Andreas Huyssen - 1984 - the Mapping Postmodern - New German Critique.pdf

8/9/2019 Andreas Huyssen - 1984 - the Mapping Postmodern - New German Critique.pdf

1/49

Mapping the Postmodern

Author(s): Andreas HuyssenReviewed work(s):Source: New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 5-52Published by: New German CritiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488352 .

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2/49

Mapping

he

ostmodern"

by

Andreas

Huyssen

A

Story

In thesummer f

1982

I

visited heSeventh

Documenta

n

Kassel,

Germany, periodic

xhibitionwhich

documents he

atest

rends

n

contemporary

rt

every

ouror five

years.My

then

five-year

ld son

Daniel was with

me,

and he

succeeded,

unintentionally,

n

making

he

latest

n

postmodernism uite palpable

to

me.

Approaching

he Fri-

dericianum,

he museum

housing

the

exhibit,

we saw a

huge

and

extended

wall of

rocks,

eemingly eaped

haphazardly

longside

the

museum.

t was a work

by

Joseph

Beuys,

ne of

the

key

igures

f the

postmodern

cenefor

t east decade.

Coming

closer

we realized

that

thousands

f

huge

basaltblockswere

rranged

n

a

triangle

ormation

the

smallest

ngle

ofwhich

pointed

t a

newly lanted

ree all of

t

partof whatBeuyscalls a social sculpture nd what n a more tradi-

tional

erminology

ould havebeencalled

a

form f

pplied

art.

Beuys

had issued

an

appeal

to

thecitizens f

Kassel,

dismal

provincial

ity

rebuiltn concrete fter he

heavy

bombings

of the ast

great

war,

to

plant

treewith ach of his 7000

"planting

tones."

The

appeal

-

at

least

initially

had been

enthusiastically

eceived

by

a

populace

usually

not nterestednthe atest

lessings

fthe rt

world.

Daniel,

for

his

part,

oved

the

rocks. watched

himclimb

up

and

down,

cross nd

back

gain.

Is this

rt?"he asked

matter-of-factly.

talked ohim bout

Beuys'ecologicalpolitics nd about theslowdeathof theGerman

forests

Waldsterben)

ue toacid

rain.As he

kept

moving

roundon the

rocks,

isteningistractedly,gave

him few

imple oncepts

bout

art

in the

making, culpture

s

monumentor

anti-monument,

rt for

climbing

n,

and

ultimately,

rt

for

vanishing

the rocks fter

ll

would

disappear

from hemuseum

site s

people

would

begin

o

plant

the trees.

Later

n the

museum,however,

hings

urned ut

quite

differently.

*Earlierversionsof thisarticlewerepresented t theXVIIthWorld Congress of

Philosophy

n

Montreal,

August

1983,

and at

a

conference n "The

question

of

the

Postmodern:

Criticism

Literature

Culture"

organized

at

Cornell

University y

Michael

Hays,

April

1984.

5


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3/49

6 The ostmodern

In thefirst allswe filed

past

a

golden pillar, ctually

metal

ylinder

entirelyoveredwith olden eaves byJames eeByars),ndanextend-

ed

golden

wall

by

Kounellis,

with clothesstand

ncluding

hat and

coat

placed

before t. Had the

artist,

s a latter

day

Wu

Tao-Tse,

vanished

nto he

wall,

ntohis

work,

eaving

nly

his

hat

nd coat?No

matterhow

suggestive

we

might

findthe

uxtaposition

f

the

banal

clothes tand

nd the

preciosity

fthedoorless

hining

wall,

one

thing

seemed

clear:

"Am

Golde

hfingt,

um

Golde

drfingt

ie

Postmo-

derne."

Severalrooms

furthern we encountered

MarioMerz's

spiral

able

made out ofglass, teel,wood and platesofsandstone,withbushlike

twigs ticking

ut of

the

external

arameter

f the

piral

formation

again,

t

eemed,

n

attempt

o

overlay

he

ypical

ard

materialsfthe

modernist

ra,

teel

nd

glass,

with

ofter,

more natural"

nes,

n this

case sandstone

nd

wood.

There

were onnotations

f

Stonehenge

nd

ritual,

omesticated

nd

brought

ownto

iving-room

ize,

tobe sure.

I was

trying

o hold

together

n

my

mindtheeclecticismf materials

used

by

Merz

with he

nostalgic

clecticism

f

postmodern

rchitec-

ture or the

pastiche

of

expressionism

n the

painting

of the

neuen

Wilden,

rominently

xhibited

n

another

uilding

fthisDocumenta

show.I was trying,notherwords,to spina red thread hrough he

labyrinth

f the

postmodern.

Then,

in

a

flash,

he

pattern

ecame

clear.

As Daniel tried ofeel he urfaces nd crevices fMerz's

work,

s

he ranhis

fingers

longside

he tone

plates

nd

over he

glass, guard

rushedover

houting:

Nichtberiihren as istKunst "

Don't

touch

This is

art )

Anda while

ater,

ired rom o much

art,

he sat down

on

Carl

Andr6's solid cedar blocks

only

to be chased

away

with

the

admonition hat rtwas notfor

itting

n.

Here itwas

gain,

hat ld notion fart:no

touching,

o

trespassing.

Themuseum s temple, he rtist s prophet, hework s relic ndcult

object,

the halo restored.

Suddenly

the

privileging

f

gold

in

this

exhibitmade a lot of sense.The

guards,

of

course,

only performed

what Rudi

Fuchs,

organizer

of this Documenta and

in

touchwith

current

rends,

had

in

mind all

along:

"To

disentangle

rtfrom he

diverse

ressures

nd

social

perversions

thas to

bear."'

The debates

of

the

ast

fifteeno

twenty ears

bout

ways

of

seeing

nd

experiencing

contemporary

rt,

bout

imaging

nd

image making,

bout the en-

tanglements

etween

vantgarde

rt,

media

conography

ndadvertis-

ing eemedtohavebeenwipedout,the late leaned for newroman-

ticism.Butthen

t

fitsnall

too well

with,

ay,

he celebrations

f

the

prophetic

word n

themore recent

writings

f

Peter

Handke,

with he

1.

Catalogue,

ocumenta

(Kassel:

Paul

Dierichs,

.d.

[1982]),

p.

XV.




4/49


5/49

8 The

Postmodern

trends; nd,

in

a certain

ense,

it is even

anti-postmodern

n

that

t

abandonsanyreflectionftheproblemswhich he xhaustion fhigh

modernism

riginally rought

bout,

problems

which

postmodern

art,

n

itsbetter

moments,

as

attempted

oaddress

aesthetically

nd

sometimes ven

politically.

Documenta 7 can standas the

perfect

aesthetic imulacrum:

acile clecticism ombinedwith

esthetic

m-

nesia and delusionsof

grandeur.

t

represents

hekind f

postmodern

restoration

f

a

domesticatedmodernismwhich

eems

to

be

gaining

ground

n

the

ge

of

Kohl-Thatcher-Reagan

ndit

parallels

he onser-

vative

olitical

ttacksn the ulture fthe

1960s

whichhave

ncreased

in volumeand viciousnessn thesepastyears.

The

roblem

If

thiswere ll that ould

be

said about

postmodernism

twould

not

be worth he

trouble

f

taking

p

the

ubject

t all. I

mightjust

s

well

stopright

ere

ndjoin

the

formidable horus f hosewho

ament

he

loss of

quality

nd

proclaim

hedeclineofthe rts incethe

1960s.

My

argument,

owever,

will

be a differentne.

While

the

recent

media

hype

bout

postmodernism

n

architecturend the

rtshas

propelled

thephenomenon ntothe imelight,thas also tended toobscure ts

long

and

complex history.

