Postmodern art severs images from meaning into random nonrelational fragments
Evidence
In the multidimensional and slippery space of Postmodernism anything goes with anything, like a game without rules. Floating images such as those we see in the painting of David Salle maintain no relationship with anything at all, and meaning becomes detach able like the keys on a key ring. Dissociated and decontextualized, they slide past one another failing to link up into a coherent sequence. Their fluctuating but not reciprocal interactions are unable to fix meaning. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 67
Categorization
- DEFINE: A compact characterization of the postmodern condition as endless free-floating signifiers — the target of Callinicos’s critique.
- XREF: Directly maps to Jameson’s ‘postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism’ account of schizophrenic fragmentation of the signifying chain. — connects to: Segmented contemporary artwork pieces do not demystify one another; Postmodern photography replaced image-to-referent matching with internal visual differentiation — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 416; Postmodern montage delegitimizes conceptual transcendence in favor of immanence — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 437 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Segmented contemporary artwork pieces do not demystify one another
#corroborates(0.85) - Postmodern fragments function as narratives detached from any single referent
#corroborates(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 233 - Postmodern photography replaced image-to-referent matching with internal visual differentiation
#expands(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 416 - Postmodern art operates within media systems rather than unifying them into transcendent wholes
#expands(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 381 - Postmodern montage delegitimizes conceptual transcendence in favor of immanence
#expands(0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 437