Fredric Jameson publishes "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logie of Late Capitali sm,"

--

---

as the debate over post modernism extends beyond art an architecture Intoc ultural - - pol itics, and divides into two contrary positions.

o word in postwar criticism is more disputed than the term

"post modernism." This is so largely because it can be

ceaseless transformation of modes of production and consumption , transportation and c0l1l111unication, in the interest of profit.

understood ani), in relation to other broad terms that are

equally difficult to grasp, such <1S "modernism," " modernit),," and
~' modernization . " "Postmodernism" is also paradoxical in its own

On this score there may be an end to the artistic formation

that is called "modernism/' perhaps even an end to the cultural

right. On the one han d, it sugges ts that "modemism"-whether

understood ilS the refinement of each art form to its separate
essence or, 011 the contraq', as the critique of <111 aest hetic sepa ration- is somehow finished, and its death W<1S indeed an nounced
b)' man)' theorists. On the other hand, in the work of so me artists
and critics also associated with the term, postillodernism has
provided new insights into modernism, especi<1ll)' into historical
iwant-gardes long scanted by dominant accounts (ns Dada and
.. Surrealism had been, fo r example, by Clement Greenberg and his
followers) . In this way, postlllodernism has se rved as a wa}' to

epoch called "modernity," but no end to the socioeconomic process

called "modernization" is in sight. On the contrary, the post modern
may only signal the near-global extent of this process.

Rival post modernisms

But what did the term "post modernism " sign if)' in art <1nd architecture at th e height of this debate- that is, circa 1984, the year
th<1t Ronald Re<1gan was reelected president? (I include architecture beca use the debate first became public there.) In the United

revi sit modernism as much as to declare it dead.

States this was the peak moment of neoco nse rvativislll in politics,
which cal1ed for a return to original values of family, religion, and

Like modernism, postmodernism does not designate an)' one

st),le of art. Rather, its most ambitious theorists have lIsed the term

country-in short, of cultural tradition. But it was also, at least in

the art and academic worlds, the peak momen t of poststructural-

to mark a new cultural epoch in the \'Vest. POl' the American critic
Fredric Jameso n, whose "Postl11odernism, or the Cultural Logic of
Late Capitalism" is a classic j\'larxist anal)'sis, the postJl1odern is

ism in theory, which put into question all such origins and returns.
Hardly matched as ant<1gonists-the first was a political force,

less a clean break with the modern tl1<1n an uneven development

of old (or "residual") and Ilew (or "emergent") elements. Nevertheless, it is distinct enough to "periodize" as <1 new moment in
culture in relation to a new stage in capitalism, often call ed
"collsumer capitali sm," which emerged <1fter 'Vorld \Var I. Thus
for Jameson the spectacular images associated with postmodern
culture- seductive simulations in magazines and moyies, on TV
and th e internet, that rarcl}' represent anything real at all-reflect
"the cultural logic" of an economy driyen b)' consum eris t desire.
Howeve r, for the French philosopher Jean - Fran~ojs Lyo tard ,
whose 1'IIe Pastil/adem COllditioll (1979) inaugurated the philoso phical debate over th e tenn, the postmocicrn marked the end
of an)' sllch Marxist narrative, indeed of all "grand narratives" of
"modernit}'," whether told as a star), of progress (such as the
spread of enlightenment) or as a lale of decline (the enslavement
of th e proletariat). And yet, even as these two opponents in the

the second an intellectu<1l orientation-these two philosophies

nonetheless governed the two basic positions on post mod erni sm
at the time, and for convenience I will label th em accordingl)'.
Then <1S now "neoconservative postmoderni sm" was the more
familiar of the two. Defined mostly in terms of st),l e, it reacted
against modernislll, which it reduced to abstract appearance
alone- to the glass-and-steel International Style in architecture,
to abstract painting in art, <1lld to linguistic experimentation in
fiction. It then cOllntered this modernism with <1 ret urn to orn<1ment in architecture, to figlll'ation in art, and to narrative in
fiction. Neoconservat ive post modernism justified these returns in
terms of a heroic recovery not only of artistic individualit}, in
opposition to the supposed anonymity of m<1SS culture, but also of
historicalmemor}' in opposition to the supposed amnesia of modernist culture. "Postst ru cturalist post modernism," 011 the other
hand, questioned both the originalityofthe <1rtist and the authority

of the tradition. Moreover, rath er than a relurn to representation,

debate about postmodernislll disagree on its ramifications, they .. this postmodernislll advanced a critique of representation, in
which represe ntation was held to construct realit}, more than to
concur that its Illotive force remains "modernization," or the

