Postmodern Blues: Review at the Nox Contemporary

How does postmodern art differ from modern art, and what defines Postmodernism?  Modernist art seems best defined as definitive groups, like Dadaists, Cubists, or Abstract Expressionists that rebelled, questioned, and criticized the status quo.  Modernism contributed to social change, and by the seventies, the controversy of art wore off.  Society became more educated, more aware of technology and innovation, and more tolerant of what was formerly considered “avant garde.”  Academics argue about the exact starting date of Postmodernism, but most agree that it began during the 1970s.  The eclecticism of Postmodernism soon took hold.  It involves a pluralism of various styles, globalism, and, often, awareness of popular culture and technology.  What does this eclectic vision mean for current artists?  How does art function?  Does art still question the status quo?

Artist John Bell addresses these questions in his latest show ‘Postmodern Blues,” exhibited at the Nox Contemporary Gallery in downtown Salt Lake.  His works seem heavily influenced by his background in graphic design, his affection for abstraction, and his awareness of current trends in social media.  His paintings examine our societal fascination with social networking and reveal how now anyone can achieve his/her few moments of fame and can achieve a fan base or online friends.

Such awareness forces us to question our limited attention spans and our view of what it takes to achieve recognition.  How does this scenario affect art and our appreciation of it?  Gone are the days of painting for a wealthy patron or selling a painting at a showing approved by the dominant art academy.  Social networking has become the new patron of the arts in the postmodern setting.  Artists, including John Bell, have websites to showcase, sell, and promote.

The act of creating has also changed.  Consider the modernist action painter, Jackson Pollock (1912-56).  His painting became an event and revealed the importance of the creative process.  He dripped and splashed industrial paint from a can onto huge unprimed canvases spread on the floor of his barn/studio.  It seems the process of creating art became as significant as the finished product.  Artists no longer were confined to displaying their creative process through a finished product.  Such liberation has influenced modern and postmodern artists alike.

John Bell further embraces this idea of displaying the artistic process, with a postmodern twist.  A live painting performance on April 20th marked the end of Bell’s show.  Unlike Performance Art which exists as a highly choreographed event, Bell’s live painting proved entirely spontaneous.  It also involved audience participation, which is more common in happenings.  Bell, along with fellow artists Jenevieve Hubbard and Darryl Erdmann, painted on a giant canvas stretched across the back wall of the Nox Gallery and included silhouettes of viewers.  No music or theatrical props appeared.  The act of painting proved enough and offered attendees a glimpse at the hours of creative workings and re-workings that contribute to a finished artwork.  Seeing the people behind the product allows the artists recognition beyond a signature on a painting.

Inclusion of the audience also adds a new dimension.  Viewers’ presences become immortalized and are actively included instead of passively excluded on the outside.  In seeing artists at work, viewers share the experience of creation and better appreciate the artists’ manipulation of meaning.  By being physically included, viewers attain some recognition as participants within the eclecticism and achieve their own few moments of fame.  But perhaps that exists as the very nature of Postmodernism….

To view more works from John Bell’s portfolio, refer to his website at: www.artistjohnbell.com.  To learn about future showings at the Nox Contemporary Gallery, visit the website at: noxcontemporary.com/.