Much of

my ensuingargument

willbe

based

on the

premise

hat

what

ppears

on

one level s the

atest

ad,

advertising

itch

and hollow

spectacle

s

part

ofa

slowly

merging

cultural ransformationn

Western

ocieties,

change

n

sensibility

or

which

the term

postmodernism'

s

actually,

t leastfor

now,

wholly

adequate.

The

nature nd

depth

of

that ransformationre

debatable,

buttransformationt

s. I don't

want

o

be misunderstood s

claiming

that

there

s

a

wholesale

paradigm

shift

f the

cultural,

ocial and

economicorders;4 nysuchclaimclearlywouldbe overblown. ut nan

important

ectorofour

culture here s

a noticeable hift n sen-

sibility,

ractices

nd

discourse

ormations

hich

distinguishes

post-

modern

etof

ssumptions,

xperiences

nd

propositions

rom

hat

f

a

preceding

period.

What

needs further

xploration

s

whether his

transformationas

generated

genuinely

new

aesthetic orms n the

various rts rwhether

t

mainly ecycles

echniques

nd

strategies

f

modernism

tself,

einscribing

hem nto n altered

ulturalontext.

Of

course,

there

are

good

reasons

whyany

attempt

o

take the

postmodern

eriously

n

its

wn

termsmeetswith

o muchresistance.

It s ndeedtemptingodismissmany fthecurrentmanifestationsf

4.

On

this

uestion

ee

FredricJameson,

Postmodernism r

the

Cultural

Logic

of

Capitalism,"

New

eft

eview,

46

July-August

984),

53-92,

whose

ttempt

o den-

tify

ostmodernism

with

new

stage

n

the

developmental

ogic

of

capital,

feel,

overstateshe

case.




6/49

Andreas

uyssen

9

postmodernism

s a fraud

erpetrated

n

a

gulliblepublic

by

theNew

York rtmarketnwhichreputationsrebuilt nd gobbled up faster

than

painters

an

paint:

witness

he frenziedbrushwork

fthe new

expressionists.

tisalso

easy

to

argue

thatmuch

of the

contemporary

inter-arts,

ixed-media nd

performance

ulture,

hich

nce seemed

so

vital,

s now

spinning

ts

wheels nd

speaking

n

tongues,

elishing,

as

it

were,

the

eternal ecurrence

f

the

deja'

u.

With

good

reasonwe

may

emain

keptical

oward

he

evival f he

Wagnerian

esamtkunstwerk

as

postmodern pectacle

n

Syberberg

r

RobertWilson.

The current

Wagner

ult

may

ndeed

by

a

symptom

fa

happy

collusion

between

themegalomania f hepostmodernnd that f hepremodern nthe

edge

of

modernism.

The searchfor he

grail,

t

seems,

s on.

But

t s

almost oo

easy

oridicule

he

postmodernism

f he urrent

New York rt ceneor

of

Documenta7. Suchtotal

ejection

will

blind

us to

postmodernism's

ritical

otential

which,

believe,

lso

exists,

even

though

t

may

be difficulto

dentify.5

he notionof

the

rt

work

as

critique ctually

nforms ome

ofthe more

thoughtful

ondem-

nations f

postmodernism,

hich saccused

of

having

bandoned

the

critical tance that nce characterized

modernism.

However,

thefa-

miliar

deas

ofwhat

onstitutes critical rt

Parteilichkeit

nd

vanguard-

ism,

l'art

engage,

ritical ealism,or the aesthetic f negativity,he

refusal f

representation,

bstraction,

eflexiveness)

ave ost

muchof

their

xplanatory

nd normative

ower

n

recent ecades.

This

s

pre-

cisely

he dilemma

of art na

postmodern

ge.

Nevertheless,

see no

reason

ojettison

he

notion fa critical rt

ltogether.

he

pressures

o

do so

are

not

new;

they

avebeenformidable

n

capitalist

ulture ver

since

romanticism,

nd

if ur

postmodernity

akes

t

xceedingly

if-

ficult o hold on to

an

older

notion f

rt

s

critique,

hen he

task

s to

redefinehe

possibilities

f

critique

n

postmodern

erms ather han

relegatingtto oblivion. f thepostmodernsdiscussed s a historical

condition

rather

han

only

as

style

tbecomes

possible

and

indeed

important

ounlockthecritical

moment

n

postmodernism

tself

nd

to

sharpen

ts

cutting dge,

however

blunt

t

may

seemat

first

ight.

What

willno

longer

do

is

either

o

eulogize

or

to

ridicule

ostmodern-

ism nbloc.

he

postmodern

must

be

salvaged

fromts

hampions

nd

from tsdetractors.his

essay

s meant

to contribute o that

project.

In muchof he

postmodernism

ebate,

very

onventional

hought

pattern

as asserted

tself. ither t

s

said

that

ostmodernism

s con-

5. For

a

distinction etween critical

nd an

affirmative

ostmodernism,

ee

Hal

Foster's ntroductiono TheAnti-Aesthetic

Port

Townsend,

Washington:

Bay

Press,

1984).

Foster's ew

ssay

n this

ssue,

however,

ndicates

change

ofmindwith

egard

to

the

critical

otential

f

postmodernism.




7/49

10

ThePostmodern

tinuous

with

modernism,

nwhich

ase the

wholedebate

opposing

the

two s specious;or, t sclaimedthat here sa radicalrupture, break

with

modernism,

which s then

valuated

n

either

ositive

r

negative

terms. utthe

uestion

ofhistorical

ontinuity

r

discontinuity

imply

cannotbe

adequately

discussed

n

terms fsuch

an

either/or

ichot-

omy.

To

have

questioned

the

validity

f such

dichotomous

thought

patterns

s of

course one of

the

major

achievements

f Derridean

deconstruction. ut

the

poststructuralist

otion

of

endless

textuality

ultimately

ripples ny meaningful

istorical

eflection n

temporal

unitsshorter

han,

say,

the

ong

waveof

metaphysics

romPlato to

Heideggeror the preadofmodernitirom hemid-19th enturyo the

present.

he

problem

with uch

historical

macro-schemes,

n

relation

to

postmodernism,

s that

hey revent

he

phenomenon

from ven

coming

ntofocus.

I will herefore

ake different

oute. willnot

ttempt

ere o

define

what

postmodernism

s.The term

postmodernism'

tself hould

guard

us

against

uch

an

approach

as

it

positions

he

phenomenon

as

rela-

tional.Modernism

as that from

which

postmodernism

s

breaking

away

remainsnscribed

nto he

very

wordwithwhichwe describe

ur

distance

from

modernism.

Thus

keeping

n mind

postmodernism's

relationalnature, willsimply tart rom he

Selbstverstiindnis

f the

postmodern

s ithas

shaped

variousdiscourses

ince he1960s.What

hope

to

provide

n

this

ssay

s

something

ike

large-scale

map

of

the

postmodern

which

urveys

everal

erritories

nd

on which he

various

postmodern

rtisticnd

critical

ractices

ould

find heir esthetic

nd

political

place.

Within

he

trajectory

f the

postmodern

n theUnited

States

will

distinguish

everal

hases

and directions.

Myprimary

im

isto

emphasize

someofthe

historical

ontingencies

nd

pressures

hat

have

shaped

recent

esthetic

nd cultural ebates

but

have either

een

ignoredor systematicallylockedout in critical heory

1'am"ricaine.

