Postmodernism

Post modernism is often about what can and cannot be considered art, the father of this is Marcel Duchamp who exhibited the 'fountain' which was just a urinal placed in a room, now there are photographs of this piece and one could often find themselves asking is the urinal the artwork or is the photograph the artwork - it's almost subjective. Another famous for postmodernism is Tracy Emin who has exhibited such works as her unmade bed and a tent filled with the names of people she had slept with.
Currently on at the Tate is an exhibition that is said to be a retrospect thus far into the career of Damien Hirst, although I have yet to visit this exhibition I have read a lot about him and his work recently. In the Evening Standard it said that sometimes Hirst gives instructions to people with whom he works to create certain pieces of art work and although they are not directly done by his own hands he still calls it his piece of art work that sells for around the same amount of money as something he would have produced himself. Hirsts work often crosses boundaries between science, art and popular culture, best known for his natural history instillations with animals suspended in formaldehyde which features his infamous shark - the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
But Hirsts work is very controversial and he receives a fair amount of criticism and praise in the art world, "He is either the presiding genius of contemporary British art, justifiably making a fortune by thrilling audiences with his memorable reflections on life and death. Or he is an empty con artist, making a fool of us and raking in millions from buyers with more money than sense." 

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain.
Image available at: http://techbiotic.com/kwknoxartblog/?p=145. Last Visited. 6th Apr 2012.


Damien Hirst, Shark.
Image available at: http://edwardlifson.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/mies-fish-tank-reminds-me-of.html. Last Visited. 6th Apr 2012.


Mark Brown. (2012). Damien Hirst Tate Modern retrospective opens. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/02/damien-hirst-retrospective-tate-modern. Last accessed 6th Apr 2012.