Ruins of the present
di // pubblicato il 26 Ottobre, 2011
A current that balances between “theoretical” and “theatrical”; that blends native sacred art and gas pumps in Ettore Sottsass's Totems (1965-7); of which the raw materials can be, in Bruno Zevi's words (1967), Las Vegas and Versailles; which, in turn, do not single each other out but are combined, according to the principle of “both/and” rather than that of “either/or”. And again, a movement that makes construction and destruction coexist, with the architect Isozaki designing the futuristic Tsukuba City Centre (1979-83), at the same time depicting it in ruin; that appears to be transcultural, although it possibly is eurocentric; that unhinges gender, turning “male” and “female” into “premodern” issues. It really is admirable how the Victoria and Albert Museum's curators managed to retrace the experiences of postmodernism, framing this stream of ideas that occasionally seems to sweep away everything (and its opposite).
The world's largest design museum is hosting Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 between 24 September and 15 January 2012, and the exhibition will be moving to Rovereto's MART from the next 25 February to 3 June. The aim is to build a history of the postmodern movement, from a sensibly selective point of view: departing from architecture, the path leads to fashion, design and performing arts. It clearly shows how, from an anti-utopian break with modernist ideals of progress, postmodern thought slowly trickled into all aspects of everyday life, including furniture.
The Pruitt-Igoe housing project clearance, carried out o 15 March 1972 in St. Louis, Missouri, according to theorist Charles Jencks marks “the end of modernism”. An enlarged photo of the event kicks off the exposition, which continues with the sculptures of Italian artists Mendini and Sottsass, and the architectural projects of Robert Venturi and Denise Brown. These latter, inspired by the landscape of Las Vegas, with its buldings to be read “at 35 mph”, already display the collapse of faith in pure lines and functional space; disproportionate, enormous details, that nullify the gap between practical and ornamental. The following sequence of projects, conceived in the '70s, present another feature of postmodernism: the salvaging of the past, indiscriminately coupled with present and future. Some extracts from the Roma interrotta exhibition, organised by Piero Sartogo in 1978, show the Caesar's Palace sign upheld by actual Corinthian columns – once again Vegas, the far frontier of capitalism, and classical antiquity (to some, sacred and prophane). This concurrency which is now, sometimes, naively perceived as kitsch, used to be raised against modernism's “monolithic idiom”; from then on, though, postmodern thought ceased to define itself in contradiction to the modern, and began to feature recognisable characters. If progress is no longer believable and everything is current, every combination is legitimate, and the mediation which led to the object will always be – once the veil of the object itself is ripped – the real attraction.
Through sculpture (Giulio Paolini) and fashion (Vivianne Westwood), the exhibition proceeds into the '80s, when postmodernism actually enters the mainstream: that is when, conveyed through music and magazines, art taps into daily life with its outrageous pairings, gaudy colours, and every act can become a meta-act, a “style statement”. A substantial space was given to the two design collectives from Milan, Mendini's Studio Alchymia (1978) and Sottsass's Memphis (1981): the practices of cultural bricolage and redesign (thanks to which any historical object can become new again) inform consumer goods. But from a reflection on the object, art shifts back to being the object itself: thus, when wrapping up postmodernism's parable, the V&A pinpoints the movement's death in its marriage to consumerist society, brands, the superstar artist. Warhol's massive Dollar sign (1981) opens the last section of the exhibition, which finishes under the corrupting sign of money. Maybe a story with novel-like features, although well-argumented, to seal a current that does not seem to accept boundaries; the curators acknowledge that, if postmodernism is now over, its influence isn't. Perhaps we are the first and foremost postmodern beings, and this essence is both our achievement and our resignation? It still is hard to prove whether the movement is dead or not and, if it really is, maybe that is because we stopped asking ourselves the questions it raised. To whom did we hand over the answers? To finance? To multinational food and fashion corporations? To private galleries? The exhibition's biggest merit is to unearth this concern, shoved aside just twenty (long) years ago.
Worthy of mention is also the arrangement of the show floor, not at all functional but genuinely postmodern. Rooms and passages shrink and stretch to their liking in irregular shapes like Gehry's houses, appearing as improvised, unfinished. In the opening sections it is possible, among models, drawings, plans, to stumble upon the label of an “invisible” photograph: one then makes out the wall's grain and, backing up, contemplates the picture, inadvertently overlooked. Some plastic curtains hint at continuations of the exhibition towards fire exits and dead ends. Finally, a glowing neon sign points us to the shop, packed with shirts, records, pins, talking lollipops. The course of the exhibition then seems a self-fulfilling prophecy – the shop its last section, with true postmodern irony.
