Andreas Huyssen - 1984 - The Mapping Postmodern - New German Critique PDF

Mapping the Postmodern
Author(s): Andreas Huyssen

Reviewed work(s):
Source: New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 5-52
Published by: New German Critique
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thePostmodern"
Mapping
byAndreasHuyssen
A Story
In the summerof 1982 I visitedtheSeventhDocumenta in Kassel,
Germany,a periodicexhibitionwhichdocumentsthelatesttrendsin
old son
contemporaryarteveryfouror fiveyears.My thenfive-year
Daniel waswithme,and he succeeded,unintentionally,
in makingthe
latestin postmodernismquite palpable to me. Approachingthe Fridericianum,the museum housing the exhibit,we saw a huge and
extendedwall ofrocks,seeminglyheaped haphazardlyalongsidethe
museum. It was a workbyJosephBeuys,one ofthekeyfiguresofthe
postmodernsceneforat leasta decade. Comingcloserwe realizedthat
thousandsofhugebasaltblockswerearrangedin a triangleformation
thesmallestangle ofwhichpointedat a newlyplantedtree- all ofit
partofwhatBeuyscalls a social sculptureand whatin a more tradiwould havebeen calleda formofappliedart.Beuys
tionalterminology
had issued an appeal to thecitizensofKassel,a dismalprovincialcity
rebuiltin concreteafterthe heavybombingsof the lastgreatwar,to
planta treewitheach of his 7000 "plantingstones."The appeal - at
received by a populace
least initially- had been enthusiastically
in thelatestblessingsoftheartworld.Daniel,for
usuallynotinterested
hispart,lovedtherocks.I watchedhimclimbup and down,acrossand
I talkedto himabout
backagain."Is thisart?"he askedmatter-of-factly.
of the German
death
about
the
and
slow
Beuys' ecological politics
forests(Waldsterben)
due toacid rain.As he keptmovingaroundon the
I gavehima fewsimpleconceptsaboutart
rocks,listeningdistractedly,
in the making,sculptureas monumentor anti-monument,art for
climbingon, and ultimately,art forvanishing- the rocksafterall
would disappearfromthemuseumsiteas people would begintoplant
the trees.
Laterin themuseum,however,thingsturnedout quite differently.
*Earlierversionsof this articlewere presentedat the XVIIth World Congress of
Philosophyin Montreal,August1983, and at a conferenceon "The question of the
Postmodern:Criticism/ Literature/ Culture" organized at Cornell Universityby
Michael Hays, April 1984.

ThePostmodern
In thefirsthallswe filedpasta golden pillar,actuallya metalcylinder

coveredwithgoldenleaves(byJamesLee Byars),and an extendentirely
ed golden wall by Kounellis,witha clothesstand includinghat and
coat placed before it. Had the artist,as a latterday Wu Tao-Tse,
vanishedintothewall,intohiswork,leavingonlyhishatand coat?No
matterhow suggestivewe mightfindthejuxtapositionof the banal
ofthedoorlessshiningwall,one thing
clothesstandand thepreciosity
seemed clear: "Am Golde hfingt,zum Golde drfingtdie Postmoderne."
on we encounteredMario Merz's spiraltable
Severalroomsfurther
made out ofglass,steel,wood and platesof sandstone,withbushlike
twigsstickingout oftheexternalparameterofthespiralformationagain,itseemed,an attempttooverlaythetypicalhardmaterialsofthe
more"natural"ones, in this
modernistera,steeland glass,withsofter,
case sandstoneand wood. TherewereconnotationsofStonehengeand
ritual,domesticatedand broughtdowntoliving-room
size,tobe sure.
I was tryingto hold togetherin mymind theeclecticismof materials
used by Merz withthe nostalgiceclecticismof postmodernarchitecture or the pastiche of expressionismin the paintingof the neuen
exhibitedin anotherbuildingofthisDocumenta
Wilden,
prominently
in otherwords,to spin a red threadthroughthe
show. I was trying,
labyrinthof the postmodern.Then, in a flash,the patternbecame
clear.As Daniel triedtofeelthesurfacesand crevicesofMerz'swork,as
he ranhisfingers
alongsidethestoneplatesand overtheglass,a guard
rushedovershouting:"Nichtberiihren!Das istKunst!"(Don't touch!
This is art!)And a whilelater,tiredfromso much art,he sat down on
Carl Andr6's solid cedar blocks only to be chased away with the
admonitionthatartwas not forsittingon.
Here itwasagain,thatold notionofart:no touching,no trespassing.
The museumas temple,theartistas prophet,theworkas relicand cult
object, the halo restored.Suddenly the privilegingof gold in this
exhibitmade a lot of sense. The guards,of course, only performed
what Rudi Fuchs, organizerof this Documenta and in touch with
currenttrends,had in mind all along: "To disentangleartfromthe
diversepressuresand socialperversionsithas tobear."' The debatesof
thelastfifteen
to twenty
yearsabout waysof seeingand experiencing
about
contemporaryart,
imagingand image making,about the enbetween
tanglements
avantgardeart,media iconographyand advertisto
seemed
have
been
ing
wipedout,theslatecleanedfora newromanticism.But thenitfitsin all too well with,say,thecelebrationsof the
of PeterHandke,withthe
propheticwordin themorerecentwritings
1. Catalogue,Documenta
7 (Kassel:Paul Dierichs,n.d. [1982]),p. XV.

AndreasHuyssen 7
aura of the "postmodern" in the New York art scene, withthe selfstylizationof the film-makeras auteurin BurdenofDreams,a recent
Think
documentaryabout themakingofWernerHerzog'sFitzcarraldo.
the
of Fitzcarraldo's
on
Amazon.
on
a
closing images
ship
opera
BateauIvrewas briefly
consideredbytheDocumentaorganizersas the
titlefor the exhibit. But while Herzog's worn-outsteam boat was
indeedabateauivre- operainthejungle,a shipmovedacrossa mountain
- the bateauivreof Kassel was only soberingin its pretentiousness.
"Afterall the
Considerthis,takenfromFuchs'catalogueintroduction:
artistis one ofthelastpractitioners
ofdistinctindividuality."
Or, again
Fuchs: "Here, then, begins our exhibition;here is the
Originalton
euphoria of Hdlderlin,the quiet logic of T.S. Eliot, the unfinished
dream of Coleridge.When the Frenchtravellerwho discoveredthe
Niagara Falls returnedto New York,none ofhis sophisticatedfriends
believedhisfantasticstory.Whatis yourproof,theyasked. My proof,
he said, is thatI have seen it."2
NiagaraFallsand Documenta7 - indeedwe haveseen itall before.
Artasnature,natureas art.The halo Baudelaireonce loston a crowded
Parisboulevardis back,theaura restored,Baudelaire,Marx and BenThe gesturein all ofthisis patentlyanti-modernand
jamin forgotten.
Sure,one could arguethatin hisrecourseto H6lderanti-avantgarde.
lin, Coleridge and Eliot, Fuchs triesto revivethe modernistdogma
return
itself--yetanotherpostmodernnostalgia,anothersentimental
to a timewhen artwas stillart.But whatdistinguishesthisnostalgia
is
fromthe"real thing,"and whatultimately
makesitanti-modernist,
its loss of irony,reflexiveness
and self-doubt,its cheerfulabandonand
mentof a criticalconsciousness,itsostentatiousself-confidence
themiseen schneof itsconviction(visibleeven in the spacial arrangementsinsidethe Fridericianum)thattheremustbe a realmof purity
forart,a space beyondthoseunfortunate
"diversepressuresand social
bear.3
had
to
art
has
perversions"
embodied
ofpostmodernism,
This latesttrendwithinthetrajectory
forme in theDocumenta 7, restson an all buttotalconfusionofcodes:
itis anti-modernand highlyeclectic,but dressesup as a returnto the
in thatit simplychooses to
modernisttradition;it is anti-avantgarde
drop the avantgarde'scrucialconcernfora new artin an alternative
society,but itpretendsto be avantgardein itspresentationofcurrent
2. Ibid.
3. Ofcourse,thisis notmeantas a"fair" evaluationoftheshowor ofall theworks
exhibitedin it.It shouldbe clearthatwhatI am concernedwithhereis thedramaturgy
of the show,thewayitwas conceptualizedand presentedto the public. For a more
comprehensivediscussion of Documenta 7, see Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, "Docu22 (Fall 1982), 105-126.
menta7: A Dictionaryof Received Ideas," October,