While

drawing

on

developments

n

architecture,

iteratureand

the

visual

arts,

my

focuswillbe

primarily

n thecritical

iscourse

bout

the

postmodern:

postmodernism

n relation

o,

respectively,

oder-

nism,

he

avantgarde,

eo-conservatism

nd

poststructuralism.

ach

of

these

constellations

epresents

somewhat

eparate

ayer

of

the

postmodern

nd

will be

presented

s such.

And,

finally,

entral

le-

ments fthe

Begriffsgeschichte

fthe ermwill

be discussed

nrelation

o

a broader set

of

questions

thathave

arisen

n recentdebates

about

modernism,modernityndthehistoricalvantgarde.6 crucial ues-

6.

For an

earlier

ttempt

o

give

BegriJfsgeschichte

f

postmodernism

n

iterature,

see the

various

ssays

n

Amerikastudien,

2:1

(1977),

9-46

includes

valuable biblio-

graphy).

f.also

Ihab

Hassan,

The

ismemberment

forpheus,

econdedition

Madison:




8/49

Andreas uyssen

11

tion forme

concerns he extent

o

whichmodernism nd the

avant-

gardeas forms f n adversaryulturewereneverthelessonceptually

and

practically

ound

up

with

apitalist

modernization

nd/or

with

communist

anguardism,

hatmodernization'swin

rother. s

I

hope

this

ssay

will

how,

postmodernism's

ritical imension ies

precisely

in ts

radical

questioning

f

those'presuppositions

hich inkedmod-

ernism nd

the

avantgarde

o the mindset fmodernization.

The

xhaustion

f

heModernistovement

Letme

begin,

then,

with ome brief

emarks

bout

the

trajectory

and migrations fthetermpostmodernism.'n literaryriticismt

goes

back as far s

the ate 1950s

when twas used

by rving

Howe

and

Harry

Levin to lamentthe

evelling

ff fthe modernistmovement.

Howeand Levinwere

ooking

ack

nostalgically

owhat

lready

eemed

likea richer

ast.

Postmodernism'wasfirst sed

emphatically

nthe

1960s

by literary

ritics uch as Leslie Fiedler nd Ihab Hassan who

held

widely ivergent

iews

f

what

postmodern

iterature as. twas

only during

the

early

nd

mid-1970s

thatthe term

gained

a much

wider

currency,ncompassing

irst

rchitecture,

hen

dance,

theater,

painting, ilm nd music.Whilethepostmodern reakwith lassical

modernismwas

fairly

isible

n

architecturend the visual

arts,

he

notionofa

postmodern upture

n

iterature

as

been

muchharder

o

ascertain.

At some

point

in

the late

1970s,

'postmodernism,'

not

without

merican

prodding,

migrated

o

Europe

via Paris nd Frank-

furt. ristevand

Lyotard

ook t

up

in

France,

Habermas

n

Germany.

In the

United

States,meanwhile,

ritics ad

begun

to discussthe nter-

face

of

postmodernism

withFrench

poststructuralism

n its

peculiar

American

daptation,

ften

imply

n the

assumption

hat

he

vant-

garde

n

theory

omehow

had

to be

homologous

to the

avantgarde

n

University

fWisconsin

Press,

1982),

especially

henew "Postface 1982: Toward

a

Concept

of

Postmodernism,"

p.

259-271.

-

The debate about

modernity

nd mod-

ernization

n

history

nd the

social sciences

s

too

broad to document

here;

for n

excellent

survey

of the

pertinent

iterature,

ee Hans-Ulrich

Wehler,

Moder-

nisierungstheorie

nd

Geschichte

G6ttingen:

andenhoeck&

Ruprecht,

975).

-

On the

question

of

modernity

nd the

arts,

ee

Matei

Calinescu,

Faces

of

Modernity

Bloom-

ington:

ndiana

University

ress,

1977);

Marshal

Berman,

AllThats

Solid

Melts

ntoAir:

The

xperiencefModernityNew

York: imon and

Schuster,

982); Eugene

Lunn,

Marx-

ism nd Modernism

Berkeley

nd

Los

Angeles:

University

f

California

ress,

1982);

Peter

Bfirger,

heoryf heAvantgardeMinneapolis:UniversityfMinnesotaPress,

1984).

Also

important

or

this debate

is

the recent

work

by

culturalhistorians

n

specific

ities

nd

their

ulture,

.g.,

Carl

Schorske's

nd

Robert

Waissenberger's

ork

on

fin-de-sibcle

ienna,

Peter

Gay's

ndJohn

Willett's

ork n theWeimar

Republic,

and,

for discussion

f

American nti-modernism

t the

urn

fthe

entury,T.J.Jack-

son Lears' No Place

of

Grace

New

York:

Pantheon,

1981).




9/49

12 The ostmodern

literature nd

the arts.

While

skepticism

bout

the

feasability

fan

artisticvantgardewason the rise nthe1970s,thevitalityftheory,

despite

ts

many

nemies,

never eemed

in

seriousdoubt.

To

some,

indeed,

t

appeared

as

if

the cultural

nergies

hathad fueledtheart

movements

f

the 1960s were

flowing uring

he

1970s

nto

the

body

of

theory,eaving

he

artistic

nterprise igh

nd

dry.

While such an

observation

s

at best

of

mpressionistic

alue

and also not

quite

fair

o

the

rts,

tdoes seem reasonable

o

say

hat,

with

ostmodernism's ig-

bang logic

of

expansion

irreversible,

hemaze of the

postmodern

became

evermore

mpenetrable.

y

the

early

1980sthe

modernism/

postmodernismconstellation n the arts and the modernity/

postmodernity

onstellation

n

social

theory

ad become one ofthe

most contested

errains

n

the

intellectual ifeof

Western

ocieties.

And the

errain

scontested

recisely

ecause theres somuchmore t

stake than the existence

r

non-existence f

a new

artistic

tyle,

o

much

more also than

ust

the "correct" heoretical

ine.

Nowheredoes thebreakwithmodernism eem more obvious than

in

recent

American rchitecture.

othing

ould be

furtherrom

Mies

vander Rohe's functionalist

lass

urtainwalls han he

gesture

fran-

dom historical itationwhichprevailson so manypostmodern a-

gades.

Take,

for

xample, Philip

Johnson's

AT&T

highrise,

hich s

appropriately

roken

up

into neoclassical

mid-section,

oman col-

onnades at the

street evel

and a

Chippendale pediment

t the

top.

Indeed,

a

growing

ostalgia

or arious ife orms fthe

past

seemsto

be

a

strong

ndercurrent

n the ulture f

the 1970s

and

1980s.And

t

is

tempting

o dismissthishistorical

clecticism,

ound not

only

n

architecture,

ut

n

the

arts,

n

film,

n

literaturend

in

themass cul-

ture f recent

years,

s thecultural

quivalent

ftheneoconservative

nostalgia

or

he

good

old

days

nd

as a manifest

ign

ofthe

declining

rate fcreativityn atecapitalism. ut sthisnostalgia or hepast, he

often

renzied

nd

exploitative

earch

for

usable

traditions,

nd the

growing

ascination ith

re-modern

nd

primitive

ultures

is

all

of

this ooted

only

n

the

ultural

nstitutions'

erpetual

needfor

pecta-

cle and

frill,

nd thus

perfectlyompatible

with

he

status

uo?

