![]() In a world where any object could become art, where art critics developed a discourse that can explain anything as art and make viewers perceive it as such everything indeed became art, even if it was invisible, until nothing was art anymore. However, with the exhaustion of big modernist movements like Expressionism and Surrealism who were in search for transcendental truths and universal meanings, many artists started to abandon this notion that art has a greater purpose and adopted Duchamp’s view of the art objects. When Marcel Duchamp introduced the philosophy of ready-mades to the world of art, his works were widely considered a joke. Lawrence Weiner - Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole Meta-artistic, self-conscious practices flourished, and since there were no big ideas that could be explored, artists got manically engaged in self-referential aspects of artistic creations. The post-war years marked the birth of postmodernism in arts, the focus on micro-narratives, local histories, and skepticism about the big ideas. ![]() Art turned towards itself and this shift is best embodied in Adorno’s famous quote: “There can be no poetry after Auschwitz”. In arts, the idea of universal aesthetics has been abandoned along with the idea that art can be an agent of change. After two World Wars, social revolutions, and the formation of totalitarian states, the totalizing nature of metanarratives became much clearer. Along with other poststructuralist scholars, Lyotard argued that postmodern condition is characterized by the skepticism in grand narratives, which were created by the power structures and presented as universal, transcendental truths. One of the first artworks that has signified the shift in reception of traditional art objectsĪs French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard believed, postmodernism is defined by the lack of faith in metanarratives that have been essential in modernity. Art became a statement about itself and this is where the concept of meta-art was born. Once the traditional art objects were discarded, anything could become art and everything became art whether it was a urinal or a blank canvas. Avant-garde movements like Dadaism and Suprematism, for instance, started this trend of self-reflective art practices. In various disciplines, art became the sole subject of art. The same can be said for visual arts where the focus was placed on the artistic process and philosophy of art, rather than the subject matter. Similar notions are explored in metacinematic works, presentational theater and all genres that challenge the notion of mimesis, emotional involvement of recipients, contemplating on their own nature rather than anything else. Therefore, metafiction came to be the fiction about the fiction, text that reflects upon itself. ![]() For instance, the term metafiction was introduced by literary scholars to signify the narrative technique that was used self-consciously in order to draw attention to literature as an artifact and force readers to notice the fictionality of the work. So, what is meta-art and how can we define it? Many of these meta-concepts that entered art history were born in relation to similar ones in philosophy and literary theory. But it would never have happened if our culture didn’t reach that point of intellectual pretentiousness and skepticism that now influence our reception of arts, culture and most importantly art production.Īdam Goldberg next to one of Wool's paintings contemplating meta art, film Untitled (2009) To some extent, the word itself became a parody. In our postmodern world or post-postmodern world, as some would argue, the prefix “meta” is added everywhere to mark practically any phenomenon that is self-referential, self-conscious or self-parodying. Do these comments annoy you? Well, if you come from the academic background in humanities and you had to read all those irritating texts by some famous poststructuralists, often written in a manner that serves no other purpose than to confuse the already confused students, I guess you do get slightly annoyed. Let’s start today’s conversation by asking: how often do you hear the word meta in your daily conversations? How often do you see comments, even memes, on social networks that feature something like “oh, that is so meta”.
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