ThePostmodern
in thatit
trends;and, in a certainsense, it is even anti-postmodern
abandons anyreflection
oftheproblemswhichtheexhaustionofhigh
modernismoriginallybroughtabout, problemswhichpostmodern
and
art,in itsbettermoments,has attemptedto addressaesthetically
sometimeseven politically.Documenta 7 can stand as the perfect
aestheticsimulacrum:facileeclecticismcombinedwithaestheticamnesiaand delusionsofgrandeur.It representsthekindofpostmodern
restorationof a domesticatedmodernismwhichseems to be gaining
and itparallelstheconsergroundintheage ofKohl-Thatcher-Reagan
vativepoliticalattackson thecultureofthe1960swhichhaveincreased
in volume and viciousnessin thesepast years.
TheProblem
Ifthiswereall thatcould be said about postmodernismitwould not
be worththetroubleoftakingup thesubjectat all. I mightjustas well
stoprighthereandjoin theformidablechorusofthosewholamentthe
loss ofqualityand proclaimthedeclineoftheartssincethe 1960s. My
one. While the recentmedia
argument,however,will be a different
and theartshas propelled
hypeabout postmodernismin architecture
the phenomenonintothelimelight,it has also tendedto obscure its
long and complex history.Much of my ensuing argumentwill be
based on thepremisethatwhatappears on one levelas thelatestfad,
advertisingpitchand hollow spectacleis partof a slowlyemerging
culturaltransformation
inWesternsocieties,a changein sensibility
for
whichthe term'postmodernism'is actually,at least fornow,wholly
are debatable,
adequate. The natureand depthofthattransformation
but transformation
itis. I don'twantto be misunderstoodas claiming
thatthereis a wholesale paradigm shiftof the cultural,social and
economicorders;4anysuchclaim clearlywould be overblown.Butin
an importantsectorof our culturethereis a noticeableshiftin senwhichdistinguishes
a postsibility,
practicesand discourseformations
modernsetofassumptions,experiencesand propositionsfromthatof
a precedingperiod. What needs furtherexplorationis whetherthis
transformation
has generatedgenuinelynew aestheticformsin the
variousartsor whetheritmainlyrecyclestechniquesand strategies
of
modernismitself,
themintoan alteredculturalcontext.
reinscribing
Of course, thereare good reasons why any attemptto take the
postmodernseriouslyon itsowntermsmeetswithso muchresistance.
It is indeed temptingto dismissmanyofthecurrentmanifestations
of
4. On thisquestionsee FredricJameson,
"Postmodernismor theCulturalLogic
ofCapitalism,"NewLeft
Review,146 (July-August
1984),53-92,whoseattemptto identifypostmodernismwitha new stage in the developmentallogic of capital,I feel,
overstatesthe case.

Andreas
Huyssen 9
postmodernismas a fraudperpetratedon a gulliblepublicbytheNew
Yorkartmarketin whichreputationsare builtand gobbled up faster
than painterscan paint:witnessthe frenziedbrushworkof the new
expressionists.It is also easy to arguethatmuch of thecontemporary
mixed-mediaand performance
culture,whichonce seemed
inter-arts,
so vital,is now spinningitswheelsand speakingin tongues,relishing,
as itwere,theeternalrecurrenceof thedeja'vu.Withgood reasonwe
towardtherevivaloftheWagnerianGesamtkunstwerk
mayremainskeptical
as postmodernspectaclein Syberbergor RobertWilson.The current
Wagnercultmayindeed bya symptomofa happycollusionbetween
themegalomaniaofthepostmodernand thatofthepremodernon the
edge of modernism.The searchforthegrail,it seems,is on.
Butitisalmosttoo easytoridiculethepostmodernismofthecurrent
New Yorkartscene or ofDocumenta 7. Such totalrejectionwillblind
us to postmodernism'scriticalpotentialwhich,I believe,also exists,
even thoughitmaybe difficult
to identify.5
The notionoftheartwork
as critiqueactuallyinformssome of the more thoughtfulcondemnationsofpostmodernism,
whichis accused ofhavingabandoned the
criticalstancethatonce characterizedmodernism.However,the faa criticalart(Parteilichkeit
and vanguardmiliarideas ofwhatconstitutes
critical
or
the
aesthetic
of
the
realism,
ism, l'artengage,
negativity,
much
of
lost
have
of
refusal representation,
abstraction,
reflexiveness)
theirexplanatoryand normativepowerin recentdecades. This is preciselythedilemmaofartin a postmodernage. Nevertheless,I see no
The pressuresto
reasontojettisonthenotionofa criticalartaltogether.
do so are notnew;theyhavebeen formidablein capitalistcultureever
sinceromanticism,
and ifour postmodernity
makesitexceedinglydifficultto hold on to an older notionofartas critique,thenthetaskis to
redefinethepossibilitiesofcritiquein postmoderntermsratherthan
relegatingitto oblivion.Ifthepostmodernis discussedas a historical
conditionratherthan only as styleit becomes possible and indeed
importantto unlockthecriticalmomentin postmodernismitselfand
to sharpenitscuttingedge, howeverbluntit may seem at firstsight.
Whatwillno longerdo is eitherto eulogize or to ridiculepostmodernismenbloc.The postmodernmustbe salvagedfromitschampionsand
fromitsdetractors.This essayis meantto contributeto thatproject.
In muchofthepostmodernismdebate,averyconventionalthought
patternhas asserteditself.Eitheritis said thatpostmodernismis con5. For a distinctionbetweena criticaland an affirmative
postmodernism,see Hal
Foster'sintroductionto TheAnti-Aesthetic
(PortTownsend,Washington:Bay Press,
1984). Foster'snewessayin thisissue,however,indicatesa changeofmindwithregard
to the criticalpotentialof postmodernism.

10
ThePostmodern
tinuouswithmodernism,inwhichcase thewholedebateopposingthe
twois specious; or,itis claimedthatthereis a radicalrupture,a break
withmodernism,whichis thenevaluatedin eitherpositiveor negative
terms.Butthequestionofhistoricalcontinuity
or discontinuity
simply
cannotbe adequatelydiscussedin termsof such an either/or
dichotomy. To have questioned the validityof such dichotomousthought
patternsis of course one of the major achievementsof Derridean
deconstruction.But the poststructuralist
notionof endless textuality
ultimatelycripplesany meaningfulhistoricalreflectionon temporal
unitsshorterthan,say, the long wave of metaphysicsfromPlato to
fromthemid-19thcenturyto the
Heideggeror thespreadofmoderniti
present.The problemwithsuch historicalmacro-schemes,in relation
to postmodernism,is thattheypreventthe phenomenon fromeven
comingintofocus.
route.I willnotattemptheretodefine
takea different
I willtherefore
itselfshouldguard
whatpostmodernismis.The term'postmodernism'
it
the
as
an
us againstsuch approach
positions phenomenonas relational. Modernism as thatfromwhich postmodernismis breaking
awayremainsinscribedintotheverywordwithwhichwe describeour
distancefrommodernism.Thus keepingin mind postmodernism's
of the
relationalnature,I will simplystartfromthe Selbstverstiindnis
I
since
the
1960s.
What
discourses
various
it
has
as
shaped
postmodern
the
like
a
of
in
is
this
to
large-scalemap
essay something
hope provide
and on whichthevarious
postmodernwhichsurveysseveralterritories
postmodernartisticand criticalpracticescould findtheiraestheticand
ofthepostmodernin theUnited
politicalplace. Withinthe trajectory
StatesI willdistinguishseveralphases and directions.Myprimaryaim
isto emphasize some ofthehistoricalcontingenciesand pressuresthat
have shaped recentaestheticand culturaldebatesbuthaveeitherbeen
blocked out in criticaltheorya 1'am"ricaine.
ignoredor systematically
literatureandthe
While drawingon developmentsin architecture,
visual arts,myfocuswillbe primarilyon the criticaldiscourseabout
thepostmodern:postmodernismin relationto, respectively,
moderEach
and poststructuralism.
nism,theavantgarde,neo-conservatism
of these constellationsrepresentsa somewhatseparatelayerof the
postmodernand will be presentedas such. And, finally,centraleleofthetermwillbe discussedin relationto
mentsoftheBegriffsgeschichte
a broader set of questions thathave arisen in recentdebates about
A crucialquesmodernism,modernityand thehistoricalavantgarde.6
6. Foran earlierattemptto givea BegriJfsgeschichte
ofpostmodernismin literature,
see thevariousessaysin Amerikastudien,
22:1 (1977), 9-46 (includesa valuable bibliosecond edition(Madison:
graphy).Cf.also Ihab Hassan, TheDismemberment
oforpheus,

