Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 13:42:11 -0500
From: Barry Smylie <barrysmylie-AT-iname.com>
Subject: Re: REVIEW of "difference/indifference" -  Roth &  Katz


what i don't get is the fact that architects formulated the idea of postmodern
as a return to older forms using new materials

i didn't hear about it till around 1980 (can't remember exactly) but there was
no postmodern before then i know that

no nothing about postmodern those days in visual art (conceptuals performing
madly and routinely without object or very little objective stuff that could be
traded or sold - like anti materialist revolutionary art after the revolution
was lost)

post-modern started out as an architectural movement away from monolithic
modernism.
it was quickly followed by a similar sympathetic stream in music... a return to
classic forms - new age?

now all i read is stuff about "post-modern" artists like duchamp and john cage
(which is something like saying... turner the cubist)

it's like there is a kind of war going on in the intellectual community to deny
that the style has changed from "modern" to "postmodern"... like they are caught
up in the word "modern" like it should follow us to the end of time (nothing can
happen after modern because modern is always with us).

imagine duchamp painting like rembrandt - hard to imagine isn't it?
what about john cage writing like mozart? - naw, it would never happen...

but a postmodern musician can play like john cage and mozart together
or
a postmodern painter can paint like rembrandt and think like duchamp (hate to
imagine the opposite but hey!)
or
a postmodern architect can build a colonnade of pillars that do not actually
support the arcade
places them there so that the pedestrian can be protected from falling snow,
rain and glass shards and "feel" protected and safely behind strong traditional
familiar pillars.

i think to myself - i must have some wires twisted in my co-processor
am i the only artist who thinks this way?
am i all alone?



"Lowther,John" wrote:

> > [silence] / poetix / {avant-garde}
> >
> > are (m)any of you familiar with this book ?
> > _difference/indifference musings on postmodernism, marcel duchamp and john
> > cage_
> > introduction and text by Moira Roth, commentary by Jonathan D. Katz
> >
> > i found it troubling



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