19 16a. 1020. 19 24 . 193Gb. 193 1. 19..\2a. 19 12b. 19601>

596

1984b

I Posl modernism

19W. 1957a

.. 19 77. 1980

In this regard, neoco nservative post modernism was less postCOP}' it, to subject us to stereot ypes more than to reveal the truth
m odernist than <1 lltimodernistj and like th e alltimodernisllls of the
about us. And yet, as we will sec, these two contrary posi tions
might now be see n to share a his torical ide ntity, one that neither .a. interwar period, this one sought stabiJity, eve n autho rity, th rough
referenc e to offi cial history. ~v1ore than il stylistic progrnm, th en,
could have fo reseen.
this postl11 oderni slll was a cultu ra l politics, the strategy of which
In art and archit ecture neoconserva ti ve postl11oder nis m favored
a n eclectic mix of archnic styles ilnd co nt empo ra ry structures.
was twofold: first to foreclose modernism , especially in its critical
In architec ture, as rep resented by Philip Johnson (born (906),
aspec ts (i n the neoconservative sc heme o f thin gs culture WilS to be
Cha rl es W. Moore (l925-93), Robert Venturi (bo rn 192 5),
ani), affirmative of th e stat us quo), and then to impose o ld cultural
Michael Graves (bo rn 1934), Robert Stern (born 1939), and ot hers,
traditions on a com plex social prese nt that was fa r beyo nd sll ch
thi s pract ice tended to use neoclassical elements like columns as
styli stic solutions.
It was here that the great co ntradiction of th is postlllodernisl11
so many popular symbols to dress up the usual modern building,
rationalized in stru ctu re and space for efficiency and profit. And
began to surface, for eve n as it cited historical styles, its mix of quoin art, as rep rese nted by Francesco Clemente (born 1952), Anselm tat ions, often called '( pastiche," tended to deprive these styles no t
.. Kiefer (born 1945), David Salle (born 1952), a nd Julian Schn abel
ani), of con text but also of sense. Ironically, th eil , rather than a
(bo rn 195 1), it tend ed to use art-histo rical refe ren ces as so lllallY re turn to tradition, this post modern is 111 pointed to its frag mentacliched quot ations to decorate the llsll al modern painting (th e
ti on, eve n its di sintegmt ion, ilt leas t as a co herent ca no n of sl)lles.
Indeed , "style," understood as th e singula r expression of a dist increferences differed with the national cult ures of the arti sts-here
tive individual or period, and "history," llnderstood as the bas ic
Itali an, German, and American, respectivel), [1 1) . So in what way
was sllch work postI11odernist? It did not arg ue with modernism
ability to place culturnl references nt all, we re und ermined more
than reinforced by thi s post l11 odern isl11. In this way, neoconservaserio usly o r exceed it formally. Rather it so ught a reconciliation
with the public (which is also to sa)' with the marketplace) that
ti ve postmodernisl11 was exposed by the veq' cultu ra l mome nt that
was sa id to be alienated by the overl) co nceptllal art and arch iit wa nt ed to nee. For, as Jam eso n in pa rt icuhll' has stressed, the
tectl\l'e of the sixties and seventies. Far from democratic (as was
eighties were marked not by a return of style but by its breakdown
sometimes proclaimed), this reconciliation tended to be both
in pastic he, not by a recovel'}' of historical conscio usness but b}' its
elitist in its historical allusions and manipula tive in its conslimerist
erosion in co nsumerist amnesia, and not by a rebirt h of the artist as
ge nius but b}' "t he death of th e author" (i n the fa mOllS ph rase of
cliches. "Americans feel uncomfortable sitting in a square,"
the French poststructuralist Roland Barthes), understood as the
Venturi once remarked, Hthey should be home with th e family
unique origi n of all m ea nin g.
lookin g at television."