AndreasHuyssen 11
tionforme concernsthe extentto whichmodernismand theavantgardeas formsofan adversaryculturewerenevertheless
conceptually
and practicallybound up withcapitalistmodernizationand/orwith
communistvanguardism,
thatmodernization's
twinbrother.As I hope
thisessaywillshow,postmodernism'scriticaldimensionlies precisely
in itsradicalquestioningofthose'presuppositions
whichlinkedmodernismand the avantgardeto the mindsetof modernization.
Movement
TheExhaustion
oftheModernist
Let me begin, then,withsome briefremarksabout the trajectory
and migrationsof the term'postmodernism.'In literarycriticismit
goes backas faras thelate 1950swhenitwas used byIrvingHowe and
HarryLevin to lamentthe levellingoffof the modernistmovement.
Howe and Levinwerelookingbacknostalgically
towhatalreadyseemed
likea richerpast. 'Postmodernism'was firstused emphaticallyin the
1960s by literarycriticssuch as Leslie Fiedlerand Ihab Hassan who
heldwidelydivergent
viewsofwhata postmodernliterature
was. Itwas
the
and
the
term
that
only during
early
gained a much
mid-1970s
thendance, theater,
widercurrency,encompassingfirstarchitecture,
painting,filmand music.While the postmodernbreakwithclassical
modernismwas fairlyvisible in architectureand the visual arts,the
has been muchharderto
notionofa postmodernrupturein literature
ascertain.At some point in the late 1970s, 'postmodernism,'not
withoutAmericanprodding,migratedto Europe via Parisand Frankfurt.Kristevaand Lyotardtookitup in France,Habermas in Germany.
In theUnitedStates,meanwhile,criticshad beguntodiscusstheinterin itspeculiar
face of postmodernismwithFrenchpoststructuralism
Americanadaptation,oftensimplyon theassumptionthattheavantgardein theorysomehowhad to be homologous to theavantgardein
Universityof WisconsinPress, 1982), especiallythe new "Postface1982: Toward a
and modConceptofPostmodernism,"pp. 259-271. - The debateabout modernity
ernizationin historyand the social sciencesis too broad to document here; foran
excellent survey of the pertinentliterature,see Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ModerundGeschichte
nisierungstheorie
(G6ttingen:Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht,1975). - On the
(Bloomquestion of modernityand the arts,see Matei Calinescu, FacesofModernity
Press,1977); MarshalBerman,AllThatIs SolidMeltsIntoAir:
ington:Indiana University
TheExperience
ofModernity
(New York:Simon and Schuster,1982); Eugene Lunn,Marxismand Modernism
(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1982);
Peter Bfirger,Theory
oftheAvantgarde
(Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press,
1984). Also importantforthisdebate is the recentwork by culturalhistorianson
work
specificcitiesand theirculture,e.g., CarlSchorske'sand RobertWaissenberger's
on fin-de-sibcle
Vienna,PeterGay'sandJohnWillett'sworkon theWeimarRepublic,
at theturnofthecentury,T.J.Jackand, fora discussionofAmericananti-modernism
son Lears' No PlaceofGrace(New York:Pantheon,1981).

12
ThePostmodern
literatureand the arts.While skepticismabout the feasabilityof an

of theory,
artisticavantgardewas on the risein the 1970s,thevitality
despiteitsmanyenemies,neverseemed in seriousdoubt. To some,
indeed, it appeared as ifthe culturalenergiesthathad fueledtheart
movementsofthe 1960swereflowingduringthe 1970s intothebody
of theory,leavingtheartisticenterprisehighand dry.While such an
observationis atbestofimpressionistic
value and also notquitefairto
thearts,itdoes seemreasonabletosaythat,withpostmodernism's
bigthe maze of the postmodern
bang logic of expansion irreversible,
became evermore impenetrable.Bytheearly1980s themodernism/
postmodernism constellation in the arts and the modernity/
constellationin social theoryhad become one of the
postmodernity
most contestedterrainsin the intellectuallifeof Westernsocieties.
And theterrainis contestedpreciselybecause thereis so muchmoreat
stake than the existenceor non-existenceof a new artisticstyle,so
much more also thanjust the"correct"theoreticalline.
Nowheredoes thebreakwithmodernismseemmoreobvious than
in recentAmericanarchitecture.
fromMies
Nothingcould be further
van derRohe's functionalist
glasscurtainwallsthanthegestureofrandom historicalcitationwhich prevailson so many postmodernfagades. Take, forexample,PhilipJohnson'sAT&T highrise,whichis
appropriatelybrokenup intoa neoclassicalmid-section,Roman colonnades at the streetlevel and a Chippendale pedimentat the top.
Indeed, a growingnostalgiaforvariouslifeformsofthepast seemsto
in thecultureofthe1970sand 1980s.And it
be a strongundercurrent
is temptingto dismissthishistoricaleclecticism,found not only in
and in themass culbut in thearts,in film,in literature
architecture,
tureof recentyears,as theculturalequivalentof theneoconservative
nostalgiaforthegood old daysand as a manifestsignofthedeclining
rateofcreativity
in latecapitalism.Butis thisnostalgiaforthepast,the
oftenfrenziedand exploitativesearchforusable traditions,and the
withpre-modernand primitive
cultures- is all of
growingfascination
thisrootedonlyin theculturalinstitutions'
perpetualneed forspectacle and frill,and thus perfectly
compatiblewiththe statusquo? Or
does itperhapsalso expresssome genuineand legitimatedissatisfaction with modernityand the unquestioned beliefin the perpetual
modernizationofart?Ifthelatteris thecase,whichI believeitis,then
how can the search foralternativetraditions,whetheremergentor
residual,be made culturallyproductivewithoutyieldingto thepressures of conservatismwhich,witha vise-likegrip,lays claim to the
veryconceptoftradition?I am notarguingherethatall manifestations
of the postmodernrecuperationof the past are to be welcomed because somehowtheyare in tunewiththeZeitgeist.I also don'twantto

Andreas
Huyssen 13
be misunderstoodas arguingthatpostmodernism'sfashionablerepudiationofthehighmodernistaestheticand itsboredomwiththepropositionsof Marx and Freud, Picasso and Brecht,Kafkaand Joyce,
are somehow marksof a major cultural
Sch6nbergand Stravinsky
advance. Where postmodernismsimplyjettisonsmodernismitjust
yieldsto the culturalapparatus' demands thatit legitimizeitselfas
radicallynew,and itrevivesthephilistineprejudicesmodernismfaced
in itsown time.
Butevenifpostmodernism's
own propositionsdon'tseemconvincing- as embodied, forexample,in thebuildingsby PhilipJohnson,
Michael Graves and others - thatdoes not mean that continued
adherenceto an older setofmodernistpropositionswould guarantee
the emergenceof more convincingbuildings or worksof art. The
recentneoconservative
attemptto reinstatea domesticatedversionof
culturemodernismas the onlyworthwhiletruthof 20th-century
manifestforinstancein the 1984 Beckmannexhibitin Berlinand in
- is a strategy
aimed at
manyarticlesin HiltonKramer'sNewCriterion
buryingthepoliticaland aestheticcritiquesofcertainformsofmodernismwhichhavegainedgroundsincethe1960s.Buttheproblemwith
intoa conservamodernismis notjustthefactthatitcan be integrated
on a major
of
that
once
art.
After
all,
alreadyhappened
tiveideology
scale in the1950s.7The largerproblemwe recognizetoday,itseemsto
me, is theclosenessofvariousformsofmodernismin itsown timeto
themindsetofmodernization,whetherin itscapitalistor communist
version.Of course,modernismwas nevera monolithicphenomenon,
and it containedboththe modernizationeuphoria of futurism,conand some ofthestarkest
and Neue Sachlichkeit
structivism
critiquesof
modernizationin the variousmodernformsof"romanticanti-capiThe problemI address in thisessayis notwhatmodernism
talism."'8
whatdomiwas,but ratherhow itwas perceivedretrospectively,
really
nant values and knowledgeit carried,and how it functionedideologicallyand culturallyafterWorld War II. It is a specificimage of
modernismthat has become the bone of contentionfor the postifwe wantto undermoderns,and thatimagehas to be reconstructed
stand postmodernism'sproblematicrelationshipto the modernist
traditionand itsclaimsto difference.
Architecture
gives us the most palpable example of the issues at
7. On the ideologicaland politicalfunctionof modernismin the 1950s cf.Jost
Hermand, "Modernism Restored:West German Paintingin the 1950s," NGC, 32
Art
1984); and SergeGuilbaut,How New YorkStoletheIdea ofModern
(Spring/Summer
Press,1983).
(Chicago: Chicago University
8. For a thoroughdiscussionof thisconceptsee RobertSayreand Michel Lowy,
NGC, 32 (Spring/Summer
1984).
"Figuresof RomanticAnti-Capitalism,"

