The term Modernism is used to describe the theory and style of art from roughly 1890 to 1940. You could say Modernism was the move away from the literal representation in art to a more basic fundamental representation. Modernists were concerned with serious existential themes. They believed the true artists were revolutionary and deep thinkers. Kant helped usher in the era that questioned every established law or theory. Subjectivity was the new buzz word. Modernists believed that there was no objective truth “out there”. Modernist art included dissonant and atonal music, impressionism, surrealism, and the stream of consciousness novels. An example is The Naked Lunch in 1959. Modernists thought the realists were not necessary. One of the main catalysts for Modernism was the invention of Photography
Post Modernists like Modernists are all about subjectivity. They believe that there is no truth “out there” to be discovered. Post Modernists take this further and believe that there is no truth “in there” either. Truth is only your interpretation because of your cultural upbringing. Nietzsche, the first true Post Modernist philosopher, said that there are no facts, only interpretations. Post Modernists claim that truth, beauty, and morality are all subjective.
I really like the following statement by Keith Martin-Smith. “Truth and beauty and morality are something merely constructed, bounded by culture, hemmed in by psychology, framed by gender, driven by the powerful, warped by language, distorted by the powerful, tied to the patriarchy and the domination of nature, and totally relative always”.
Postmodernism exposed institutional racism, sexism, ageism, and many more isms. These new thinkers showed how truth is subjective. A good example is how White Europeans and American Indians view the westward expansion of the White man.

Marcel Duchamp: I can not say this important idea any better than Keith Martin-Smith. “ Post Modern art’s real power comes from forcing the receiver of the art to question their assumptions about what art is, about who and what and how art is created, and how it is received. Beauty and truth are left to antiquity, to the naïve who still believe in cross cultural truths. In that sense Fountain can be said to have achieved success-it forced viewers to question, and often angrily dismiss, the work because it challenged their assumptions, destroyed their sacred cows, and so doing influenced the next generations of artists profoundly. And in this Duchamp’s brilliance is simply without question. The question remains, though, is it art, or is it something else? Duchamp was an artist of ideas, he did not think of art as purely visual. He played with our assumptions with his readymade and readymade aided art. He also used movement and the creation of space in his art to challenge us.

Andy Warhol: Warhol was an illustrator who turned his illustrators’ bent to create artwork which we now label as “POP”. Warhol said “The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do”. To Warhol, style was not important in fact he saw style as a trap. He believed that POP art was basically a U-turn back to representational visual communication. He thought that his art was death to smuggery and the preconceived notion of what art is. I love this quote from Warhol; His art was walking young for the moment without 4 thousand years of art history on its shoulders. He also said that his detractors were the grey brains in high places well arrayed and hot for the kill.

Marcel limited the output of his art and Warhol didn’t. Marcel was not popular until late in life and after his death. Warhol was a mega star for most of his life and he thought he and his art would not last (it being a fad).

Warhol, Duchamp, Einstein, Nietzsche, Max Freud, Heisenberg, and others pushed the meaning of objectivity to its limits and made arguments for its removal as a basis of thinking and acting.

I really enjoyed this exercise because I got an insight into these artist thought processes. I also learned about some history and how not just artists but other disciplines were all exploring new territories. Winn Becton