Postmodernisn Art Movement

Beginnings: Most say in the 1960s when people began using "low-brow" materials and questioning the status of Art - Duchamp is an early case, ahead of his time, who started this whole way of turning objects and Art upside-down. Rauschenberg in the late fifties is a key starter for the big movement, and Warhol and Pop Art began a big wave as well.

Ending: Some say that postmodernism ended in the 80s when the resonance of the term faded and artists started addressing the impact of globalization, which increased with the invention of the World Wide Web and proliferation of mass communication technologies.

Main Principles: To go against the teachings and preachings of Modernism, namely against purity of form, art for art's sake, authenticity, universality, originality, and revolutionary. Postmodern questions the value of Art itself, and also it goes against the "avant-garde" and being visionary. It emphasizes the conflation of high and low culture, using industrial materials and pop culture references and tools to call attention to those discrepancies.

Main Aesthetics: These include multi-media, appropriation, use of found objects, use of text, use of video, lots of installation, performance art, happenings, images from popular culture...

Main Artists: Warhol, Rauschenberg, LIchtenstein, Kruger, Carolee Schneeman, Sol le Witt, Richard Serra, Eva Hesse

Main Critics: Lyotard (a theorist who I think coined the term postmodern), and Jean Baudrillard, and perhaps Arthur Danto.