14
ThePostmodern
stake.The modernistutopiaembodiedin thebuildingprogramsofthe

Bauhaus, of Mies, Gropius and Le Corbusier,was part of a heroic
attemptafterthe GreatWar and the Russian Revolutionto rebuilda
war-ravagedEurope in theimage of thenew,and to make buildinga
vitalpartof theenvisionedrenewalof society.A new Enlightenment
demandedrationaldesignfora rationalsociety,butthenewrationality
whichultimately
made itveerback
was overlayedwitha utopianfervor
intomyth- the mythof modernization.Ruthlessdenial of thepast
was as much an essentialcomponentof themodernmovementas its
and rationalization.It
call formodernizationthroughstandardization
on itsown interiswell-knownhowthemodernistutopiashipwrecked
on politicsand history.9
nal contradictionsand, more importantly,
Gropius,Mies and otherswere forcedinto exile,AlbertSpeer took
theirplace in Germany.After1945,modernistarchitecture
was largely
an architecture
of
deprivedofitssocialvisionand became increasingly
power and representation.Ratherthan standingas harbingersand
promisesofthenewlife,modernisthousingprojectsbecame symbols
ofalienationand dehumanization,a fatetheysharedwiththeassembly line, thatotheragent of the new which had been greetedwith
exuberantenthusiasmin the 1920s by Leninistsand Fordistsalike.
CharlesJencks,one of the mostwell-knownpopularizingchroniclers of the agony of the modern movementand spokesman fora
dates modern architecture's
symbolicdepostmodernarchitecture,
miseJuly15, 1972, at 3:32 p.m. At thattimeseveralslab blocksof St.
Louis' Pruitt-IgoeHousing (builtby MinoruYamasakiin the 1950s)
were dynamited,and the collapse was dramaticallydisplayedon the
eveningnews.The modern machineforliving,as Le Corbusierhad
called itwiththe technologicaleuphoria so typicalof the 1920s, had
become unlivable,themodernistexperiment,so itseemed,obsolete.
Jenckstakespains todistinguishtheinitialvisionofthemodernmovementfromthesinscommittedinitsnamelateron. Andyet,on balance
he agreeswiththosewho,sincethe1960s,havearguedagainstmodernism'shiddendependenceon themachinemetaphorand theproductionparadigm,and againstitstakingthefactory
as theprimarymodel
forall buildings.It has become commonplaceinpostmodernist
circles
to favora reintroductionof multivalentsymbolicdimensions into
a mixingofcodes, an appropriationoflocal vernaculars
architecture,
9. Foran excellentdiscussionofthepoliticsofarchitecture
in theWeimarRepublic see theexhibitioncatalogueWemgehirt
dieWelt:KunstundGesellschaft
inderWeimarer
(Berlin: Neue Gesellschaftfir bildende Kunst, 1977), pp. 38-157. Cf. also
Republik
RobertHughes, "Trouble in Utopia," in TheShockoftheNew (New York:AlfredA.
Knopf,1981), pp. 164-211.

AndreasHuyssen 15
and regionaltraditions.'0
look two
ThusJenckssuggeststhatarchitects
the
"towards
traditional
slow-changingcodes
ways simultaneously,
and particularethnicmeaningsof a neighborhood,and towardsthe
fashionand professionalism.""
codes of architectural
fast-changing
Such schizophrenia,Jencksholds,is symptomatic
ofthepostmodern
and one mightwell ask whetherit does not
momentin architecture;
apply to contemporarycultureat large,whichincreasinglyseems to
privilegewhat Bloch called Ungleichzeitigkeiten
(non-synchronisms),'2
ratherthanfavoringonlywhatAdorno,thetheoristofmodernismpar
derKunst(the
Materialstand
excellence,describedas derfortgeschrittenste
most advanced state of artisticmaterial).Where such postmodern
schizophreniais creativetensionresultinginambitiousand successful
buildings,and whereconversely,it veersoffinto an incoherentand
ofstyles,willremaina matterofdebate.We should
arbitrary
shuffling
also notforgetthatthemixingofcodes, theappropriationofregional
traditions
and theuses ofsymbolicdimensionsotherthanthemachine
were never entirelyunknownto the architectsof the International
Style.In ordertoarriveat hispostmodernism,Jencks
ironicallyhad to
exacerbatetheveryviewofmodernistarchitecture
whichhe persistentlyattacks.
One ofthemosttellingdocumentsofthebreakofpostmodernism
withthe modernistdogma is a book coauthoredby RobertVenturi,
Las
Denise Scott-Brown
and StevenIzenour and entitledLearningfrom
from
the
this
earlier
book
Venturi
and
Vegas.Rereading
writingsby
and
1960stoday,'" one is struckbytheproximity
ofVenturi'sstrategies
solutions to the pop sensibilityof those years.Time and again the
authorsuse pop art'sbreakwiththeausterecanon of highmodernist
paintingand pop's uncriticalespousal ofthecommercialvernacularof
consumer cultureas an inspirationfor theirwork.What Madison
Avenue was forAndyWarhol,whatthecomicsand theWesternwere
forLeslie Fiedler,thelandscape of Las Vegas was forVenturiand his
fromLas Vegasis predicatedon the
group. The rhetoricof Learning
of thebillboardstripand oftheruthlessshlockofcasino
glorification
10. The factthatsuchstrategies
can cutdifferent
wayspoliticallyis shownby KennethFramptonin hisessay"Towardsa CriticalRegionalism,"in TheAnti-Aesthetic,
pp.
23-38.
Architecture
(New York: Rizzoli,
11. Charles A. Jencks,TheLanguageofPostmodern
1977), p. 97.
see ErnstBloch,"Non-Synchronism
12. For Bloch's conceptof Ungleichzeitigkeit,
and theObligationtoitsDialectics,"and Anson Rabinbach's"ErnstBloch'sHeritage
of
ourTimesand Fascism,"in NGC, 11 (Spring1977), 5-38.
13. RobertVenturi,Denise ScottBrown,StevenIzenour, Learning
fromLas Vegas
andCon(Cambridge:MIT Press,1972). Cf.also theearlierstudybyVenturi,Complexity
inArchitecture
tradiction
(New York:Museum of Modern Art,1966).

16
ThePostmodern
culture.In KennethFrampton'sironicwords,itoffers
a readingofLas
Vegas as "an authenticoutburstof popular phantasy."4 I thinkit
would be gratuitousto ridiculesuchodd notionsofculturalpopulism
today. While there is somethingpatentlyabsurd about such propositions,we haveto acknowledgethepwoertheymusteredto explode
the reifieddogmas of modernismand to reopen a set of questions
whichthemodernismgospelofthe1940sand 1950shad largely
blocked
fromview: questions of ornamentand metaphorin architecture,
of figurationand realismin painting,of storyand representation
in
ofthebody in musicand theater.Pop in thebroadestsense
literature,
was thecontextin whicha notionofthepostmodernfirsttookshape,
trendswithin
and fromthebeginninguntiltoday,themostsignificant
postmodernismhave challengedmodernism'srelentlesshostilityto
mass culture.
in the1960s:AnAmerican
Postmodernism
Avantgarde?
I willnow suggesta historicaldistinction
betweenthepostmodernism ofthe 1960s and thatofthe 1970sand early1980s. Myargument
willroughlybe this:1960s' and 1970s' postmodernismboth rejected
or criticizeda certainversionofmodernism.Againstthecodifiedhigh
modernismoftheprecedingdecades,thepostmodernismn
ofthe1960s
triedtorevitalizetheheritageoftheEuropeanavantgardeand togiveit
an American form along what one could call in short-handthe
Duchamp-Cage-Warholaxis. By the 1970s, this avantgardistpostmodernismof the 1960s had in turnexhausted its potential,even
continuedwellintothenewdecade.
thoughsome ofitsmanifestations
Whatwas newin the 1970s was, on theone hand, theemergenceofa
cultureofeclecticism,a largelyaffirmative
whichhad
postmodernism
abandoned any claim to critique,transgression
or negation;and, on
the otherhand, an alternativepostmodernismin which resistance,
in non-modernist
critiqueand negationofthestatusquo wereredefined
and non-avantgardist
terms,termswhichmatchthepoliticaldevelopmentsin contemporary
culturemore effectively
thantheolder theoriesof modernism.Let me elaborate.
What were the connotationsof the termpostmodernismin the
1960s?Roughlysincethemid-1950sliterature
and theartswitnesseda
rebellionofa newgenerationofartistssuchas RauschenbergandJasperJohns,Kerouac,Ginsbergand theBeats,Burroughsand Barthelme
againstthe dominance of abstractexpressionism,serial music and
Architecture:
A Critical
14. KennethFrampton,Modemrn
History
(New Yorkand Toronto: OxfordUniversity
Press,1980), p. 290.