Or

does

it

perhaps

lso

express

ome

genuine

nd

legitimate

issatisfac-

tion with

modernity

nd the

unquestioned

belief

n

the

perpetual

modernizationf rt?

f

the atters

the

ase,

which

believe

t

s,

then

how can the search

for

lternative

raditions,

hether

mergent

r

residual,be made culturallyroductivewithout ielding o thepres-

sures

of

conservatism

hich,

with

vise-like

rip,

ays

claim to the

very

oncept

f

tradition? am not

rguing

ere hat ll manifestations

of the

postmodern ecuperation

f the

past

are to

be

welcomed be-

cause somehow

they

re

n

tune

with

he

Zeitgeist.

also

don'twant o




10/49

Andreas

uyssen

13

be misunderstood s

arguing

hat

ostmodernism's

ashionable

epu-

diationofthehighmodernist estheticnd itsboredom with hepro-

positions

of Marx and

Freud,

Picasso

and

Brecht,

Kafka nd

Joyce,

Sch6nberg

nd

Stravinsky

re somehow marksof a

major

cultural

advance. Where

postmodernism implyettisons

modernism

t

ust

yields

to

the

cultural

pparatus'

demands

that t

legitimize

tself s

radically

ew,

nditrevives he

philistine rejudices

modernism aced

in its

own time.

Buteven

fpostmodernism's

wn

propositions

on't seem convinc-

ing

-

as

embodied,

for

xample,

n the

buildings

y

Philip

Johnson,

Michael Graves and others

-

that does notmean that continued

adherence

o an older set

of

modernist

ropositions

would

guarantee

the

emergence

ofmore

convincing

uildings

or

works

of

art.

The

recentneoconservative

ttempt

oreinstate domesticated ersion

f

modernism s the

only

worthwhile

ruth

f

20th-century

ulture

manifest

or

nstance

n

the 1984 Beckmann

xhibit

n

Berlin nd

in

many

rticles

n

Hilton Kramer's

New

Criterion

is

a

strategy

imed

at

burying

he

political

nd aesthetic

ritiques

f

certain

orms fmoder-

nism

whichhave

gainedground

incethe1960s.

Butthe

problem

with

modernism

s

notjust

hefact hattcanbe

integrated

nto conserva-

tive deologyofart.Afterll,that lreadyhappenedonce on a major

scale

n

the

1950s.7

he

larger

roblem

we

recognize oday,

t eemsto

me,

s the

closeness

ofvariousforms fmodernism

nits

own

time o

themindset

f

modernization,

hether

n

its

apitalist

r communist

version.

Of

course,

modernismwasnever

monolithic

henomenon,

and

it contained

both he modernization

uphoria

of

futurism,

on-

structivism

nd Neue Sachlichkeitnd some

of he tarkest

ritiques

f

modernization

nthe variousmodernforms f"romantic

nti-capi-

talism."'8

he

problem

address

n

this

ssay

s

not whatmodernism

really as,but rather ow twasperceived etrospectively,hatdomi-

nant values and

knowledge

t

carried,

nd how it functioned

deo-

logically

nd

culturally

fter

World War

II. It is

a

specific

mage

of

modernismthat has become

the

bone

of contention or

the

post-

moderns,

nd that

mage

has

to

be reconstructed

f

we

want

ounder-

stand

postmodernism's roblematicrelationship

o

the

modernist

tradition

nd its claims to difference.

Architecture

ives

us the

most

palpable example

ofthe

issues

at

7. On the deologicaland politicalfunction f modernism n the1950scf.Jost

Hermand,

"Modernism Restored:West

German

Painting

n

the

1950s," NGC,

32

(Spring/Summer

984);

and

Serge

Guilbaut,

How

New

York tole he

dea

of

Modern rt

(Chicago: Chicago University

ress,

1983).

8.

Fora

thorough

iscussion f this

oncept

ee Robert

ayre

nd Michel

Lowy,

"Figures

ofRomantic

Anti-Capitalism,"

GC,

32

(Spring/Summer

984).




11/49

14 The ostmodern

stake. he modernist

topia

embodied

n

the

building

rograms

f

he

Bauhaus, ofMies, Gropiusand Le Corbusier,was partof a heroic

attempt

fter heGreatWar and the Russian Revolution o

rebuild

war-ravaged urope

in

the

mage

of

the

new,

nd to make

building

vital

part

of

the envisioned enewal f

society.

A new

Enlightenment

demanded rational

esign

or

rational

ociety,

ut

thenew

rationality

was overlayed

with

utopian

fervor hich

ultimately

ade tveerback

into

myth

the

myth

f modernization.Ruthlessdenialof the

past

was

as

much

an essential

omponent

fthemodernmovement s its

callformodernization

hrough

tandardization

nd

rationalization.t

is well-known owthemodernist topiashipwreckednits wn nter-

nal contradictions

nd,

more

importantly,

n

politics

nd

history.9

Gropius,

Mies and otherswere

forced nto

exile,

Albert

peer

took

their

lace

n

Germany.

fter

945,

modernist

rchitecture as

argely

deprived

f

ts

ocialvision ndbecame

ncreasingly

narchitecturef

power

and

representation.

atherthan

standing

s

harbingers

nd

promises

fthenew

ife,

modernist

ousingprojects

ecame

symbols

of

alienation nd

dehumanization,

fate

hey

haredwith

he ssem-

bly

line,

that

other

agent

of the new which had been

greeted

with

exuberant nthusiasmnthe 1920sbyLeninists nd Fordists like.

Charles

Jencks,

ne

of the

most

well-known

opularizing

hroni-

clers

of

the

agony

of

the

modern

movement

nd

spokesman

fora

postmodern

rchitecture,

ates

modern

architecture's

ymbolic

de-

miseJuly

5, 1972,

at3:32

p.m.

At that ime everal labblocksofSt.

Louis'

Pruitt-Igoe

ousing

(builtby

Minoru Yamasaki

n

the

1950s)

were

dynamited,

nd

the

collapse

was

dramatically isplayed

n the

evening

news. The

modern machine

for

iving,

s Le

Corbusier

had

called it with

he

technological uphoria

so

typical

f the

1920s,

had

become

unlivable,

he

modernist

xperiment,

o it

seemed,

obsolete.

Jencks akes ainstodistinguishhe nitial ision fthemodernmove-

ment

rom

he ins ommittedn

tsname

ater

n. And

yet,

n balance

he

agrees

with hose

who,

incethe

1960s,

have

argued gainst

moder-

nism's

hidden

dependence

on

themachine

metaphor

nd

the

produc-

tion

paradigm,

nd

against

ts

aking

he

factory

s the

primary

model

for ll

buildings.

t has become

commonplace

n

postmodernist

ircles

to favor reintroduction

fmultivalent

ymbolic

dimensions

nto

architecture,

mixing

f

codes,

an

appropriation

f

ocal vernaculars

9.

For

anexcellent

iscussion f

the

politics

f

rchitecturenthe

Weimar

Repub-

lic

see the

xhibition

atalogue

Wem

ehirt

ie

Welt:

unst nd

Gesellschaft

n

der

Weimarer

Republik

Berlin:

Neue

Gesellschaft

ir

bildende

Kunst,

1977),

pp.

38-157.

Cf. also

Robert

Hughes,

"Trouble in

Utopia,"

in

The hock

f

he

New

New

York:Alfred

A.

Knopf,

1981),

pp.

164-211.




12/49

AndreasHuyssen

15

and

regional

raditions.'0 husJencks

uggests

hat rchitects

ook two

wayssimultaneously,towardsthetraditional low-changingodes

and

particular

thnic

meanings

of

a

neighborhood,

nd towards

he

fast-changing

odes

ofarchitectural ashion nd

professionalism.""

