Postmodern Art

My sister Sarah always wants me to do a blog post on something relating to my real life. Even though I maintain that all my previous posts perhaps have more application to real life than purely relating something that happened, I will reconcile the two approaches.

The last two months I have participated in something called "critical mass." It is a world-wide phenomenon (at least a western one) where a group of people gather to ride their bikes on a Friday evening through the busy streets of downtown London, New York, or...Provo. The group gathers rather abruptly and at the appointed time, floods the streets with their bicycles, taking up most, if not all of the lanes, and chokes traffic somewhat as they follow a route through downtown Provo. Here in Provo the group is quite tame and even though the procession goes through red lights, and makes left turns that stop oncoming traffic for several minutes, they try to leave a lane open so traffic can get by. The police are somewhat baffled as to how to react. They cannot really stop several hundred bicyclists who suddenly appear on the streets and can merely scatter when approached by a cop car. Plus, the biker has the legal status of a vehicle and has as much a right to the road as a car. They have resorted to merely trying to supervise, observe, and direct the flow of bicycles, despite being generally unsuccessful.

I find this phenomenon interesting in terms of postmodern art. It bears striking resemblance to other activities termed "flashes" I believe. A large group of individuals will be instructed to do something random in a public place at exactly the same instant. One instance was in a crowded square and at the given moment, half the people in the square froze for several minutes, to the shock, and consternation of those not in on the joke. Other examples include a large group of people suddenly running naked through a particular street and a lone photographer capturing the moment in a photo.

The reason why we could term these acts postmodern is their emphasis on immanence opposed to transcendence, and their pushing of what we term acceptable and lawful. That is, challenging authority.

Earlier art, in the form of a static painting, sculpture, photograph, or architecture, is long-lasting, and focuses on transcending the particular, and finite to access and project eternal, universal meaning and value. The beautiful sculptures of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy sought to project the ideal body of man and communicate excellence. Postmodernism prefers to see meaning and value as immanent--projecting from the inner life and limited to the individual. It is likewise not meant to last. It is as if they are saying, "this expression does not go beyond itself or this moment." Thus these spontaneous flashes can be understood as having their meaning rooted in non-permanence, the moment, the individual, etc.

As for pushing authority, the connection is clearer. Postmodernists generally see the world not built on rational, universal principles, but on the preferences and values of a particular group. For us that would be dead, white, western, rich, European males. Since roads are made for cars (which themselves have taken on a bad rap as of late) the postmodern would want to challenge this seemingly benign and functional fixture. The "bike" (insert female, minority, etc) has its right to the "road" (insert civil rights, institution, etc), even if it is not designed for the "bike."