AndreasHuyssen 17
classical literarymodernism.'5The rebellionof the artistswas soon
joined bycriticssuch as Susan Sontag,Leslie Fiedlerand Ihab Hassan
who all vigorously,
thoughin verydifferent
ways and to a different
degree,arguedforthepostmodern.Sontagadvocatedcamp and a new
sensibility,Fiedler sang thepraise of popular literatureand genital
and Hassan - closerthantheothersto themoderns
enlightenment,
- advocated a literatureof silence,tryingto mediate between the
"traditionof the new" and post-warliterarydevelopments.By that
time,modernismhad ofcoursebeen safelyestablishedas thecanon in
theacademy,themuseumsand thegallerynetwork.In thatcanon the
New YorkSchool of abstractexpressionismrepresentedtheepitome
of thatlong trajectory
ofthemodernwhichhad begun in Parisin the
1850s and 1860s and whichhad inexorablyled to New York- the
in culturefollowingon theheelsofthevictory
Americanvictory
on the
battlefields
ofWorldWarII. Bythe1960sartistsand criticsalikeshared
a sense of a fundamentally
new situation.The assumed postmodern
with
the
was
felt
as a loss: artand literature'sclaims to
rupture
past
truthand human value seemed exhausted,thebeliefin the constitutivepowerofthemodernimaginationjust anotherdelusion.Or itwas
feltas a breakthroughtowardan ultimateliberationof instinctand
consciousness,intotheglobalvillageofMcLuhanacy,thenewEden of
Paradise Now, as the LivingTheaterpropolymorphousperversity,
claimed it on stage. Thus criticsof postmodernismsuch as Gerald
Graffhavecorrectly
identified
twostrainsofthepostmoderncultureof
the 1960s: the apocalypticdesperatestrainand the visionarycelebratorystrain,bothofwhich,Graffclaims,alreadyexistedwithinmodernism.'6Whilethisis cetainlytrue,itmissesan importantpoint.The
ireofthepostmodernists
wasdirectednotso muchagainstmodernism
as such, but ratheragainsta certainaustereimage of 'high modernism,'as advancedbytheNew Criticsand othercustodiansofmodernistculture.Such a view,whichavoidsthefalsedichotomyofchoosing
eithercontinuity
ordiscontinuity,
is supportedbya retrospective
essay
entitled"The Literature
byJohnBarth.In a 1980 piece in TheAtlantic,
of Replenishment,"Barthcriticizeshis own 1968 essay"The Literatureof Exhaustion,"whichseemed at the timeto offeran adequate
summaryof theapocalypticstrain.Barthnow suggeststhatwhathis
earlierpiece was reallyabout "was the effective
'exhaustion' not of
oftheartists,
and notwith
15. I am mainlyconcernedherewiththeSelbstverstiindnis
thequestionofwhethertheirworkreallywentbeyondmodernismorwhetheritwas in
all cases politically"progressive."On the politicsof the Beat rebellionsee Barbara
Ehrenreich,TheHeartsofMen(New York:Doubleday, 1984), esp. pp. 52-67.
16. Gerald Graff,"The Mythof the PostmodernBreakthrough,"in Literature
Itself(Chicago: Chicago University
Press,1979), pp. 31-62.
Against

18
ThePostmodemrn
language or of literaturebut of the aestheticof high modernism."'7

and Texts
and
And he goes on to describeBeckett'sStories
forNothing
Nabokov's Pale Fire as late modernistmarvels,distinctfromsuch
writersas Italo Calvinoand GabrielMarquez. Cultural
postmodernist
criticslikeDaniel Bell,on theotherhand,would simplyclaimthatthe
postmodernismofthe 1960swas the"logicalculminationofmodernistintentions,'" a viewwhichrephrasesLionel Trilling'sdespairing
ofthe 1960swerepracticingmodobservationthatthedemonstrators
ernismin thestreets.Butmypointhereis preciselythathighmodernismhad neverseenfittobe in thestreetsin thefirst
place,thatitsearlier
undeniablyadversaryrolewas supersededin the 1960s by a verydifin thestreetsand in artworks,and that
ferentcultureofconfrontation
transformedinheritedideological nothis cultureof confrontation
artisticautonomyand theimaginationsofstyle,formand creativity,
tiontowhichmodernismhad bythensuccumbed.CriticslikeBell and
Graffsaw therebellionof thelate 1950s and the 1960s as continuous
and anarchicstrain;ratherthanseewithmodernism'searliernihilistic
revoltagainstclassicalmodernism,theyinteringitas a postmodernist
preteditas a profusionofmodernistimpulsesintoeverydaylife.And
in some sense theywereabsolutelyright,exceptthatthis"success" of
alteredthetermsofhowmodernistculture
modernismfundamentally
was to be perceived.Again,myargumenthereis thattherevoltofthe
1960s was nevera rejectionof modernismperse, but rathera revolt
againstthatversionofmodernismwhichhad been domesticatedinthe
consensusofthetimes,
1950s,become partoftheliberal-conservative
and whichhad even been turnedinto a propaganda weapon in the
arsenalof Cold War anti-communism.
The modercultural-political
nismagainstwhichartistsrebelledwas no longerfelttobe an adversary
culture.It no longeropposed a dominantclassand itsworldview,nor
had itmaintaineditsprogrammatic
purityfromcontaminationbythe
cultureindustry.In otherwords,therevoltsprangpreciselyfromthe
success of modernism,fromthe factthatin the United States,as in
WestGermanyand France,forthatmatter,modernismhad been perculture.
vertedintoa formof affirmative
I would go on to arguethattheglobal viewwhichsees the 1960s as
partofthemodernmovementextendingfromManetand Baudelaire,
ifnot fromromanticism,to thepresentis not able to accountforthe
Americancharacterofpostmodernism.Afterall, theterm
specifically
accrueditsemphaticconnotationsin theUnitedStates,notin Europe.
17. JohnBarth,"The LiteratureofReplenishment:Postmodernist
Fiction,"AtlanticMonthly,
245:1 (January1980), 65-71.
ofCapitalism
(New York: Basic Books,
18. Daniel Bell, TheCulturalContradictions
1976), p. 51.

AndreasHuyssen 19
in Europeat
I wouldevenclaimthatitcouldnothavebeeninvented
thetime.Fora variety
ofreasons,itwouldnothavemadeanysense
there.
who
WestGermany
itsownmoderns
wasstillbusyrediscovering
the
had beenburntand bannedduringtheThirdReich.Ifanything,
1960sin WestGermanyproduceda majorshiftin evaluationand
interest
fromone setofmodernsto another:fromBenn,Kafkaand
ThomasManntoBrecht,
theleftexpressionists
and thepoliticalwritersof the 1920s,fromHeideggerandJaspersto Adornoand Benand
jamin,fromSchdnbergand Webernto Eisler,fromKirchner
It was a searchforalternative
Beckmannto Groszand Heartfield.
culturaltraditions
and as suchdirectedagainstthe
withinmodernity
of
version
of
whichhad cometo
a
modernism,
politics depoliticized
for
much
needed
cultural
the
Adenauerrestoraprovide
legitimation
tion.Duringthe1950s,themyths
of"thegoldentwenties,"
the"conservative
and universalexistentialist
all
revolution,"
Angst, helped
ofthefascist
blockoutandsuppresstherealities
past.Fromthedepths
ofbarbarism
wastrying
to
and therubbleofitscities,WestGermany
tunedto
reclaima civilizedmodernity
and tofinda culturalidentity
international
modernism
whichwouldmakeothersforget
Germany's
and pariahofthemodernworld.Giventhiscontext,
pastas predator
ofthe1950snorthestruggle
of
neither
thevariations
on modernism
the1960sforalternative
and socialistculturaltraditions
democratic
Theverynotionof
couldhavepossiblybeenconstrued
aspost-modemrn.
postmodernismhas emergedin Germanyonlysincethelate1970sand
inrelation
ofthe1960s,butnarrowly
thennotinrelation
totheculture
torecentarchitectural
and,perhapsmoreimportantly,
developments
in thecontextof the new social movements
and theirradicalcritiqueofmodernity."9
rather
a returnto modernism
In France,too,the1960switnessed
in
Gerfor
different
reasons
than
a
even
than stepbeyondit,
though
many,some of whichI will discuss in the latersectionon poststructuralism.In the contextof French intellectuallife,the term'postmodernism'was simplynot around in the 1960s, and even todayit
19. The specificconnotationsthe notion of postmodernity

