After Modernism

The Dilemma of Influence

The purposeful dismantling of the modernist myth has been the central issue of contemporary art making and art criticism. Since the 1960s, other disciplines, cultures, and artists previously excluded from modernism's privileged canons have become absorbed into an ever expanding field of activity and influence. Younger artists are a new breed of cultural scavengers -- anything or anyone is fair game for appropriation or reinterpretation. Meaning is no longer fixed, context is everything.

However, despite this willful upending of aesthetic hierarchies, the issues and traditions of modernism do persist, ultimately revealing modernism itself to be richer and more complex than previously considered.