Elizabeth Perrotte
Modernity in Visual Art From Turner to Now

How have artists captured the fleeting effects of modernisation? Or materialised the changing rhythms of modern life? How have they introduced new modes of perception to match modern times? In the 19th century, French writer Charles Baudelaire defined modernity as fleeting, transient, and contingent. Other intellectuals in the 20th and 21st centuries, such as German Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin, postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard, or Polish-British philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, envisioned modernity in terms of fragmentation, alienation, ruination, even ecstasy and liquidation. This lecture explores a range of iconic modern and contemporary artworks that manifest diverse aspects of modernity: from the work of Romantic British painter J.M.W. Turner to 19th-century French Impressionists to modern artists such as Van Gogh, Jacob Epstein, Hannah Höch, Picasso, as well as Pop artists Eduardo Paolozzi and Andy Warhol. We conclude the discussion by looking at contemporary artworks by Julie Mehretu, Sarah Sze, Wangechi Mutu, and John Akomfrah.