has takenon in the
Germanpeace and anti-nukemovementsas wellas withintheGreenPartywillnotbe
discussedhere,as thisarticleis primarily
concernedwiththeAmericandebate. - In
Germanintellectuallife,theworkof PeterSloterdijkis eminentlyrelevantforthese
issues, althoughSloterdijkdoes not use the word "postmodern"; PeterSloterdijk,
2 vols.(Frankfurtam
Main: Suhrkamp,1983). EquallypertiKritikderzynischen
Vernunft,
nentis thepeculiarGermanreceptionofFrenchtheory,especiallyofFoucault,BaudEineDiskussion(Tiibingen:
rillard,and Lyotard;see forexample Der TodderModerne.
Konkursbuchverlag,
1983). On the apocalypticshadingof the postmodernin GerKonturen
einerPhilosophie
derMenschenflucht
many see Ulrich Horstmann,Das Untier.
(Wien-Berlin:Medusa, 1983).

20
ThePostmodern
does not seem to implya major breakwithmodernismas it does in

the U.S.
I would now like to sketchfourmajor characteristics
of the early
phase of postmodernismwhich all point to postmodernism'sconwiththeinternational
traditionofthemodern,yes,butwhich
tinuity
- and thisis mypoint- also establishAmericanpostmodernismas a
movementsuigeneris.20
First,thepostmodernismof the 1960s was characterizedbya temporal imaginationwhichdisplayeda powerfulsenseofthefutureand
of new frontiers,
of ruptureand discontinuity,
of crisisand generationalconflict,
an imaginationreminiscent
ofearliercontinental
avantgarde movementssuch as Dada and surrealismratherthan of high
modernism.Thus the revivalof Marcel Duchamp as godfatherof
1960s postmodernismis no historicalaccident.And yet,thehistorical
constellationin whichthepostmodernismof the 1960s playeditself
out (fromtheBayofPigsand thecivilrightsmovementto thecampus
makes this
revolts,the anti-warmovementand the counter-culture)
American,even whereits vocabularyof aesavantgardespecifically
theticformsand techniqueswas not radicallynew.
includedan iconoclastic
Secondly,theearlyphase ofpostmodernism
attackon whatPeterBuirgerhas triedto capturetheoretically
as the
"institution
art." By thattermBuirger
refersfirstand foremostto the
ways in which art's role in societyis perceivedand defined,and,
and
secondly,towaysin whichartis produced,marketed,distributed
consumed. In his book Theory
has arguedthat
oftheAvantgarde
Buirger
themajorgoal ofthehistoricalEuropean avantgarde(Dada, earlysurRussian avantgarde21)
was to underrealism,the postrevolutionary
the bourgeoisinstitution
artand itsidemine,attackand transform
ology of autonomyratherthan only changingartisticand literary
modes of representation.
approach to thequestionofartas
Buirger's
in bourgeoissocietygoes a longwaytowardsuggesting
institution
usefuldistinctionsbetweenmodernismand theavantgarde,distinctions
whichin turncan help us place theAmericanavantgardeofthe1960s.
In Buirger's
accounttheEuropean avantgardewas primarily
an attack
on thehighnessofhighartand on art'sseparatenessfromeveryday
life
20. The followingsectionwill draw on argumentsdeveloped less fullyin my
earlierarticleentitled"The SearchforTradition:Avantgardeand Postmodernismin
the 1970s," NGC, 22 (Winter1981), 23-40.
21. PeterBuirger,Theory
of Minnesota
oftheAvantgarde
(Minneapolis:University
Press,1984). The factthatBuirger
reservesthetermavantgardeformainlythesethree
movementsmay strikethe American reader as idiosyncraticor as unnecessarily
limitedunlesstheplace oftheargumentwithinthetraditionof20th-century
German
aestheticthoughtfromBrechtand Benjaminto Adorno is understood.

Huyssen21
Andreas
aestheticismand itsrepudiationof
as it had evolved in 19th-century
art
realism.Biurger
arguesthattheavantgardeattemptedtoreintegrate
and lifeor,to use hisHegelian-Marxist
formula,to sublateartintolife,
as a major
and he sees thisreintegration
attempt,I thinkcorrectly,
traditionofthelater19thcentury.
The value
breakwiththeaestheticist
Americandebatesis thatitperaccountforcontemporary
ofBiurger's
mitsus to distinguishdifferent
projectswithinthe
stagesand different
of the modern.The usual equation of theavantgardewith
trajectory
modernismcan indeed no longer by maintained.Contraryto the
avantgarde'sintentionto mergeart and life,modernismalwaysremainedbound up withthemoretraditionalnotionoftheautonomous
art work,withthe constructionof formand meaning(howeverestrangedor ambiguous,displacedor undecidablesuchmeaningmight
The politically
be), and withthe specialized statusof the aesthetic.22
about
the1960s
for
of
account
myargument
importantpoint Buirger's
is this: The historicalavantgarde'siconoclasticattackon cultural
and on traditionalmodes ofrepresentation
institutions
presupposeda
in
role
art
an
essential
in
which
legitimizing
played
high
society
hegemony,or, to put it in more neutralterms,to supporta cultural
establishmentand itsclaimsto aestheticknowledge.It had been the
and to underachievementof the historicalavantgardeto demystify
mine thelegitimizingdiscourseof highartin European society.The
variousmodernismsof thiscentury,on the otherhand, have either
maintainedor restoredversionsof highculture,a taskwhichwas cerbytheultimateand perhapsunavoidablefailureofthe
tainlyfacilitated
artand life.And yet,I would sughistoricalavantgardeto reintegrate
gest thatit was this specificradicalismof the avantgarde,directed
ofhighartas a discourseofhegemony,
againsttheinstitutionalization
thatrecommendeditselfas a source of energyand inspirationto the
Americanpostmodernistsof the 1960s. Perhapsforthe firsttimein
revoltagainsta traditionofhighart
Americanculturean avantgardist
and whatwas perceivedas its hegemonicrole made politicalsense.
in theburgeoningmuHigh arthad indeed become institutionalized
record
and
seum, gallery,concert,
paperback cultureof the 1950s.
betweenmodernismand theavantgardewas one ofthepivotal
22. This difference
pointsofdisagreementbetweenBenjaminand Adornoin the1930s,a debatetowhich
Biirgerowes a lot. Confrontedwiththe successfulfusionof aesthetics,politicsand
everydaylifein fascistGermany,Adorno condemned the avantgarde'sintentionto
mergeartwithlifeand continuedtoinsist,inbestmodernistfashion,on theautonomy
of art;Benjaminon theotherhand, lookingbackwardto theradicalexperimentsin
Paris,Moscow and Berlinin the 1920s,founda messianicpromisein theavantgarde,
especiallyin surrealism,a factwhich may help explain Benjamin's strange(and, I
think,mistaken)appropriationin the U.S. as a postmoderncriticavantla lettre.

