For the Tate Triennial 2009, which opened on February 3, curator Nicolas Bourriaud declares that postmodernism is over and that we are experiencing the emergence of a global ‘altermodernity.’
Bourriaud, the French cultural theorist and co-founder of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, believes that a new form of art is emerging, fueled by non-stop communication and globalization. He explains that altermodernism is a “sort of dream catcher attempting to capture the characteristics of a modernity specific to the 21st century.”
Regine Debatty of We Make Money Not Art summarizes his theory quite nicely:
If early twentieth-century Modernism is characterised as a broadly Western cultural phenomenon, and Postmodernism was shaped by ideas of multi-culturalism, origins and identity, Altermodern is expressed in the language of a global culture. Altermodern artists channel the many different forms of social and technological networks offered by rapidly increasing lines of communication and travel in a globalised world.
The Guardian also has an interesting interpretation:
Altermodernism, if I understand it, is international art that never quite touches down but keeps on moving through places and ideas, made by artists connected across the globe rather than grouped around any central hub such as New York or London. You might take the worldwide web as a model and think in terms of hyperlinks, continuous updates and cultural hybrids. It is most definitely postcolonial, transitional and to some extent provisional, but what it is not, I don’t think, is anything as grand, or significant, as a movement.
Sounds a lot like many of our discussions on the creative class.
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multi-culturalism vs global culture – yes, there’s a whole load of difference there, isn’t there?
“Altermodernism, if I understand it, is international art that never quite touches down but keeps on moving through places and ideas”. I don’t think even the author himself knows what that means. Pseudo-intellectual churnalism, nothing more.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Really nice spot, Jeff. Good to have started a debate too!
February 25th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I really hope altermodernism doesn’t turn into a formal movement – it will just be more of a headache for the future students of Cultural Studies!!
February 26th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
OK yea this is a very interesting note but what really matters I think is (sorry about this) what the meaning of is is. More precisely, what do they mean to say that POMO is, and now what ‘Altermodernism’ is ? The point is that the question reifies the process of making art (and everything else). But POMO is not a thing, nor could AMO be a thing. But of course, this is the POMO answer—that ‘things’ are always already emergent processes, and that our language for talking about them has this reifying effect that misleads us into talking about them as things, and so that we have to do verbal gymnastics in order to escape the degrading effects of this existential situation we find ourselves in. There will always be those who deem to profit by offering a way out of this dilemma, they will offer gains in the efficiency of thought by eliding difficult questions that the POMO critique of knowledge has put forward.
But with that said—all of the same old questions are still active and still rewarding to ponder and the guys involved in this debate are smart and interesting and I’d love to end up at dinner after a tour of the Tokyo Palace (whatever that is) for a lively drunken debate about it.
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Um yeah this doesn’t sound different at all to postmodernism. If anything it’s an extension of postmodernism.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:48 am
What is important here is that there is shift from a reflexive criticism—an employment or utilization of critical theory, to a progressive employment of imaginative hybridization, creolization. In other words, less dialectical, less antagonistic, less critical to a certain extent… hopefully more aware though?
March 8th, 2009 at 3:04 am
You tell ‘em Ruben!
March 11th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Altermodernism is another word for post-literature, we live in a post-literary age, this is for sure. Just have a look at my essay on post-literature published by TRANS magazine in Wien, in February 2003, and you’ll find almost the same ideas of Nicolas Bourriaud,
http://www.inst.at/trans/14Nr/severin14.htm
My essay was also published on the site of Saatchi Gallery five years ago, so Tate discovered America…
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I visited it yesterday, I found it infuriating! If these are the most talented up and coming artists in Europe then I despair! Don’t get me wrong, there was a very small handful of the exhibitions which were thought provoking. However many were just so shallow and arrogant I felt like an absolute mug! Please please do not let this become a respected genre, this an absolute farce in my opinion!
April 11th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Altermodernism – further online reading for those interested.
http://belcheresque.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/postmodernism-is-dead-really/#comments
http://arterials.blogspot.com/2009/02/alter-modernism.html
April 19th, 2009 at 8:26 am
I prefer digimodernism.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:24 am
i prefer people doing as they want .. we live in a much too cross pollinated culture these days for any new ’slots’ to help the lazy and anal among us ‘understand’ an artists work
take it for what it is ..after all in every other part of our lives we are fighting AGAINST segregation and catagorisation
foolish, outdated spin and counter spin …
May 26th, 2009 at 1:25 pm