The postmodern Poupee: Surrealist ideas in the works of three contemporary American artists.

摘要

The research problem focuses on stylistic and philosophic influence and visual continuities among three contemporary artists and early-mid twentieth century Surrealism. Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois, and Robert Gober are examined to determine the extent that they have adapted Surrealist aesthetic traditions into their artistic expression.;The questions arose from the researcher's study of art history, philosophy, aesthetics and social ideologies, in both Surrealism and Postmodernism, and are addressed with methodologies of those domains.;Specifically, the researcher held that Surrealist expression of the dreamlike, irrational, visionary, enigmatic, nostalgic, fantastic, or erotic are possibly contained in works of the three Postmodern artists. A comparative investigation was performed with an adaptation of Ferrara's viewing model (modified into five steps for the visual arts) and Krauss' comparative method. The underlying philosophic approaches are Phenomenology and Hermeneutic-Phenomenology.;In Steps One, Two and Three, Phenomenology was employed. The researcher put aside pre-judgments and engaged directly with one artwork from each artist. Using focused viewing, descriptive abilities, and art-specific terminology, the artworks' essential characteristics was unveiled. In Step Four, a comparative analysis among the Postmodern artworks and the selected Surrealist artists were made using principles of hermeneutic-phenomenology. In a meta-reflection on the analyses, the researcher determined that the models provided intelligent structure to the process, particularly with ontological and onto-historical aspects of the artworks.;As a result of the comparative analysis, aesthetic similarities were found in the artworks of Sherman, Bourgeois and Gober and the Surrealist artists. It is affirmed that the three Postmodern artists share Surrealist traditions regardless of arguable differences in media, content, style, and cultural contexts. Most significant to this work is the notion that from onto-historical viewpoint, the three artworks express the inner state of humans living in the current high-tech, self-circumspect, extremely commoditized, sexually complex, pluralistic and sometimes insecure society. The focus Postmodern artists adapted Surrealist convention to form significant Postmodern expression.