22
ThePostmodemrn
Modernismitselfhad enteredthemainstreamvia mass reproduction

and thecultureindustry.
And, duringtheKennedyyears,highculture
evenbegan totakeon functionsofpoliticalrepresentation
withRobert
Frostand Pablo Casals, Malraux and Stravinsky
at theWhiteHouse.
The ironyin all of thisis thatthe firsttimethe U.S. had something
art"in theemphaticEuropean sense,itwas
resemblingan "institution
modernismitself,the kindof artwhose purpose had alwaysbeen to
resistinstitutionalization.
In theformofhappenings,pop vernacular,
and streettheater,thepostmodpsychedelicart,acid rock,alternative
ernismof the 1960s was gropingto recapturethe adversary ethos
which had nourishedmodern art in its earlierstages,but which it
seemed no longerable to sustain.Of course,the"success" of thepop
fromadvertising
in the
avantgarde,whichitselfhad sprungfull-blown
firstplace, immediatelymade it profitableand thussucked it intoa
more highlydeveloped cultureindustrythan the earlierEuropean
avantgardeever had to contend with. But despite such cooption
throughcommodificationthe pop avantgarderetaineda certaincuttingedge in itsproximityto the 1960s cultureof confrontation.23No
matterhow deluded about itspotentialeffectiveness,
theattackon the
institution
artwas alwaysalso an attackon hegemonicsocial institutions,and theragingbattlesofthe 1960s overwhetheror notpop was
legitimateartprovethe point.
Thirdly,manyoftheearlyadvocatesofpostmodernismsharedthe
technologicaloptimismof segmentsof the 1920s avantgarde.What
photographyand filmhad been to Vertovand Tretyakov,Brecht,
Heartfieldand Benjaminin thatperiod,television,
videoand thecomputerwerefortheprophetsof a technologicalaestheticin the 1960s.
McLuhan'scybernetic
and technocratic
mediaeschatology
and Hassan's
praisefor"runawaytechnology,"the"boundlessdispersalbymedia,"
"the computeras substituteconsciousness"- all of thiscombined
easilywitheuphoricvisionsof a postindustrial
society.Even ifcompared to theequallyexuberant technologicaloptimismofthe1920s,it
is striking
to see in retrospecthow uncritically
media technologyand
thecybernetic
paradigmwereespoused in the1960sbyconservatives,
liberalsand leftists
alike.24
23. Cf. myessay "The CulturalPoliticsof Pop," New GermanCritique,
4 (Winter
1975), 77-97. Froma different
perspective,Dick Hebdige developed a similarargumentabout Britishpop cultureat a talkhe gave lastyearat theCenterforTwentieth
ofWisconsin-Milwaukee.
CenturyStudiesat the University
24. The Left'sfascinationwiththemedia was perhapsmore pronouncedin Germanythanitwas in theU.S. Those weretheyearswhenBrecht'sradiotheoryand Benjamin's "The WorkofArtin theAge ofMechanicalReproduction"almostbecame cult
texts.See, forexample,Hans MagnusEnzensberger,"Baukastenzu einerTheorieder
20 (March1970),159-186.Reprintedin H.M.E., Palaver(Frankfurt
Medien,"Kursbuch,

AndreasHuyssen 23
The enthusiasmforthe new media leads me to the fourthtrend
withinearlypostmodernism.Thereemergeda vigorous,thoughagain
largelyuncriticalattemptto validatepopular cultureas a challengeto
thecanon ofhighart,modernistor traditional.This "populist" trend
of the 1960s withitscelebrationof rock'n roll and folkmusic,of the
imageryofeverydaylifeand ofthemultipleformsofpopularliterature
and bya
gainedmuchofitsenergyinthecontextofthecounter-culture
nextto totalabandonmentof an earlierAmericantraditionof a critiqueofmodernmass culture.Leslie Fiedler'sincantationoftheprefix
effect
at the
"post" in hisessay"The New Mutants"had an exhilerating
time.25 The postmodernharbored the promise of a "post-white,"
"post-male,""post-humanist,""post-Puritan"world.It is easyto see
how all of Fielder'sadjectivesaim at themodernistdogma and at the
culturalestablishment'snotion of whatWesternCivilizationwas all
about. Susan Sontag'scamp aestheticdid muchthesame. Eventhough
itwas lesspopulist,itcertainly
was as hostiletohighmodernism.There
is a curiouscontradictionin all this.Fiedler'spopulismreiteratespreciselythatadversarialrelationshipbetweenhighartand mass culture
which,in theaccountsofClementGreenbergand Theodor W. Adorno,was one ofthepillarsofthemodernistdogma Fielderhad setout to
undermine.Fiedlerjusttakeshispositionon theothershore,opposite
Greenbergand Adorno,as itwere,validatingthepopularand pounding awayat "elitism."And yet,Fiedler'scall to cross the borderand
close thegap betweenhighartand mass cultureas wellas his implied
politicalcritiqueofwhatlatercame to be called "eurocentrism"and
"logocentrism"can serve as an importantmarkerfor subsequent
developmentswithinpostmodernism.A new creativerelationship
betweenhighart and certainformsof mass cultureis, to my mind,
betweenhighmodernism
indeed one ofthemajormarksofdifference
whichfolloweditin the1970sand 1980sboth
and theartand literature
in Europe and the United States.And it is preciselythe recentselfassertionof minorityculturesand theiremergenceinto public consciousnesswhichhas underminedthemodernistbeliefthathighand
low culturehave to be categorically
keptapart;such rigoroussegregaculture
a givenminority
tionsimplydoes notmakemuch sensewithin
which has always existed outside in the shadow of the dominant
highculture.
In conclusion,I would say thatfroman Americanperspectivethe
am Main: Suhrkamp,1974).The old beliefinthedemocratizingpotentialofthemedia
notinrelationto
Condition,
isalso intimatedon thelastpagesofLyotard'sThePostmodern
radio, filmor television,but in relationto computers.
25. Leslie Fiedler,"The New Mutants"(1965), A FiedlerReader(New York: Stein
and Day, 1977), pp. 189-210.

24
ThePostmodern
postmodernismof the 1960s had some of themakingsof a genuine

avantgardemovement,even iftheoverallpoliticalsituationof 1960s'
Americawas in no waycomparableto thatofBerlinor Moscow in the
alliancebetweenavantearly1920swhenthetenuousand short-lived
gardismand vanguardpoliticswas forged.For a numberofhistorical
reasons the ethos of artisticavantgardismas iconoclasm,as probing
reflectionupon theontologicalstatusof artin modernsociety,as an
notyetas exhaustedin the
attemptto forgeanotherlifewas culturally
U.S. ofthe1960sas itwasinEurope atthesame time.Froma European
itall looked liketheendgameofthehistorical
perspective,therefore,
rather
like the breakthroughto new frontiersit
than
avantgarde
claimed to be. My pointhereis thatAmericanpostmodernismof the
1960s was both: an Americanavantgardeand the endgame of internationalavantgardism.And I would go on to argue thatit is indeed
importantfortheculturalhistorianto analyzesuch Ungleichzeitigkeiten
withinmodernity
and to relatethemto theveryspecificconstellations
and contextsofnationaland regionalculturesand histories.The view
- withits
thatthecultureof modernityis essentiallyinternationalist
cuttingedge movingin space and timefromParisin thelater19thand
early20th centuriesto Moscow and Berlinin the 1920s and to New
Yorkin the 1940s - is a viewtiedto a teleologyofmodernartwhose
unspokensubtextis theideologyofmodernization.It is preciselythis
teleologyand ideologyof modernizationwhichhas become increasinglyproblematicin our postmodernage, problematicnot so much
perhapsin itsdescriptivepowersrelatingto pastevents,but certainly
in itsnormativeclaims.
in the1970s and 1980s
Postmodernism
In some sense,I mightarguethatwhatI havemapped so faris really
theprehistory
ofthepostmodern.Afterall, thetermpostmodernism
wide
onlygained
currencyin the 1970s whilemuch of thelanguage
used to describetheart,architecture
and literatureof the 1960s was
stillderived - and plausibly so - from the rhetoricof avantgardism
and fromwhat I have called the ideology of modernization.The

culturaldevelopmentsofthe1970s,however,are sufficiently
different
to warranta separatedescription.One of the major differences,
inhasfadedfastinthe
deed, seemstobe thattherhetoricofavantgardism
1970s so thatone can speak perhaps only now of a genuinelypostmodern and post-avantgardeculture.Even if,with the benefitof
hindsight,futurehistoriansof culturewereto opt forsuch a usage of
theterm,I would stillarguethattheadversaryand criticalelementin
thenotionofpostmodernismcan onlybe fullygraspedifone takesthe
late 1950s as thestarting
pointofa mappingofthepostmodern.Ifwe

