

I will try to explain why I call it fraud and the best way I can think of (probably because I am a painter) is by describing an image. Before I start, I admit this is a very simplistic representation. It has the benefit, I hope, of clarity and I must warn you this is about PAINTING specifically, and not necessarily about Art in general.

I see modernism as the avant-garde (in its original sense) moving along a road into the future. You may argue about whether or not it is the right road or if there are turnings and cul-de-sacs etc but this is not a discussion about modernism. The various movements (isms, if you like) are shacks built by the side of the road. Just after POP, the road stops and there nothing ahead but open desert. The painters stand at the end of the road and look out. They begin to wander about aimlessly and in many different directions - afraid to travel too far into the desert for the fear of getting lost. So they wander around looking for what is to be seen but always keeping themselves within sight of the road.

A passing critic, standing on the road and with his trusty binoculars, sees the activity in the desert and says 'Aha! This must be called postmodernism. They cannot possibly be wandering around aimlessly so let's call this Pluralism. They cannot be incapable of moving too far away from the road so let's call this nostalgia or better yet a fascination with retro-styles. This cannot be the smell of despair wafting from the desert so let's call it the scent of a 'new' triumphalism.'

Before long, the critic has convinced himself that he has discovered a new theory of art. This is, after all, what critics live for. He moves to a new location in the desert, still within sight of the road, and builds this gleaming new structure.

'Look over there,' says one painter to another. 'It's postmodernism!'

'Thank God for that!' says another, 'I was beginning to think I would never getting out of this bloody desert.'

Soon, the cry is heard all around.

******

Post-modern art theory is an error, a self-delusion, a mirage. It's a fraud because, deep down, they know it’s a mirage. They drink the sand because it's the only drink in town.

I have, almost certainly, gone on for too long but I want to leave with one last thing.

I find it dangerous to derive art theory from the general cultural conditions of society. There is a relationship but it does not seem to me to be as profound as many commentators would like to believe. It is interesting that the three most influential painters of the modern era - (in no particular order) Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin - lived and worked as far outside of their contemporary societies as they could.

To quote Claes Oldenburg, 'square which becomes blobby'

Best wishes,