Formalism and postmodernism are two very different schools of thought in art, and to understand them both it’s important to understand them in relation to each other. Formalists say, “It’s a feast for your eyes, therefor it’s art! Look, isn’t it pretty?” while postmodernism is a bit more difficult to sum up in one short quip. Basically the postmodernists are a bit more cerebral than the formalists.
When reading about postmodernism, the sentence I enjoyed most is, “Perhaps the clearest and most certain thing that can be said about postmodernism is that it is a very unclear and very much contested concept.” I went to art school and when I got to the section about postmodern art I thought, “Great, here we go again.” It’s been made so complex that it’s almost annoying. We get it postmodernists, you’re heady, enough!
A great way to describe postmodernism is that they despise “art for art’s sake” in that they want their artwork to mean something, to say something about what’s going on in the world around them. Hence, many video installation or multimedia artists use footage of the visual culture they encounter on a daily basis. They hate the idea of spontaneity or being “avant-garde” at all. Instead they prefer more of a throwback to traditional values in art, for example the use of Realism. Realism is basically the idea that if it looks like what you intended it to look like, job well done. However postmodern artists tend to deal with contemporary issues in an aesthetic that looks, for lack of a better word, contemporary. Gilbert and Georges are a great example of postmodern artists. Their aesthetic is very modern but with much attention paid to realism and current political issues, usually surrounding their sexual orientation and social justice for the LGBT population.
Formalism is a really “cool” style of art that isn’t very deep. Basically many people look at formalism art like Jackson Pollock’s paintings and say, “My kid could do that!” Yep, you’re right, they could, but they didn’t. Formalism being a part of modern art was all about what was cutting edge or “avant-garde”. People were breaking some serious ground during the time when modern art and formalist art was being created. It followed the idea that some art is so heavy and why the hell can’t it just look cool?
Expressionism is tied to formalism in that expressionist art doesn’t always take a figurative approach, or if it does, it does it in a way that isn’t straight forward. You have to work for it a bit with expressionist art to find out what they’re talking about. It’s difficult not to see the connection between artists like Piet Mondrian and Joel Shapiro. Mondrian ais a painter while Shapiro is primarily a sculptor, however their art shares the characteristics of simplified forms, shapes and colors. They’re not trying to make any ground-breaking statements about religion, politics, the environment, they’re simply creating something beautiful. Then again that’s all subjective, isn’t it?
The most important thing to me is that artists keep creating art that inspires and moves us to be a better version of ourselves, to go out and create our own awe-inspiring work in whatever form that takes. Classification is important for those who want to critique in addition to enjoy. It’s handy when explaining why something is good, bad, beautiful, ugly, profane, kitch, avant-garde, or whatever you want to call it. Being able to articulate your opinions concisely is an invaluable skill in any realm of art and design, but why did they have to go and get so darn complicated?