Postmodernism can be thought of as a historical period—a period after modernism. Post modernism.
Postmodernism can be difficult to characterise on the whole, as it manifests itself in different ways across disciplines. It can have different aesthetic markers in art, architecture, film, literature, and so on. However, there’s a common logic behind these styles.
The reason there’s a logic—a cultural logic—is that culture and wider society are connected. By understanding the context within which a culture is created, it’s possible to gain a greater understanding of the cultural logic. In the case of postmodernism, the societal context is that of late capitalism.
Late capitalism is the stage of capitalism emerging from WWII. It’s not ‘late’ as in last, but the capitalism of late. Late capitalism can be seen as having these characteristics:
Globalised. Corporations are transnational and work beyond national borders.
Free movement of capital. Capital moves freely; people don’t.
Globalised supply chains and mass consumption.
Fluid. A ring of capital circles the globe.
Computation.
Financialization.
Post-industrial. No longer manufacturing, but service and knowledge work.
There are other characteristics unique to late capitalism that weren’t present in previous capitalisms. According to thinkers such as Fredric Jameson—who wrote the book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism—late capitalism colonises the subconscious, the mind, and the imagination. A well-worn contemporary example of this is social media.
The cultural logic of late capitalism (postmodernism) can be compared to the cultural logic of the previous epoch in capitalism (modernism), with a particular attention paid to art.
Modern characteristics:
Western culture. Cultural products specific to the West.
National. E.g., the French national talking about French artists.
Industrial.
Realism. Scientific objectivity.
Unitary subject.
Binaries. E.g., nature vs. culture, male vs. female.
Single authorship. E.g., the genius.
Medium-specificity. Painters paint, sculptors sculpt, etc.
Originality/authenticity. New. Pushing the envelope. The worst thing is to be derivative.
Sincere.
Postmodern characteristics:
Multicultural.
Global.
Post-industrial.
Constructivism (social constructs). E.g., sexuality, gender.
Fragmented subject. Subjectivity being a mix of things such as social class, economic class, media exposure, etc.
Non-binary. E.g., nature-culture, non-normative gendering.
Multiple authorship. The death of the author.
Post-medium. Installations, mixed media, etc.
Copies/appropriation. More like a DJ sampling culture rather than being the first person to do something.
Quotation/pastiche.
Cynical.
Ironic.
Critical.
Anti-authoritarian.
Questioning structures of power.
Collapsing of high and low culture. Pop art being the first postmodern art movement.
Collapsing of art and everyday life.
Confrontational.
Absurd.
Depthlessness and lack of affect (the generation of emotion) are other postmodern characteristics.
Modern themes—as a comparison—can be captured by the following painting:
Here there are themes of alienation, the stress of subjectivity, heightened emotion, intensity, signification (conveying meaning through signs and symbols), and depth within the image.
Conversely, postmodern themes are captured more accurately by something like Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, where the main character of the book has constructed a self from brand products.
A sense of depthlessness can also be seen in the following two artworks: