Postmodern Exhibition

On Wednesday 26th October, I went to the V&A to visit the Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 exhibition. It was really interesting, informative, inspiring and thought-provoking. (Click here for a BBC video of the exhibition.)

I took lots of notes during the exhibition and learnt a great deal while there.
The exhibition took you through the beginning of Postmodernism right up until (and past) it's death. 

"After all, since it is fairly dead, we might as well enjoy picking over the corpse" - Charles Jencks
As I entered the exhibition I was greeted with this quote and a definition of Postmodernism, in that it "defies definition" but is the most controversial of recent art movements. 
One way of describing it was that it is "like a broken mirror, a reflecting surface made of many fragments". It's key principles were complexity and contradiction and it "shattered the established ideas about style", bringing "a new self-awareness about style itself".

"Whoever decides to abandon the modern movement can choose between Versailles and Las Vegas" - Italian Critic Bruno Zevi in 1967. Zevi was essentially saying that the primary ingredients of Postmodernism at the beginning were ("both/and rather than either/or" - Robert Venturi) high classicism and 'low' pop culture.

Robert Venturi and his partner Denise Scott Brown are very influential architects and in 1972 published a book called Learning From Las Vegas. They also used a lot of collage between the 60s and 70s that used 'Historicism' whose central aim was "to replace a monolithic idiom with a plurality of competing ideas and styles." This was the start of moving from modernism into postmodernism. 

Giulio Paolini's sculpture of L'altra (The Other Figure) from 1984 stood out to me as it plays on the high classicism of the past, but gives it a melancholic edge that is more sad and introspective. 

I have looked at Robert Rauschenberg in the past and have always admired his work so it was interesting to see his work 'Estate' from 1963 feature. 

This follows on the theme of collage, but is developed into 'Bricolage' which is a cut and paste technique.
Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss defined a bricoleur as "someone working with 'oddments leftover from human endeavours'. 
Therefore if modernist objects were based around utopia, progress and machine-like perfection, postmodern objects seemed to come from a dystopian and far-from-perfect future. 

The exhibition used this clip from Blade Runner (1982) to show this change in thinking, as it dwells on the possibilities and consequences of living in a 'post-human' age.

Moving into the 1980s Postmodernism developed into the New Wave movement. It was the dominant look of the 'designer decade' with vivid colours, theatricality and exaggeration. Everything was a style statement. This change reflected the desire to combine subversive statements with commercial appeal. Magazines and music were the most important delivery systems for this new phase of postmodernism. 

Italian design group Memphis became the forefront for postmodern design and architecture and was started by Ettore Sottsass. The created a 'new international style' and a period style of 'brash colour, vivid pattern and expressive form'.
Meanwhile the energy of the post-punk subculture was broadcast through music videos and cutting-edge graphics. 

It was a few thrilling years where image was everything.

Boy George was part of the New Romantic movement that was huge during the 1980's. Dancers, art directors, choreographers, pop stars, drag queens and nightclubbers were all the unlikely authors of some of postmodernism's most influential style statements. Blade Runner's investigations of identity (Rachael's belief that she is human, when in fact she's a replicant, synthetic life form) are often cited in discussions of postmodern experience. 

Gender was explored, as boys and girls started dressing as each other. Annie Lennox is an example of a pop star who challenged gender norms, showing that androgyny wasn't incompatible with mainstream appeal. 
MTV was launched in 1981 (which I've looked at previously) and so the rise of music videos meant another platform for postmodernism and were vital in broadcasting postmodernist ideas to mainstream culture.
Viewers were presented with a series of celebs posturing before the camera.
There were many examples shown in the exhibition which demonstrate the wide range of musical styles in which postmodern techniques were explored from hiphop to new romantic to techno.

1982

1988

I found looking at the different music videos really useful and made me look at editing my video a little differently. 

"If postmodernism means anything is allowed then I was all for it."

- David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Postmodern graphics and photography involved bricolage, fragmentation and quotation.

Peter Saville was responsible for a number of Joy Division and New Order's album art, where he used 'found' art images.

Magazines such as 'The Face' and 'i-D' produced many postmodernist covers...

By blending the avant-garde and commercial they were a postmodern phenomenon. 
April Greiman and Jayme Odgers used cut and paste to produce posters...

Paula Scher produced posters for Elvis Costello...

Money, however, became a huge issue in the 1980s due to living in Thatcher's Britain. 