Such

schizophrenia,

encks

olds,

s

symptomatic

fthe

postmodern

moment

n

architecture;

nd

one

might

well ask whether

t

does not

apply

to

contemporary

ulture t

large,

which

ncreasingly

eems to

privilege

what

Bloch called

Ungleichzeitigkeiten

non-synchronisms),'2

rather han

favoring nly

what

Adorno,

he heorist fmodernism

ar

excellence,

described s

derfortgeschrittenste

aterialstanderKunst

the

most advanced state of artisticmaterial).Wheresuch postmodern

schizophrenia

s

creative ension

esulting

n

ambitious

nd

successful

buildings,

nd

where

conversely,

t veers

off nto an incoherent nd

arbitraryhuffling

f

tyles,

illremain matterfdebate.We should

also

not

forget

hat

he

mixing

f

codes,

the

ppropriation

f

regional

traditionsnd

theuses of

ymbolic

imensions ther han

he

machine

were never

entirely

nknownto the architects f the

International

Style.

n

order

o

arrive this

postmodernism,Jencks

ronically

ad to

exacerbate he

very

iew fmodernistrchitecturehich

he

persisten-

tly

ttacks.

One of themost

telling

ocuments f thebreakof

postmodernism

with

he modernist

ogma

is

a book

coauthored

by

Robert

Venturi,

Denise

Scott-Brown

nd Steven

zenour and entitled

earningfrom

as

Vegas.

Rereading

thisbook

and

earlier

writings y

Venturi

rom he

1960s

today,'"

oneisstruck

y

the

proximity

fVenturi's

trategies

nd

solutionsto the

pop

sensibility

f those

years.

Time and

again

the

authorsuse

pop

art's

breakwith

heaustere anonof

high

modernist

painting

nd

pop's

uncritical

spousal

ofthe ommercial

ernacular

f

consumer cultureas an

inspiration

or their

work. What

Madison

Avenue wasforAndyWarhol,whatthecomics and theWesternwere

for

Leslie

Fiedler,

he

andscape

of

Las

Vegas

was forVenturi

nd his

group.

The rhetoric f

Learning

rom

as

Vegas

s

predicated

on the

glorification

fthebillboard

trip

nd of theruthless

hlock f

casino

10. The fact hat uch

strategies

an cutdifferent

ayspolitically

s shown

by

Ken-

neth

Frampton

n his

essay

Towardsa Critical

Regionalism,"

n

TheAnti-Aesthetic,

p.

23-38.

11.

Charles

A.

Jencks,

he

anguage f

Postmodernrchitecture

New

York:

Rizzoli,

1977), p. 97.

12.

For Bloch's

concept

of

Ungleichzeitigkeit,

ee Ernst

Bloch,

"Non-Synchronism

andthe

Obligation

o ts

Dialectics,"

nd Anson Rabinbach's Ernst

Bloch's

Heritage

f

ourTimes nd

Fascism,"

n

NGC,

11

(Spring

1977),

5-38.

13. Robert

Venturi,

enise Scott

Brown,

teven

zenour,

Learning

rom

as

Vegas

(Cambridge:

MIT

Press,

972).

Cf. lso

the arlier

tudy

y

Venturi,

omplexity

ndCon-

tradiction

nArchitecture

New

York:Museum of Modern

Art,

1966).




13/49

16 The

Postmodern

culture.n Kenneth

rampton's

ronic

words,

t

offers

reading

f

Las

Vegas as "an authentic utburst f popular phantasy."4 think t

would be

gratuitous

o

ridicule uchodd notions fcultural

opulism

today.

While there s

somethingpatently

bsurd about such

pro-

positions,

ehave to

acknowledge

he

pwoer

hey

mustered o

explode

the reified

ogmas

of

modernism nd to

reopen

a set of

questions

which hemodernism

ospel

f he1940s nd

1950s

had

argely

locked

fromview:

questions

of ornament nd

metaphor

n

architecture,

of

figuration

nd

realism n

painting,

f

story

nd

representation

n

literature,

f

the

body

n

music nd theater.

op

inthe

broadest

ense

wasthecontextnwhich notion f thepostmodern irst ook hape,

andfrom he

beginning

ntil

oday,

he

most

ignificant

rends

within

postmodernism

ave

challenged

modernism's

elentless

ostility

o

massculture.

Postmodernismnthe

960s:

An

American

vantgarde?

I

willnow

suggest

historical

istinction etween

he

postmodern-

ism

of

the1960sand that fthe 1970s and

early

1980s.

My

argument

will

roughly

e

this:

1960s' and

1970s'

postmodernism

oth

rejected

orcriticized certain ersion fmodernism.Against he odifiedhigh

modernism f

he

preceding

ecades,

the

postmodernismn

f

he

1960s

tried orevitalize

he

heritage

f

he

European avantgarde

nd to

give

t

an

American form

along

what

one could call in

short-hand

he

Duchamp-Cage-Warhol

xis.

By

the

1970s,

this

avantgardist

ost-

modernismof

the

1960s had in turn

xhausted

its

potential,

ven

though

ome of ts

manifestationsontinued

well

nto

henew

decade.

Whatwas new n

the

1970s

was,

on

theone

hand,

the

emergence

f a

culture f

eclecticism,

largely

ffirmative

ostmodernism

hichhad

abandoned

any

claim

to

critique, ransgression

r

negation; nd,

on

theotherhand, an alternative

ostmodernism

nwhich

resistance,

critique

nd

negation

f he

tatus

uo

were edefined

n

non-modernist

and

non-avantgardist

erms,

erms

which

match he

political

evelop-

ments n

contemporary

ulture

more

effectively

hanthe

older theo-

ries

of

modernism. etme

elaborate.

What

were the

connotations f

the

term

postmodernism

n

the

1960s?

Roughly

ince

themid-

950s

iteraturend the rts

witnessed

rebellion

f

new

generation

f rtists

uch as

Rauschenberg

ndJas-

perJohns,

erouac,

Ginsberg

nd

the

Beats,

Burroughs

nd

Barthelme

againstthedominance of abstract xpressionism,erialmusic and

14.

Kenneth

rampton,

Modemrn

rchitecture:

Critical

istory

New

York

ndToron-

to: Oxford

University

ress,

1980),

p.

290.




14/49

Andreas uyssen

17

classical

iterary

modernism.'5

The rebellion

of the artists

was soon

joined bycritics uch as SusanSontag, eslie Fiedler nd Ihab Hassan

who all

vigorously,hough

n

very

different

ays

and to a

different

degree, rgued

for he

postmodern. ontag

dvocated

amp

and a

new

sensibility,

iedler

sang

thepraise

of

popular

literature

nd

genital

enlightenment,

nd Hassan

-

closerthan

the others

o themoderns

-

advocateda

literature

f

silence,

trying

o

mediate

between the

"tradition f

thenew"

and

post-war iterary

evelopments.By

that

time,

modernism

ad

ofcoursebeen

safely

stablished s the

anon n

the

cademy,

hemuseums nd

the

gallery

etwork.n

that

anonthe

New YorkSchoolofabstract xpressionism epresentedheepitome

of

that

ongtrajectory

f

themodern

whichhad

begun

n

Paris n

the

1850s

and 1860s

and which

had

inexorably

ed to

New

York

-

the

American

ictory

n

culture

ollowing

n

theheels

of he

victory

nthe

battlefields

fWorldWar I.

By

he

1960s

artistsnd critics

like

hared

a sense

of

a

fundamentally

ew situation. he assumed

postmodern

rupture

with

he

past

was felt s a

loss: art

and

literature's

laims

to

truth nd

human

value seemed

exhausted,

he belief n

the

constitu-

tive

ower

ofthemodern

magination

ust

another elusion.

Or itwas

felt s a

breakthrough

oward n ultimate iberation f

instinct nd

consciousness,nto heglobalvillage fMcLuhanacy, henewEden of

polymorphous erversity,

aradise

Now,

as the

Living

Theater

pro-

claimed it on

stage.