1 Julian Schnabel, Exile, 1980

Oil and anllers on wood.
228.6 x 304.8 (90 x 120)

.a.

1938

.a. 1919. 193401. 1937a

1919

Pos t modern ism

1984 1)

697

in the early copied works of Sherrie Levine and photographic

arrangements of louise Lawler. In these practices postl11odernist
Cultural studies
textuality was first brought to bear 011 the modernist ideas of
"master" works and "master" artists, which were viewed as ideolognsofar as semiology sC<lI1Iled the whole of the cultur::Il horizon
ical "myths" to expose-to "demystify" or to "deconstruct." As
for examples of covert political speech, its field extended to
these m}1hs were seen to be gcndered male, it was no accident that
advertising as well as television, packaging, and fashion. This
- -"SC'i,nio\ogIGil openlngtome wioerfiela of Ill:lss-culffffalaaiuv"nuy- - .lhis-critiquf:was led byfeministartists-. - .It..

was contemporal)' with the attack mounted by Ivlichel Foucault

on the internal coherence of the variOllS disciplines that make up
the field of humanities: literature, hi51011'. art, etc. In England, at
the University of Birmingham, scholars began to object to the
idea that mass culture was simply a matter of manipulating
passive consumers. Instead, argued cultura l critics sllch as Stuart
Hall (born 1932) there are strategies of consumption that slip
over into fOfms of resistance. Rap would be one example of a
reprogramming of m'usic that turns ~t into a \'ehicle of
aggression agalnst middle-class values of decorum and
obedience. It was e\'en argued that the 1110st degraded forms of
popular storytelling, so-called "romance novels," could be <l
form of resistance that enabled lower-class women to carve out a
space of privacy and f"uta s)'.
That the divide between high art and mass entertainment would
mirror class war!ilre was articulated by the french sociologist
Pierre Bourdiell ( 1931-2002), who. ill Distillt:tioll (1979), argued
that skill ill the consumption of high art was tantamount to having
"cultural capital," and thus translates in Western, indllstrialized
societies into monetary advantage and power.

...

The other post modernism, "poststructuralist postmodernism,"

differed in Illost respects. It differed, first of all, in its opposition to
modernism. From the neoconservative point of view, modernism
had to be overCOlne because it \\'as too critical. From the poststructuralist point of view, it had to be overcome because it was no longer
critical enough-it had become the official ilrt of the museums, the
favored architecture of the corpo rations, and so on. But it was on the
question of representation that these two postlllodernisl11s differed
most clearly. As noted above, neoconservative postmodernism
advocated a return to representation, and it took the truth of its
representations for granted. Poststrllcturalist postmodernism, on
the other hand, was driven by a critique of representation that questioned this truth, and it is this critique that aligned such
postmodernist art most closely with poststructuralist them,),.
Indeed, this art borrowed the poststrllcturalist notion of the fragmented "text" as a counter to the modernist model of the unitar}'
"work." According to this argument, the modernist uwork" suggested a work of art that was a symbolic whole, unique in its making
and perfect in its form. The postmodernist "text" suggested a very
different kind of entity: in the influential definition of Barthes,
"a multidimensional space in which <1 viJl'iety of writings, none of
them original, blend <md clash." This notion of"textuality" seemed
well suited to the strategy of appropriated images and/or anonymOllS writings, as used in the early phototexts of Barbara Kruger
and poster-statements of Jenny Holzer (born 1950) [21, as well as
Inlr odUGtioo 1.1 977

598

19841)

