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Forum URL: http://www.truefresco.com/cgidir/dcforum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: Modern Art - Classic Art - New Art
Topic ID: 8
#0, Postmodern Realism
Posted by abvg on 03-Feb-02 at 07:12 PM
Is the resurgent interest in realism the inevitable consequence of Postmodern artistic, theoretical and moral bankruptcy?

Is is not the last refuge of the desperate?


#1, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by Ilia on 06-Feb-02 at 04:03 AM
In response to message #0
Hi there!

I've got to put some points on that one a short thesis hopefully. Later this week???


#2, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by Ilia on 05-Mar-02 at 06:26 PM
In response to message #0
Hi Abvg!

It was me complaining for a delays with posting and here we go - gone missing for a month myself...

Way to many things are on a go at the same time...

I think the cause is mainly in the "discovery" that we completly forgot why we paint. The rule braking frenzy
ended up in a mud - colorfull but nevertheless mud.

And what is Realism? Isn't it a product of Modernism?
Did Rubens thought of his "style" as it being Realism?

Lets get this definitions strait before we go any further...


#3, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by abvg on 15-Mar-02 at 07:20 PM
In response to message #2
Ilia,

I take your point about needing definitions. I am thinking particularly of 'photo-realism'.

My original post was immediately after I attended an exhibition of contemporary painting and I found myself in front of a watercolour depicting a seaside scene. The painting was technically a masterpiece. I can only imagine the time and trouble taken by the artist to produce a work of such technical perfection.

Nevertheless, my immediate and longer lasting reaction was - why bother? If the artist had just taken a photo of the scene and had it enlarged, he would have saved himself a lot of trouble. Just recently, I have seen many similar examples.

On a more general and personal note, I find 'illusionistic' painting sterile. I should make clear, however, that I tend to regard Impressionist work as 'semi-abstract'.


#4, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by Ilia on 14-Jun-02 at 00:39 AM
In response to message #3
LAST EDITED ON 14-Jun-02 AT 00:40 AM (PST)
 
Hi Abvg,

>Nevertheless, my immediate and longer lasting
>reaction was - why bother? If the artist had
>just taken a photo of the scene and had it
>enlarged, he would have saved himself a lot of
>trouble. Just recently, I have seen many similar
>examples.


I agree, personally I like to "see the paint" and would prefer an abstract piece to the perfectly rendered but otherwise stale work. However I remember a first show in Moscow of American photorealism about 15 years ago, a few pieces were "mysteriously poetic" in it's freeze-a-moment tranquility.

And as you say "on general and personal" note I would conceder photorealism more of a conceptual art than a
painting in it's modern sense.

...I wonder what if Rembrandt or Giotto or... could have seen at least one of such (photorealism) paintings...


#5, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by Ilia on 28-Aug-02 at 02:21 AM
In response to message #3
Hi Abvg!

how are you doing upthere?

how is that umber treating you?


#6, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by wei on 08-Oct-02 at 03:40 PM
In response to message #5
hello there

it is an interesting topic, so i "break in" without an invitation!

i am from china and moved over to the states 15 years ago. it had been exclusively soviet type of realism there until the outside world was introduced to the younger artists there.

the european buyers, curators and collectors, go to china with the perception of a great new times for the local artists who now have freedom, and believe this is the great time for buying master pieces of a remarkable time of change. they believe the chinese artists are screaming with political statements, and they are looking for the conceptual arts there. since the highest prices go to that category, the smart and more famous, much richer chinese viasual artists do not use any brushes or pallet knifes, they use surgeon knifes to cut their own skin and transplants to pigs, and wiseversa...it is the dominating artistic movements there right now.

i would like to hear some comments from the american visual artists for their view of this, because most chinese artists are confused today, the artistic critiques are quiet because they dare not to comment.

anyone out there care to comment?


#7, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by santiago on 23-Nov-02 at 05:01 PM
In response to message #5
wei, I think every type of art that has value is made out of a conscious need, which the good artists are always able to realize. Even beyond technical or pictorical skills, sensibility acounts for the capacity to realize the artistic needs of the artist's own time .I don't know at what degree, do the reasons or the needs of these type of artistics manifestations have a solid fundament. Is there any ideology or statements being made directly by these artists, besides any speculation you could derive empirically from their work? Well, I think anyways its very interesting to be informed or know a little about the art of cultures as fascinating and complex as the asian.

hope to hear more from you.......


#8, RE: Postmodern Realism
Posted by ronald on 21-Dec-02 at 08:57 AM
In response to message #7
I too feel I should barge in.. there was a time I think when artists were swept along by the 'medium as message' theme until the general ouevre smacked of a sameness, a been there done that.
the self referential and appropriations now 'allowed' by postmodernity have become a logical extension of what otherwise loomed as a near crises in art practice.
The conceptual schools had 'painted' themselves into a corner, a reductio absurdum, where the real art was being practised by the theorists in a contest to pull off the most obscure metaphor.
but people seem to have a need to explore to explain and depict this in a plastic form to allow sccrutiny in an effort to understand their world; I don't think this has changed since people found they could do this on cave walls.
Realism in this age, is now one way amongst many for today's artists of expanding the understanding of the world .... if you were to ask me