write:For example one could make theatrical paintings or filmic photographs or combine pictures with the written word. A corollary to this suggests that the use of so-called alternati

which
the theory goes
led to the creation of the modernist tradition in the first place. These same critics believe that postmodernist art therefore must debunk or “deconstruct” the “myths” of the autonomous individual (“the myth of the author”) and of the individual subject (“the myth of originality”). But when we get to the level of how these aims are best accomplished—that is
what style of art might achieve these ends—we encounter critical disagreement and ambiguity. One concept of postmodernist style is that it should consist of a mixture of media
thereby dispelling modernism’s fetishistic concentration on the medium as message—painting about painting
photography about photography
and so on. For example
one could make theatrical paintings
or filmic photographs
or combine pictures with the written word. A corollary to this suggests that the use of so-called alternative media—anything other than
say
painting on canvas and sculpture in metal—is a hallmark of the postmodern. This is a view that actually lifts photography up from its traditional second-class status
and privileges it as the medium of the moment. And there is yet another view that holds that the medium doesn’t matter at all
that what matters is the way in which art operates within and against the culture. As Rosalind Krauss has written
“Within the situation of postmodernism
practice is not defined in relation to a given medium—[e.g.
] sculpture—but rather in relation to the logical operations on a set of cultural terms
for which any medium—photography
books
lines on walls
mirrors
or sculpture itself—might be used.”11 Still
there is no denying that
beginning in the 1970s
photography came to assume a position of importance within the realm of postmodernist art
as Krauss herself has observed.12 Stylistically
if we may entertain the notion of style of postmodernist art
certain practices have been advanced as essentially postmodernist. Foremost among these is the concept of pastiche
of assembling one’s art from a variety of sources. This is not done in the spirit of honoring one’s artistic heritage
but neither is it done as parody. As Frederic Jameson explains in an essay called “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”: