MachineMachine /stream

It seems to me part of the problem is that the term "postmodernism" was always so muddy and abstract. To different people, it meant (at least) two different things. First of all, for many, "postmodernism" stood as a certain critical paradigm for art and theory. This is the sense that both Krauss and Foster mean it. Postmodernism embodies the "critique of essentialism," a rejection of totality, liberated irony; it was defined by genre jumping, institutional critique, deconstruction, and so on.

The problem with this "theoretical" definition of postmodernism seems to me to be its lack of historical mooring -- it is essentially idealist, in the philosophical sense. Artistic motifs or even actual artworks have no philosophical or "critical" significance in themselves, outside of a historical context. I could go paint a horse in a cave tomorrow; the gesture would have a very different meaning than the cave-paintings at Lascaux.

Thus, Felix Gonzalez-Torres was believed to embody all the goo