In this paper, I propose that bringing back affect into the work of art can provide a new reading of postmodernism. In agreement with Fredric Jameson, I suggest that postmodernist art, influenced by a response to capitalism, amongst other things, evolved to the point where individuality, alienation and the self-affect were replaced by commodification and estrangement from the individual. For the purpose of this paper, I will use Jameson’s approach to postmodernism as the end of the bourgeois ego that brings with it a liberation from any kind of feeling since there is no longer a self present to do the feeling (1051). I will use Rosalind Krauss’s concept of the grid, Fredric Jameson’s concept of the ‘waning affect’ and Craig Owens’s reference to allegory to provide a theoretical perspective from which to support my argument. Furthermore, I will incorporate Andy Warhol’s Dust Diamond Shoes and Doris Salcedo’s Atrabiliarios as visual examples of postmodern artworks. Through the latter work, I seek to bring light to the postmodern characteristic of flatness and impersonality, and through the former, an example of an artwork that brings back affect into the postmodernist structure. Lastly, I conclude by suggesting that Atrabiliarios presents a space from which to question postmodernism’s dissociative approach to art, as it brings back affect into the conversation.

Authors:
Vanessa Schuster, The Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Vanessa Schuster is an artist and researcher. She is currently working on a project which references the sense of touch.

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