Posl modernism

Past iche and textua lity

As models of artmaking, then, the modernist "work" and the
post modernist "text" "lre distinct enough. But what about l1eocOllsen'ative " pastiche" and poststructuralist "textuality"- how
different, finally, arc they in effect? Consider, as an example of
each practice, the work of two artists who were lionized circa 1984:
the neo -Expressio nist paintings of} ulian Schnabel on the one hand
and the multimedia performances of Laurie Anderson (born 1947)
on the other [31. Schnabel mixed high-art allusions (such as to
Canwaggio in Exile) with low-culture l11.lterials (such as velvet and
deer antlers), but not in order to question either set of terms. On
the contrary, along with milny other artists of the time, he turned
the modernist techniques of collage and assemblage into contempomr}' devices dedicated to bolster the very mediulll that they once
were llsed to break open: painting. Certainly some of his pictorial
elements are fr.lgmented (such as broken plates), but all are held
together by the conventions of modern painting-such as expressive gestures, excessive frames, and heroic Abstract Expressionist
posturings-that Schnabel attempted to resuscitate. Anderson, on

the other hand, did play with art history and pop culture as cliches.
In her performances, which tended to be allegories of disorienta tion in contemporar), American life, she orchestrated a profusion
of artistic media and cultural signs- projected images, taped narratives, electronically .lltered music and voice, and so on. This

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3. laurie Anderson, detail of the performance Uilit ed States, 1978-82

meh1l1 ge rendered ambiguous the perso nal position as well as the

social refe ren ce of her representations, and it did so outside of any
one medium that mi gh t reconti.\ in them as high art.
Granted th ese great st}'listic and political di fferences, did th ese
respecti ve practices o f pasti che and tex tualit y differ in any stnlCtural sense? Both tend ed to disrupt the idea of stable subjectivit }'
and to shatter the notion oftmditional represe ntation - Anderson
intenti onall y so, Schn abel inad vertentl y so. If this is the case, then
th e neoco nservative "return" to indi vidual sty le and histor ical
trad ition (as exempli fied here b)' Schnabel) might be revealed,
twent)' years afte], its pea k moment, to be similar in effect to th e
pos tstructuralist "critique" o f these th ings (as exe mplified here by
And erso n ). In short, pasti che and textllality mi ght now be see n as
co mpl ementar)' symptoms of the same crisis of subj ectivity nnd
narrntiv(' that co mprised Uthe postmod ern condition" for Lyotard ,
of the sa me process of fri.lgme nt ati on and d isorientation thnt
in fo rmed "the cuitu ral logic of late capitalism" for Jameson.
But th en wh at exnc tl)1 were this subj ec tivity and th at narrative
that were supposed to be in crisis in the first place? They were
pres um ed to be ge neral , even lIniversali critics of "the postmodern
condition" soon came to see them as m ore particular- as most I)'
white, middle-class, male, ' '''es tern Eu ropen n and No rth Am eri can. Pa r som e, an)' th rea t to this subj ec ti vi ty and that narrative, to
the great mod ern traditi o n, was indeed grave, a nd it provoked both

InHlents and di savowals conce rning th e end of art, histo ry, the
ca llan, the ''''est, But for others, especiall y for people marked ns
.io. "oth er," wheth er sex ually, rachli ly, and/or culturally, postmodern ism did not signal nn actual loss so much as n potent ial opening
to other kinds of subj ec tivities i.111d nnrra ti ves altogether.
FURT H ER RE AD ING
Roland B art has,lmago-Music Toxt . tra ns. Stephen Heath (New York: H II and Wang , 1977)

Hal Fo ster (ed.). The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodem Culture (Sealtre: Bay Press. 1983)
Fred ric J ameson , Pos tmcdem is m. or TIle Cultura l Log:c of La te Capita l,sm (DlHham, N .C.:
Duke University Press. 199 II

Rosalind Krauss, The Orig"naMy of the AI'antGarde and Ol/ler Ilodemist Myths (Camb ridge.
Mass.: MIT Press. 1986)
J ean-Franyols Lyo ta rd , The Pas/modem Condo tion: A Reper/ on Knowledge . trans. Geoff
Benn'ngton and Brian Massumi (M nneapo'is: Un;versity of MInnesota Press. 1984)
Crai g Ow ens, Beyond Reco gnition: Rep resent8tioll, Po .ver, and Culture (Berke:ey and Los
Ange:es: University o f CalI fornia Press, 1992)
Bfian Wallis (ed.). Arlllfler~lodt'ffl;sm: Relh-nWng Represeflffl/oo (Boston: D<rid R. Go(fne. 1984)

... 11)75. 1937. 1959, 19S}3c

Po s t m odern ism

1984 b

599