Thus

critics f

postmodernism

uch

as

Gerald

Graffhave

orrectly

dentified

wo trains

f

he

postmodern

ulture

f

the 1960s:

the

apocalyptic

desperate

train

nd the

visionary

eleb-

ratory

train,

othof

which,

Graff

laims,

lready

xistedwithinmod-

ernism.'6

Whilethis s

cetainly

rue,

t

misses

n

important oint.

The

ireof he

postmodernists

as

directed

ot o much

gainst

modernism

as

such,

but rather

gainst

certain ustere

mage

of

high

moder-

nism,' s advancedbytheNewCriticsnd other ustodians fmoder-

nist ulture.

ucha

view,

which voids thefalse

dichotomy

f

hoosing

either

ontinuity

r

discontinuity,

s

supported

y

retrospective

ssay

byJohn

Barth. n a

1980

piece

in The

Atlantic,

ntitled The Literature

of

Replenishment,"

arth riticizes is

own 1968

essay

"The

Litera-

tureof

Exhaustion,"

which seemed at the timeto offer n

adequate

summary

f

the

apocalyptic

train.Barth

now

suggests

hat

whathis

earlier

piece

was

really

bout "was the effectiveexhaustion'

not of

15. I ammainly oncernedherewith he elbstverstiindnisf he rtists,ndnotwith

the

uestion

ofwhetherheir

work

eally

went

eyond

modernism r

whethertwas n

all cases

politically

progressive."

On the

politics

of the

Beat

rebellion

ee

Barbara

Ehrenreich,

he

Hearts

f

Men

New

York:

Doubleday,

1984),esp.

pp.

52-67.

16. Gerald

Graff,

The

Myth

of

the Postmodern

Breakthrough,"

n

Literature

Against

tself

Chicago:

Chicago University

ress,

1979),

pp.

31-62.




15/49

18 The

Postmodemrn

language

or of iteratureut ofthe aesthetic f

high

modernism."'7

And he goes on to describe Beckett's toriesndTextsorNothingnd

Nabokov's Pale Fireas late

modernist

marvels,

distinct rom

such

postmodernist

riterss

Italo

Calvino nd Gabriel

Marquez.

Cultural

critics

ikeDaniel

Bell,

on theother

hand,

would

simply

laim that he

postmodernism

fthe1960swas the

logical

culmination fmodern-

ist

ntentions,'"

a viewwhich rephrasesLionel Trilling's espairing

observation

hat hedemonstratorsfthe 1960swere

practicing

mod-

ernism

n

the treets. ut

my

point

here

s

precisely

hat

igh

modern-

ism

had never een

fit obe inthe

treets

n

the irst

lace,

thatts arlier

undeniably dversary ole was superseded nthe1960sbya very if-

ferentulture f confrontationn the treets

nd n art

works,

nd

that

this cultureof confrontationransformednherited

deological

no-

tions

of

style,

orm nd

creativity,

rtistic

utonomy

nd the

magina-

tion owhichmodernism ad

by

then uccumbed.

Critics

ikeBell and

Graff

aw the rebellion

f the

ate 1950s

and

the

1960s as continuous

with

modernism's arlier ihilisticnd anarchic

train;

ather

han

ee-

ing

t s a

postmodernist

evolt

gainst

lassical

modernism,

hey

nter-

preted

t

as

a

profusion

f modernist

mpulses

nto

veryday

ife.

And

insome sense

they

were

absolutely ight,xcept

hat his

success"

of

modernism

undamentally

ltered he erms fhowmodernist ulture

was to be

perceived.

Again,

my

rgument

ere sthat herevolt f the

1960s

was never

rejection

fmodernism

er e,

but rather revolt

against

hat ersion fmodernismwhichhad been domesticated

n

the

1950s,

become

part

fthe iberal-conservativeonsensus

fthe

imes,

and

whichhad even been turned nto a

propaganda weapon

in

the

cultural-political

rsenalof

Cold

War anti-communism. he moder-

nism

gainst

which

rtists

ebelledwas no

onger

elt

o

be

an

adversary

culture.t no

longer

pposed

a dominant lass and itsworld

view,

nor

had itmaintainedtsprogrammatic urityrom ontaminationythe

culture

ndustry.

n other

words,

he

revolt

prangprecisely

rom

he

success

of

modernism,

rom hefact hat

n

the

United

States,

s

in

West

Germany

nd

France,

or

hat

matter,

modernism ad been

per-

vertedntoa form faffirmativeulture.

I would

go

on to

argue

that he

global

viewwhich ees

the

1960s as

part

fthemodernmovement

xtending

romManet

nd

Baudelaire,

ifnot from

omanticism,

o the

present

s not able to account

for

he

specifically

merican

haracterf

postmodernism.

fter

ll,

theterm

accrued ts mphatic onnotationsn theUnited tates, ot nEurope.

17.

John

Barth,

The

Literature f

Replenishment:

ostmodernist

iction,"Atlan-

tic

Monthly,

45:1

(January

980),

65-71.

18.

Daniel

Bell,

The

Cultural ontradictions

f

Capitalism

New

York:

Basic

Books,

1976),p.

51.




16/49

Andreas

uyssen

19

I would ven laim hat tcouldnothavebeen nvented

n

Europe

t

the ime. or varietyfreasons,twouldnothavemadeany ense

there.

West

Germany

as till

usy ediscovering

ts

wn

moderns ho

had

beenburnt nd banned

during

heThirdReich.

f

nything,

he

1960s

n

West

Germany

roduced

major

shift

n

evaluation

nd

interestrom

ne setofmoderns

o

another: rom

enn,

Kafkand

ThomasMann o

Brecht,

he eft

xpressionists

nd

the

political

rit-

ers of

the

1920s,

rom

Heidegger

nd

Jaspers

o Adorno nd Ben-

jamin,

from

chdnberg

nd Webern

o

Eisler,

romKirchner

nd

Beckmann oGroszand Heartfield.

t was

a search or lternative

cultural raditionsithinmodernitynd as suchdirectedgainsthe

politics

f

depoliticized

ersion f

modernism,

hich ad cometo

provide

muchneeded ultural

egitimation

or heAdenauer estora-

tion.

During

he

1950s,

he

myths

f"the

olden

wenties,"

he

con-

servative

evolution,"

nd universal xistentialist

ngst,

ll

helped

block

ut

nd

suppress

he ealities

f he

ascist

ast.

rom he

epths

ofbarbarismnd therubble f ts

ities,

West

Germany

as

trying

o

reclaim civilized

modernity

nd to

find

cultural

dentity

uned

o

internationalodernism hich

would

make thers

orget ermany's

past spredatorndpariah f hemodernworld.Given his ontext,neitherhevariationsn modernismfthe1950snor he

truggle

f

the 1960sfor

lternativeemocratic

nd socialist

ultural raditions

couldhave

possibly

eenconstrued

spost-modemrn.

he

very

otion f

postmodernism

as

emerged

n

Germanynly

ince he ate 1970s

and

then ot

n

relationo he ulture f he

960s,

ut

narrowly

nrelation

torecent

rchitectural

evelopments

nd,

perhaps

more

mportantly,

in

the

context

f

the

new

social

movementsnd their adical

ri-

tique

of

modernity."9

In

France,

oo,

the 1960switnessed

returno

modernismather

than stepbeyondt, ven hough or ifferenteasons hannGer-

many,

ome of which will

discuss

n

the

ater

ection

on

poststruc-

turalism.

n the

context

of French ntellectual

ife,

the term

post-

modernism'

was

simply

not

around

in

the

1960s,

and

even

today

t

19. The

specific

onnotations he notion

of

postmodernity

as

taken

on

in the

German

peace

and

anti-nukemovementss well as within

heGreen

Party

will

not

be

discussed

here,

s this rticle s

primarily

oncernedwith heAmerican ebate.

