But is it ART? (hint: it is)

Take a look at this link.

After a cursory glance most people would hardly comment on this image. They might laugh a little, but most likely it would not strike them as being particularly noteworthy. Fredrick Jameson sure would, but not because he has a deeper perception or a more finely trained eye. Rather, what he would believe was significant about this image is not some hidden meaning but its very meaninglessness.

To understand what all this means, we need to first take a look at Postmodernism, a theory of contemporary media culture which was close to his heart. Not surprisingly Postmodernism was a response to Modernism (the timeline there is aprox. Moderism=1890-1950, Postmodernism=1950-present).

Modernism is what you think of when you think of 'artsy' movies or paintings from that time period. Think Picasso. Think Salvador Dali. Think Metropolis. These were all part of a movement assaulting classic ideas about what art should be; they broke down reality and chose to depict things other that what we see and hear, all infused with a political aggressiveness. It was all about challenging assumptions and changing the way people are used to thinking. Not surprisingly, a lot of these guys were communists.

But the problem is that this art isn't particularly accessible to the working class. Sure, someone with a college degree can appreciate the meaning behind something like this, but a blue collar worker sure wont. And why should he? It is almost completely theoretical, so without the background it becomes meaningless.

Postmodernism as Jameson defines it is based in the idea that Modernists (and people in general) are looking for 'quality' in the wrong places, or even that they have the wrong definition of quality. Postmodernists tend to immerse themselves in popular culture (sound familiar?) in a twofold attempt to throw down previous conceptions about artwork (just as the modernists did) and to show that people can find aesthetic beauty in anything (completely different from the Modernists).

The place of postmodernism in a historical context is an interesting contradiction; it simultaneously overthrowing the 'lofty' standards of classic art, and embracing it as part of popular culture. Take another look at the picture above. Is this making fun of the Mona Lisa? Certainly, to an extent. But Jameson would also argue that this has a greater historical meaning. This image is the combination of two of the most classic works of 'high' art and 'low' art, and to Jameson that would represent the overthrow of the bourgeoisie; the high has become low, and now the accessible, low class art is the high art.