The Fragmented Postmodern Condition

Some of the popular techniques in representing the movement of postmodernism focus on using abstract and often random ideas to produce images of reality that are entirely fictional. Postmodern art is largely concerned with the artists capability of manipulating the fragmented pieces of the mosaic of the postmodern experience. The ideal effect is to produce an artwork that appears to be self-generating. In terms of painting, Jackson Pollock achieves this effect by a total disregard for convention and form. His chaotic paintings seem to happen as though of them themselves without any plan or concern of representation of an actual object. The logic of the painting overtakes the artist and the piece of art becomes about the actual production itself from the random mosaics of the artist’s postmodern reality. Postmodernism is about the ambiguity and the highly personalized experience of the art object from the perspective of the artist and the spectator. In the case of Jackson Pollock it was just as much about the painting being made as it was about the final product. Postmodernism is more about the technique in which the art is made rather than the art object itself. The artists ultimate goal is a mastering of technique which appears to give itself its own form.