It has been four months since postmodernism’s eulogy took place in the form of the Tate triennial. The curator, Nicolas Bourriaud, declared his exhibition as the end of three decades spent re-examining our cultural paradigm; like a bad hangover after a binge of kitsch and abstraction. Be gone wicked postmodernity: make way for the era of Altermodern!
This declaration received an ambivalent reception, including in the previous issue of hit & miss, but despite its already ubiquitous coverage I feel an irresistible urge to investigate what this holds for the art world, beyond art itself.
The concept of Altermodernity is difficult to grasp, not least because Bourriaud’s manifesto seems inexplicably vague. From what I gather, it suggests a revised modernity based in a new, globalised world. It, quite sensibly, moves away from a multiculturalism based in an outdated Eurocentric framework, and towards a 21st century cultural hybridism. This is then followed by something about a fight for autonomy. However you may choose to decipher the manifesto, what’s of importance here is Bourriaud’s assertion that postmodernity is over.
I imagine this barely comes as news to those of you that set bewildered eyes on Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull in 2008. Worth £50 million, it became an ugly allegory (ugory? allegly?) for the affinity between the saleability and charisma of an artist and his perceived creative genius. Symbolic of death and decay, the skull pokes fun at the institution; the death of stale and irksome critique in favour of flash extravagance. Fuck it: it’s much more fun, right? The British YBAs were young, rich and famous: nobody could stop them. Like the cavalier spending habits of today’s Labour MPs, the art world had become out of control headline-grabbers.
In the meantime, the world of art criticism spent time doing what they do best: discussing. That is to say, they were freaking out. Now that money controlled art, where did this leave the lowly art writer? For the first time, what a critic had to say no longer had any influence on the art market. And they HATE that.
Worse still, art criticism had somehow become synonymous with ego and arrogance. Who was this authoritarian square enforcing these out-dated criteria of taste? For most, this ideology fed down from a bourgeois and privileged minority was, and is now, unpalatable. Often, a critic’s judgement only humbles an otherwise outspoken society into feeling unable to simply differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’.1
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But, as is the way with a society of great breadth and wonderful diversity, there were also those craving the bygone era of the great poet-critics. What had happened to our Clement Greenbergs and Apollinaires? At what point had the critic fallen from philosopher to pedant? Some blame the rise of the online blog. Any Tom, Dick or…well, me…can give an opinion without the need for any form of quality control. There is a level of popularity and clout to this argument, but I sense it’s little more than outright snobbery. (Ah, that age-old friendship between art and pomposity. I was looking for a way to bring that one up.)
Which in a roundabout way brings me back to the concept of the Altermodern. The critics, academics and comrades in elitism, including Bourriaud, saw that the art world had abandoned them. In which case, it’s hardly surprising that Bourriaud began to act like a jilted lover. Time for a change: postmodernocide.
It is easy to dismiss the concept of Altermodernity as, at worst, a conspiracy to conveniently rid itself of the ‘Groundhog Day’ of fiscal inertia. Even at best, it is often disregarded as simply another gimmick or fad. Since the dawn of the last century, numerous artists, writers and critics have loved declaring the end of a hackneyed cultural archetype. ‘Death to this! Destroy that!’ Is this symptomatic of our total dissatisfaction with anything older than a fortnight? Probably. Is it an increasingly desperate need to fit culture within a framework that is becoming increasingly harder to categorise and restrain? Er, maybe. Shouldn’t we rejoice in our inability to classify and be classified as a cultural high point rather than go on about it? Okay…fine, I don’t know this one either.
One thing I do know, however, is that our need for art criticism hasn’t been rendered obsolete. Far from it! Lets for a minute here assume that Bourriaud is onto something; his manifesto contains an implicit message of how the role of the critic must change. It all comes down to something quite simple: why should we be told how to perceive a work of art? Rather than simply imposing their doctrine of ‘good/bad’ (I’m talking to you, Jonathan Jones of the Guardian!) based on what is essentially a socially-constructed idea of taste, the critic must use their gift of art historical knowledge to pose questions to the art viewer, allowing for the creation of a subjective and individual critique.
This, despite my suspicions of Bourriaud’s motivation, is where I think Altermodernity can succeed. Bourriaud himself makes very little attempt to give a clear and concise definition, which accounts for my confusion when looking for one. Instead, he seeks to pose new questions, perhaps those that have never been asked before. Asking questions without feeling the need to answer them? How incredibly liberating.
1 Read Bourdieu for an infinitely more insightful take on this argument.
SIOBHAN LEDDY
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