Andy Warhol 'Dollar Sign' 1981

Warhol's ironic acknowledgement of his own works market value exemplifies postmodernism in its final stage. Postmodernism collapsed under the weight of its own success. It participated in the culture obsessed with wealth and status that was the undoing of the movement. 
"Money doesn't mind if we say it's evil, it goes from strength to strength. It's a fiction an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy." - Martin Amis

'Protect Me From What I Want' by Jenny Holzer, Times Square, 1985

By the end of the 1980s postmodernism was no longer a radical subcultural style. It had gone mainstream.

Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo by Ai WeiWei, 1994

Ai WeiWei used a 2000 year old urn for the piece above. Ironically after he'd defaced it and turned it into contemporary art it became even more valuable than before.

Postmodernism left behind a set of unresolved intellectual provocations. It was marked with a sense of loss, even destructiveness, but also a radical expansion of possibilities. 
In the permissive, fluid and hyper-commodified situation of design today, we're still feeling its effects. In that sense, like it or not, we are all postmodern now.

The exhibition closed with New Order's video for Bizarre Love Triangle (1986).
The bizarre editing effects and montage style is very influential and the symbolic images make it a memorable postmodern music video. 

Magnum Photography

Magnum Photos

Magnum Photos was founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour and George Rodger. It is one of the first photographic 'cooperatives', meaning to be owned and run by its members. And their mission was to "feel the pulse" of the times they lived in, documenting and interpreting the events, issues and people of the world. 

Henri Cartier-Bresson, a co-founder of Magnum Photographers, is acknowledged to be the creator of modern photojournalism and also helped to develop "street photography", a very influential style of photography. 


Rankin

Rankin, born in 1966, is a British portrait and fashion photographer. He and Jefferson Hack founded 'Dazed & Confused' an influential British style magazine. Rankin's subjects are diverse and include some of the most famous faces in the world from Kate Moss, Madonna, Queen Elizabeth II, Tony Blair, Vivienne Westwood, Colin Firth and David Bowie. He has also shot some world-renowned advertising campaigns including Nike, Hugo Boss, L'Oreal, Leivs, Coca Cola, BMW and Rimmel. 
He makes music promo videos (working with Chris Cottam) for many artists, including Kelis, Nelly Furtado, Robyn and Marina and the Diamonds. 
He also has been involved with making photography documentaries with the BBC and shot front covers for many magazines, including Q, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Elle, GQ and Vogue.


Here are some examples of his work...

I've uploaded this to my flickr page, where all my photographs related to the course will be...

Music Video History

After some thinking I have decided that I will almost certainly be producing a music video, while retaining short film elements if that remains possible. 
So, to give me an insight into the music video market, I have done some research into the background of music promo videos and why they exist.

Definition: "A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes."


History of the Promo

Music videos date back much later than many people may expect. Ever since 'talkies' arrived in 1926 there have been musical short films and in the 1940's "promotional clips" of one-song films were made for the 'Panoram visual jukebox', dubbed "soundies". 

In the late 60's/every 70's, as television grew, many "filmed inserts" were used by UK artists on TV if the artists couldn't play live. Pink Floyd, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues and The Doors were early artists who produced music videos.

In 1973, David Bowie featured in a series of promotional films, and they were hugely important in the development of the music video genre as they were made by a professional photographer, as opposed to a film or TV director, who had creative control.

Top of the Pops began to play music videos in the late 1970's, and bands found that a good music video increased the singles sales, as viewers wanted to watch the video again next week.

Then, in 1981, MTV was launched, showing music videos 24 hours a day. Only a few years later music videos became the centre of popular music marketing. Artists such as Duran Duran and Madonna grew in their success due to their appealing videos. The development of technology also played a part in the rise of modern music videos, as video cameras became much cheaper and easier to use. 

Then in 1983 came the most successful and famous music video to ever be produced, Thriller by Michael Jackson, which was almost 14 minutes long and cost half a million dollars to make, setting a new standard for artists across the world.

Moving onto the nineties and the use of directors names in the credits of the videos made it clear that music videos were becoming much more serious. In 1995 one of the most expensive videos of all time was made, Scream by Michael and Janet Jackson, costing $7 million. 

Then with the rise of the internet in the mid 2000's, music videos became more accessible to everyone, especially in 2005 with the launch of YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook where audiences could share videos quickly and easily. However after YouTube merged with Google, problems arose over copyright, complicated by the fact that not all record labels shared the same policies towards music videos. 

 Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video became the most-viewed video on YouTube in 2010 with 130 million views, which was beaten in 2011 by Justin Bieber's "Baby" with over 500 million views.