things become things: POSTMODERNISM

Last week I've been to the new exhibition "Postmodernism: Stlye and Subversion 1970 - 1990" at the V&A with my lovely friend Tean Roberts, and I was delighted and excited with it, to be honest if someone asked me about what was exactly the period of postmodernism I would be a little hesitant, I know that modernism finished in the 60's and therefore postmodernism started but I am still not sure when it finished, maybe at the beginning of the 2000's. The things is that those years were AMAZING to fashion, furniture, celebration in general and definitely that biggest party years.

Here I want to show you the things that I think are the coolest int his exhibition.

What I love about their organization is that they layout chronologically and it helps much to understand the movement, we could clearly see that it was evolving into a point that it didn't associate with the beliefs from the early years.

First things first a quick review of the Modernism period, basically known for the Bauhaus designs, it's pragmatic designs and clean looks.

Postmodern period start with artist that were tired of this movement and protested against it, I felt like they were making art and designs basically to mock the modernism movement, an example is Alessandro Mendini's "Burning Chair", a clean Bauhaus chair at the top of a staircase burning to it's very end!

Alessandro Mendini's "Burning Chairs"

Ettore Sottsass "Teapot" - Mocking the Bauhaus aesthetic

by Charles Jencks - on Modernism

Posters by Tadanori Yokoo

Postmodernism inspired by Las Vegas bright neon(artificial) lights and deserts.

Messy Vitality

Ettore Sottsass Cabinet

This next one is one of my favorite pieces in the exhibition, it's called "The Other Figure",two Roman classical busts looking a third one smashed on the ground, mocking the classical arts. Expressing melancholy towards the past.

Giulio Paolini "L'altra Figura" -1984

Hans Hollein, façade from Strada Novissima, The Presence of the Past, 1980.

Cinzia Ruggeri, Homage to Lévi-Strauss dress, Autumn/Winter 1983-4

"Bel Air" chair - Peter Shire

A new period starts, New Wave, and one of the most exciting groups born in this period, the New Romantics - The Deconstructed Performers.

Characters like Boy George, Leigh Bowery, Grace Jones, Talking Heads, movies like Blade Runner and Mad Max.
It's all about the synthetic, materials like latex and rubber.