New Games: Postmodernism After Contemporary Art

289 Pages·2012·6.18 MB·English

by  Pamela M. Lee

New Games
Pamela M. Lee’s New Games revisits postmodernism in light of art history’s more
recent embrace of “the contemporary.” What can the theories and practices associated
with postmodernism tell us about the obsession with the contemporary in both the
academy and the art world? In looking at work by Dara Birnbaum, Öyvind
Fahlström, and Richard Serra, among others, Lee returns to Jean-François Lyotard’s
canonical text The Postmodern Condition as a means to understand more recent art-
critical interests in interactivity, collectivism, and neo-liberalism. She reads Lyotard’s
well-known treatment of language games relative to the game theory associated with
the Cold War and the rise of the information society. New Games asks readers to
think critically about our recent past and the embattled state of our contemporary
preoccupations.
With a critical introduction by Johanna Burton, New Games is the fourth
volume in Routledge’s series of short books on the theories of modernism by leading
art historians on twentieth-century art and art criticism.
Pamela M. Lee is Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History
at Stanford University. She is the author of Object to be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon
Matta-Clark (1999) and Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (2004).
Theories of Modernism and Postmodernism in the Visual Arts
A book series from Routledge
James Elkins
General Editor
Vol. 1,James Elkins, Master Narratives and Their Discontents
Vol. 2, Stephen Bann, Ways Around Modernism
Vol. 3, Richard Shiff,Doubt
New Games
Postmodernism After
Contemporary Art
Pamela M. Lee
with a foreword by Johanna Burton
First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Pamela M. Lee to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or
in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lee, Pamela M.
New Games: Postmodernism After Contemporary Art/
Pamela M. Lee; With an introduction by Johanna Burton.
pages cm—(Theories of modernism and postmodernism
in the visual arts; v. 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Postmodernism. I. Burton, Johanna, editor. II. Title.
N6494.P66L44 2012
709.04—dc23
2012009463
ISBN: 978-0-415-98879-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-98880-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-93055-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Adobe Garamond
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon
Contents
List of Figures / vii
Series Preface / ix
Foreword by Johanna Burton / xv
Acknowledgments / xxix
Introduction:
Postmodernism, an Incomplete Project / 1
1. Postmodernism After “The Contemporary” / 37
2. New Games / 97
3. Game Show / 159
Conclusion: Mixed Hopes, Mixed Strategies / 209
Seminar / 217
Index / 245

Figures
Figure 1.1 Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970. © Estate of Robert Smithson /
licensed by VAGA, New York. Image courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New
York/Shanghai.
Figure 1.2 Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans, 1981. Gelatin silver print 15 ×12 ×
3/4 in. (38.1 × 30.5 × 1.9 cm). Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper
Gallery, New York.
Figure 1.3 Auguste Rodin, The Gates of Hell. Bronze, green patina. Posthumous cast
authorized by Musée Rodin, 1981. Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for
Visual Arts at Stanford University; Gift of the B. Gerald Cantor Collection.
Figure 2. 1 Cover, The New Games Book, edited by Andrew Fluegelman. San Francisco:
New Games Foundation, 1976.
Figure 2.2 Illustration (earth ball). The New Games Book, edited by Andrew
Fluegelman. San Francisco: New Games Foundation, 1976.
Figure 2.3 Future: A Game of Strategy, Influence and Change. Board game. Photo
Pamela M. Lee.
Figure 2.4 Öyvind Fahlström, The Cold War (phase 1), 1963–5. Variable diptych,
tempera on vinyl, metal, Plexiglas, and magnets. 244 ×152.5 ×2.5 cm
(each panel), collection Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris. Image courtesy Sharon Avery-Fahlström, The Öyvind
Fahlström Foundation and Archives, Museu d’art contemporani de
Barcelona.
Figure 2.5 Öyvind Fahlström, The Little General (Pinball Machine), 1967–8. Oil on
photopaper on vinyl, Plexiglas, metal, magnets, styrofoam floats with lead
keels, in pool, 100 ×280 ×550 cm (pool). Image courtesy Sharon Avery-
Fahlström, The Öyvind Fahlström Foundation and Archives, Museu d’art
contemporani de Barcelona.
Figure 2.6 Öyvind Fahlström, World Politics Monopoly. Variable painting, 92 ×128
cm. Private Collection, Switzerland. Image courtesy Sharon Avery-
viii Figures
Fahlström, The Öyvind Fahlström Foundation and Archives, Museu d’art
contemporani de Barcelona.
Figure 2.7 Öyvind Fahlström, Opera(detail), 1952–3. Felt-tip pen, gouache, and ink
on paper, 27 ×1185 cm. Image courtesy Sharon Avery-Fahlström, The
Öyvind Fahlström Foundation and Archives, Museu d’art contemporani
de Barcelona.
Figure 3.1 Laurie Anderson, Americans on the Move, 1979. Preview performance,
Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, February 11, 1979 (photograph by
Marcia Resnick). Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.
Figure 3.2 Dara Birnbaum, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1979.
Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.
Figure 3.3 Dara Birnbaum, Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry, 1979. Video, 6:50 min.,
color, sound. Courtesy the artist, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York,
and Electronic Arts Intermix, New York.
Figure 3.4 Richard Serra, Prisoner’s Dilemma, 1974. 3/4 in. video transferred to
DVD, 40:15 min., black and white, sound. © 2011 Richard Serra / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Series Preface
There is a gap in accounts of modern art. Some of the best
historical work has been done by scholars who have not wanted
to contribute to the large-scale questions of what modernism
might be, or how nineteenth-century art might fit in the lineages
that lead to postmodernism. That is one side of the gap.
On the other is a common pedagogic literature intended to
introduce modernism to beginning students; it is generally not
written by the scholars whose work is central to the developing
discipline, and it is not often cited. Between these two extremes
there should be a kind of writing that is at once attentive to the
grain of history and responsive to the different and often
contentious accounts of modernism as a whole. Such writing
is rare, for a variety of reasons—some of which are embedded
in the ways modernism itself has been understood. So far there
have only been a few exceptions, notably T. J. Clark’s Farewell
to an Ideaand the multiply-authored Art Since 1900. Aside from
those two enormous, contentious, and problematic texts there
is almost nothing between the sides.