-

In

German

ntellectual

ife,

he workof Peter

loterdijk

s

eminently

elevant or

hese

issues,although Sloterdijk oes not use theword"postmodern";PeterSloterdijk,

Kritikderzynischen

ernunft,

vols.

Frankfurtam

ain:

Suhrkamp,

983).

Equally

perti-

nent

sthe

peculiar

German

reception

fFrench

heory,

specially

f

Foucault,

Baud-

rillard,

nd

Lyotard;

ee for

xample

Der

Tod

er

Moderne.

ine

Diskussion

Tiibingen:

Konkursbuchverlag,

983).

On

the

apocalyptic hading

ofthe

postmodern

n

Ger-

many

see Ulrich

Horstmann,

Das Untier. ontureniner

hilosophie

er

Menschenflucht

(Wien-Berlin:

Medusa,

1983).




17/49

20 The

ostmodern

does not seem to

imply major

breakwithmodernism s it

does

in

theU.S.

I would

now

like to sketch

our

major

characteristics

f the

early

phase

of

postmodernism

which all

point

to

postmodernism's

on-

tinuity

ith he

nternationalraditionfthe

modern,

yes,

but

which

- and this s

my

point

also

establishAmerican

ostmodernism

s

a

movement

ui

generis.20

First,

he

postmodernism

f

the 1960s was

characterized

y

a

tem-

poral magination

which

displayed

powerful

enseofthe

future

nd

of

new

frontiers,

f

rupture

nd

discontinuity,

f crisis

nd

genera-

tional onflict,n imaginationeminiscentfearlier ontinentalvant-

garde

movements uch

as Dada and surrealism

ather han

of

high

modernism.Thus

the revival

of Marcel

Duchamp

as

godfather

f

1960s

postmodernism

s

no

historical

ccident.

And

yet,

hehistorical

constellation

n

which

the

postmodernism

f

the1960s

played

tself

out

from

he

Bay

of

Pigs

nd

thecivil

ights

movement o

the

campus

revolts,

he anti-war

movement nd the

counter-culture)

akes

this

avantgarde

pecifically

merican,

ven where

ts

vocabulary

f aes-

thetic

orms nd

techniques

was

not

radically

ew.

Secondly,he arly haseofpostmodernismncluded n iconoclastic

attack n what

Peter

Buirger

as

tried o

capture

theoretically

s the

"institutionrt."

By

that

erm

Buirger

efers

irst

nd foremost o

the

ways

in

which

art's role

in

society

s

perceived

and

defined, nd,

secondly,

o

ways

n

which rt s

produced,

marketed,

istributed

nd

consumed. n his

book

Theory

f

he

vantgarde

uirger

as

argued

that

the

major

goal

of

he

historical

uropean avantgarde

Dada,

early

ur-

realism,

he

postrevolutionary

ussian

avantgarde21)

as

to

under-

mine,

attack

nd

transform

he

bourgeois

nstitutionrt

and its de-

ology of autonomyrather hanonlychanging rtistic nd literarymodes of

representation.

uirger's

pproach

to

the

question

of

art s

institutionn

bourgeois

ociety

oes

a

longway

oward

uggesting

se-

ful

distinctions

etween

modernism nd

the

avantgarde,

istinctions

which

n

turn

an

help

us

place

theAmerican

vantgarde

f

the

1960s.

In

Buirger's

ccount

the

European

avantgarde

was

primarily

n

attack

on

the

highness

f

high

rt nd

onart's

eparateness

rom

veryday

ife

20.

The

following

ection

will

draw on

arguments

eveloped

less

fully

n

my

earlier

rticle

ntitled

The

Searchfor

Tradition:Avantgardend Postmodernismnthe1970s,"NGC,22 (Winter

981),

23-40.

21.

Peter

Buirger,

heory

f

he

Avantgarde

Minneapolis:

University

f

Minnesota

Press,

1984).

The

fact

hat

Buirger

eserves

he erm

vantgarde

or

mainly

hese

hree

movements

may

strike he

American

reader

as

idiosyncratic

r

as

unnecessarily

limited

nlessthe

place

ofthe

rgument

within

he

tradition

f

20th-century

erman

aesthetic

hought

rom

Brecht

nd

Benjamin

to

Adorno is

understood.




18/49

Andreasuyssen

21

as

it

had

evolved n

19th-century

estheticism nd its

repudiation

f

realism.Biurgerrgues hat he vantgarde ttemptedoreintegratert

and life

r,

to

use

his

Hegelian-Marxist

ormula,

o

sublate rt nto

ife,

and he

sees

this

reintegrationttempt,

think

orrectly,

s a

major

breakwith

he estheticistradition f he ater19th

entury.

hevalue

of

Biurger's

ccount

for

ontemporary

merican ebates

s

that t

per-

mits

us

to

distinguish

ifferent

tages

nd

different

rojects

within

he

trajectory

fthemodern.The usual

equation

of the

avantgarde

with

modernism

can indeed

no

longerby

maintained.

Contrary

o the

avantgarde's

ntention

o

merge

art and

life,

modernism

lways

re-

mainedboundupwith hemoretraditionalotion f he utonomous

art

work,

withthe

construction

f form

nd

meaning however

s-

tranged

r

ambiguous,

displaced

or

undecidable

uch

meaningmight

be),

and with he

specialized

status

f the aesthetic.22he

politically

important

oint

f

Buirger's

ccount

for

my

rgument

bout the 1960s

is this:The historical

vantgarde's

conoclastic

attack

on cultural

institutionsnd

on traditionalmodes

of

representation

resupposed

society

n which

high

art

played

an essentialrole

in

legitimizing

hegemony,

r,

to

put

t n

more

neutral

erms,

o

support

cultural

establishment

nd

its claimsto

aesthetic

nowledge.

t had been the

achievement f the historicalvantgarde odemystifynd to under-

minethe

egitimizing

iscourseof

high

rt n

European society.

he

variousmodernisms

f

this

century,

n the other

hand,

have either

maintained

r restored

ersions

f

high

ulture,

taskwhichwas cer-

tainly

acilitated

y

he

ultimate nd

perhaps

unavoidable

failuref

he

historical

vantgarde

o

reintegrate

rt nd life.

And

yet,

would

sug-

gest

that

t

was

this

specific

radicalism

of the

avantgarde,

irected

against

he

nstitutionalization

f

high

rt s a

discourse

f

hegemony,

that ecommended

tself s a source

of

energy

nd

inspiration

othe

Americanpostmodernistsf the 1960s.Perhapsfor hefirstime n

American

ulture n

avantgardist

evolt

gainst

tradition

f

high

rt

and

what

was

perceived

s its

hegemonic

role made

political

ense.

High

art

had

indeed become institutionalized

nthe

burgeoning

mu-

seum,

gallery,

oncert,

ecord and

paperback

culture f the 1950s.

22. This difference

etweenmodernism nd

the

vantgarde

as

one

ofthe

pivotal

points

f

disagreement

etween

Benjamin

nd Adorno

n

the

1930s,

debateto

which

Biirger

wes

a

lot. Confronted

with he

successful usion

of

aesthetics,

olitics

nd

everydayife nfascistGermany,Adorno condemnedtheavantgarde'sntentiono

merge

rtwith

ife nd continued

o

nsist,

nbestmodernist

ashion,

n

the

utonomy

of

art;

Benjamin

on theother

hand,

ooking

backward o

theradical

experiments

n

Paris,

Moscow

and Berlin

nthe

1920s,

found

messianic

romise

n

the

vantgarde,

especially

n

surrealism,

fact

which

may

help explain

Benjamin's

strange

and,

I

think,

mistaken)

ppropriation

n

the

U.S. as

a

postmodern

ritic

vant

a

lettre.




19/49

22

The

Postmodemrn

Modernism

tself ad

entered

he

mainstream

ia

mass

reproduction

andtheculturendustry.nd,during heKennedy ears, igh ulture

even

began

totake

n

functions

f

political

epresentation

ith

Robert

Frost

nd Pablo

Casals,

Malraux

and

Stravinsky

t the

White

House.

The

irony

n

all of

this

s

that he first

imethe

U.S.

had

something

resembling

n

"institution

rt"

nthe

mphatic

uropean

sense,

t

was

modernism

tself,

hekind

of

artwhose

purpose

had

always

been

to

resist

nstitutionalization.

n

theform

f

happenings,

op

vernacular,

psychedelic

rt,

cid

rock,

lternative

nd street

heater,

he

postmod-

ernism

ofthe

1960swas

groping

o

recapture

he

adversary

ethos

whichhad nourishedmodernartin itsearlier tages,butwhich t

seemed

no

longer

ble

to

sustain.

Of

course,

he

success"

of

the

pop

avantgarde,

hich

tself

ad

sprung

ull-blown

rom

dvertising

n

the

first

lace,

immediately

made

it

profitable

nd

thus

sucked

t nto

a

more

highly

developed

culture

ndustry

han

theearlier

European

avantgarde

ever

had to

contendwith. But

despite

such

cooption

through

ommodification

he

pop avantgarde

etained

certain

ut-

ting dge

in

its

proximity

o

the

1960sculture

f

confrontation.23

No

matter ow

deluded about

ts

potential

ffectiveness,

he ttack

n

the

institutionrtwas always lso an attack n hegemonic ocial institu-

tions,

nd

the

raging

attles

fthe

1960s

over

whether

r

not

pop

was

legitimate

rt

prove

the

point.

Thirdly,

many

of

the

early

dvocatesof

postmodernism

hared

the

technological

ptimism

f

segments

f

the

1920s

avantgarde.

What

photography

nd

film

had

been to

Vertov

nd

Tretyakov,

recht,

Heartfield

nd

Benjamin

n

that

eriod,

elevision,

ideo

and

the om-

puter

were for

he

prophets

f a

technological

esthetic

n

the

1960s.

McLuhan's

ybernetic

nd

technocratic

edia

schatology

nd

Hassan's

praisefor runaway echnology,"he boundlessdispersal ymedia,""the computer s substituteonsciousness" all ofthis

combined

easily

with

uphoric

visions

of a

postindustrial

ociety.

ven

if

com-

pared

to

the

qually

xuberant

technological

ptimism

f

the

1920s,

t

is

striking

o

see in

retrospect

ow

uncritically

edia

technology

nd

the

ybernetic

aradigm

were

spoused

in

the

1960s

by

conservatives,

liberals

nd

leftists

like.24

23.

Cf.

my

essay

"The

Cultural

Politics f

Pop,"

New

German

ritique,

(Winter

1975),

77-97.

Froma

different

erspective,

ick

Hebdige

developed

a

similar

rgu-

ment boutBritish op culture ta talkhe gave astyear ttheCenterforTwentieth

Century

tudies

t

the

University

f

Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

24.

The

Left's

ascination

ith

he

media

was

perhaps

more

pronounced

n

Ger-

many

han t

was

n

the

U.S.

Those

were

he

years

when

Brecht's

adio

theory

nd

Ben-

jamin's

"TheWork

fArt n

the

Age

of

Mechanical

Reproduction"

lmost

became

cult

texts.

ee,

for

xample,

Hans

Magnus

Enzensberger,

Baukasten u

einer

Theorie

der

Medien,"Kursbuch,

0

(March

1970),

159-186.

Reprinted

n

H.M.E.,

Palaver

Frankfurt




20/49

Andreas

Huyssen

23

The

enthusiasm

or

the

new

media

leads

me

to

the

fourth

rend

withinarly ostmodernism.hereemerged vigorous, hough gain

largely

ncritical

ttempt

o validate

popular

culture s

a

challenge

o

the

canon

of

high

rt,

modernist r

traditional.

his

"populist"

trend

of the 1960s with tscelebration f rock

n

roll and folk

music,

of the

imagery

f

veryday

ife nd

of he

multiple

orms f

popular

iterature

gained

muchof

ts

nergy

n the

ontext

f he ounter-culturend

by

nextto total bandonment

of an

earlier

American radition

f

a cri-

tique

ofmodernmass culture. eslie Fiedler's ncantationf

the

prefix

"post"

n

his

essay

The New

Mutants"

had

an

exhilerating

ffectt the

time.25

The postmodernharbored the promise of a "post-white,"

"post-male," post-humanist,"post-Puritan"

orld.

t is

easy

to see

how all of

Fielder's

djectives

im

at the modernist

ogma

and at

the

cultural stablishment's

otion of

what

Western

Civilization

was all

about.

Susan

Sontag's amp

aesthetic idmuchthe ame.Even

though

it

was ess

populist,

t

ertainly

as as hostile o

high

modernism.

here

is a curiouscontradiction

n

all this.

Fiedler's

populism

reiterates

re-

cisely

hat

dversarial

elationship

etween

high

rt nd

mass culture

which,

n

the ccountsof

Clement

Greenberg

nd Theodor W.

Ador-

no,wasoneofthepillars fthemodernist ogmaFielderhad setout to

undermine.

iedlerjust

akes

his

position

n the ther

hore,

pposite

Greenberg

nd

Adorno,

s it

were,

alidating

he

popular

and

pound-

ing away

at "elitism."And

yet,

Fiedler's

call to cross

the borderand

close

the

gap

between

high

rt nd mass

culture s

well

as

his

mplied

political ritique

fwhat ater ame to

be called "eurocentrism"

nd

"logocentrism"

an serve as an

important

marker

for

subsequent

developments

within

postmodernism.

A

new

creative

relationship

between

high

art and

certain

orms f mass culture

s,

to

my

mind,

indeed

oneofthe

major

marks fdifference

etween

high

modernism

and the rt nd iterature hich ollowedt nthe1970sand 1980sboth

in

Europe

and the

United

States.And it is

precisely

herecent elf-

assertion

f

minority

ultures

nd

their

mergence

nto

public

con-

sciousnesswhichhas undermined he

modernist elief

hat

high

nd

low culture

have to

be

categorically

ept

part;

uch

rigorous

egrega-

tion

imply

oes

not

make

much sensewithin

given

minority

ulture

which has

always

existed outside

in

the

shadow of the

dominant

high

culture.

In

conclusion,

would

say

that

rom n American

perspective

he

amMain:

Suhrkamp,

974).

The old belief n the

democratizing

otential

f he

media

is

also intimated

n

the ast

pages

ofLyotard's

he ostmodern

ondition,

ot n relation

o

radio,

film

r

television,

ut

inrelation

o

computers.

25.

Leslie

Fiedler,

The New

Mutants"

1965),

A Fiedler eader

New

York:

Stein

and

Day,

1977),

pp.

189-210.




21/49

24 The

ostmodern

postmodernism

f the 1960s had

some

of the

makings

f

a

genuine

avantgardemovement,ven f heoverallpolitical ituation f1960s'

America

was

in

no

way omparable

to

that f

Berlin r

Moscow

n

the

early

1920s

whenthetenuous nd short-livedlliance

between

vant-

gardism

nd

vanguardpoli

Documents

Andreas Huyssen - 1984 - the Mapping Postmodern - New German Critique.pdf