Andreas
Huyssen25
were to focusonlyon the 1970s, the adversarymomentof the postmodernwould be much harderto workout preciselybecause of the
shiftwithinthetrajectory
thatliessomewhereinthe
ofpostmodernism
faultlines between"the '60s" and "the '70s."
By themid-1970s,certainbasic assumptionsof theprecedingdecThe sense ofa "futurist
ade had eithervanishedor been transformed.
was
iconoclastic
revolt"(Fiedler)
gone. The
gesturesof thepop, rock
comand sex avantgardesseemed exhaustedsince theirincreasingly
status.
mercializedcirculationhad deprivedthemoftheiravantgardist
The earlieroptimismabout technology,media and popular culture
had givenway to more sober and criticalassessments:televisionas
pollution ratherthan panacea. In the years of Watergateand the
drawn-outagonyoftheVietnamwar,oftheoil-shockand thedirepreto maintainthe
dictionsof the Club of Rome, itwas indeed difficult
New Left
confidenceand exuberanceof the 1960s. Counter-culture,
and anti-warmovementwere ever more frequentlydenounced as
infantileaberrationsof Americanhistory.It was easy to see thatthe
1960s were over. But it is more difficultto describe the emerging
culturalscene whichseemed much more amorphous and scattered
than thatof the 1960s. One mightbegin by sayingthatthe battle
againstthenormativepressuresofhighmodernismwaged duringthe
1960shad been successful- too successful,some would argue.While
the1960scould stillbe discussedintermsofa logicalsequence ofstyles
(Pop, Op, Kinetic,Minimal,Concept)or inequallymodernisttermsof
lost
haveincreasingly
artversusanti-artand non-art,such distinctions
ground in the 1970s.
The situationin the 1970s seems to be characterizedratherby an
everwiderdispersaland disseminationofartisticpracticesall working
out oftheruinsofthemodernistedifice,raidingitforideas, plunderingitsvocabularyand supplementingitwithrandomlychosenimages
and motifsfrompre-modernand non-modernculturesas wellas from
contemporarymass culture.Moderniststyleshave actuallynot been
observed,continue"to enjoya
abolished,but,as one artcriticrecently
record
in mass culture,"26forinstancein advertising,
kindofhalf-life
and household items,sciencefictionillustracoverdesign,furniture
tion,windowdisplays,etc.Yetanotherwayofputtingitwouldbe tosay
thatall modernistand avantgardist
techniques,formsand imagesare
nowstoredforinstantrecallinthecomputerizedmemorybanksofour
artas
culture.But the same memoryalso storesall of pre-modernist
well as the genres,codes and image worldsof popular culturesand
modern mass culture.How preciselythese enormouslyexpanded
26.
Edward Lucie-Smith,Artin theSeventies

(Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress,
1980),p. 11.

26
ThePostmodern
capacitiesforinformation
storage,processingand recallhaveaffected
artistsand theirworkremainsto be analyzed. But one thingseems
clear:thegreatdividethatseparatedhighmodernismfrommass cultureand thatwas codifiedin thevariousclassicalaccountsofmodernism no longerseems relevantto postmodernartisticor criticalsensibilities.
Since thecategoricaldemand fortheuncompromisingsegregation
ofhighand low has lostmuch ofitspersuasivepower,we maybe in a
betterpositionnowtounderstandthepoliticalpressuresand historical
contingencieswhichshaped such accountsin thefirstplace. I would
suggestthattheprimaryplace ofwhatI am callingthegreatdividewas
theage ofStalinand Hitlerwhenthethreatoftotalitarian
controlover
all cultureforgeda varietyofdefensivestrategies
meanttoprotecthigh
culturein general,not just modernism.Thus conservativeculture
criticssuch as Ortegay Gassetargued thathighcultureneeded to be
protectedfromthe "revoltof the masses." Leftcriticslike Adorno
insistedthatgenuineartresistitsincorporationintothecapitalistcultureindustrywhichhe definedas the totaladministration
of culture
fromabove. And even Lukics, the leftcriticof modernismpar excellence,developed his theoryof high bourgeois realismnot in unison
withbut in antagonismto the Zhdanovistdogma of socialistrealism
and itsdeadlypracticeof censorship.
It is surelyno coincidencethattheWesterncodificationofmodernism as canon of the 20th centurytook place duringthe 1940s and
1950s,precedingand duringtheCold War.I am notreducingthegreat
modernistworks,by wayof a simple ideologycritiqueof theirfuncoftheCold War.WhatI am sugtion,toa ployin theculturalstrategies
gesting,however,is thatthe age of Hitler,Stalinand the Cold War
produced specificaccountsof modernism,such as thoseof Clement
Greenbergand Adorno,27whoseaestheticcategoriescannotbe totally
divorcedfromthepressuresofthatera.And itis in thissense,I would
argue, that the logic of modernismadvocated by those criticshas
27. Foralucid discussionofGreenberg'stheoryofmodernartinitshistoricalcontextsee T.J.Clark,"ClementGreenberg'sTheoryofArt,"Critical
9:1 (SeptemInquiry,
ber 1982), 139-156. For a different
viewof Greenbergsee IngeborgHoesterey,"Die
Moderne am Ende? Zu den iisthetischen
PositionenvonJiirgenHabermas und ClementGreenberg,"ZeitschriJift
undallgemeine
29:2 (1984). On
firAsthetik
Kunstwissenschaft,
Adorno's theoryof modernismsee Eugene Lunn, Marxismand Modernism
(Berkeley
and Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1982); Peter Biurger,Vermittlung
- Rezeption
- Funktion
am Main: Suhrkamp,1979), esp. pp. 79-92; Burk(Frankfurt
hardtLindnerand W. MartinLiidke,eds.,Materialien
zuriisthetischen
Theorie:
Th.W.AdornosKonstruktion
derModerne
am Main: Suhrkamp,1980). Cf. also myessay
(Frankfurt
"Adornoin Reverse:FromHollywoodtoRichardWagner,"NGC,29 (Spring-Summer
1983), 8-38.

AndreasHuyssen 27
become an aestheticdead end to theextentthatithas been upheld as
artisticproductionand criticalevaluation.
rigidguidelineforfurther
As againstsuch dogma, the postmodernhas indeed opened up new
between"bad" sodirectionsand new visions.As the confrontation
cialistrealismand the "good" artof the freeworld began to lose its
thewhole relationshipbeideologicalmomentumin an age ofdgtente,
tweenmodernismand mass cultureas wellas theproblemofrealism
could be reassessedin less reifiedterms.While the issue was already
raisedin the 1960s,e.g., in pop artand variousformsofdocumentary
drewon popitwasonlyinthe1970sthatartistsincreasingly
literature,
ularor mass culturalformsand genres,overlayingthemwithmodernA major body ofworkrepresenting
istand/oravantgardist
strategies.
thistendencyis theNew GermanCinema,and hereespeciallythefilms
of RainerWernerFassbinder,whose success in theUnitedStatescan
be explainedpreciselyin thoseterms.It is also no coincidencethatthe
ofmass culturewas now recognizedand analyzed by critics
diversity
who increasingly
began to workthemselvesout fromunderthemodernistdogma thatall mass cultureis monolithicKitsch,psychologicalThe possibilitiesforexperimental
lyregressiveand mind-destroying.
meshingand mixingofmass cultureand modernismseemed promisingand produced some ofthemostsuccessfuland ambitiousartand
literatureof the 1970s. Needless to say, it also produced aesthetic
failuresand fiascos,but thenmodernismitselfdid not onlyproduce
masterworks.
ofwomen
filmmakingand criticism
Itwas especiallytheart,writing,
and minorityartistswiththeirrecuperationof buried and mutilated
traditions,theiremphasis on exploringformsof gender-and racein aestheticproductionsand experiences,and their
based subjectivity
refusalto be limitedto standardcanonizations,whichadded a whole
new dimensionto the critiqueof highmodernismand to the emerformsofculture.Thus,we havecome to see modgenceofalternative
ernism'simaginaryrelationshipto Africanand Orientalartas deeply
problematic,and will approach, say,contemporaryLatinAmerican
writersotherthanby praisingthemforbeinggood modernists,who,
has shedsome
learnedtheircraftinParis.Women'scriticism
naturally,
new lighton the modernistcanon itselffroma varietyof different
feministperspectives.Withoutsuccumbingto the kind of feminine
essentialismwhichis one of the more problematicsides of the feministenterprise,itjust seems obvious thatwere it not forthe critical
and obsessionsof
themale determinations
gaze offeministcriticism,
Neue SachlichItalian futurism,
Vorticism,Russian constructivism,
keitor surrealismwould probablystillbe blockedfromour view;and
the writingsof Marie Luise Fleisserand Ingeborg Bachmann, the

28
ThePostmodern
paintingsof Frida Kahlo would stillbe knownonly to a handfulof

in multiple
specialists.Of coursesuchnewinsightscan be interpreted
ways,and the debate about genderand sexuality,male and female
in literatureand the artsis far
authorshipand reader/spectatorship
fromover, its implicationsfora new image of modernismnot yet
fullyelaborated.
In lightofthesedevelopmentsitis somewhatbaffling
thatfeminist
criticismhas so farlargelystayedawayfromthe postmodernismdebatewhichis considerednotto be pertinent
tofeminist
concerns.The
factthat to date only male criticshave addressed the problem of
however,does not mean thatit does not
modernity/postmodernity,
concernwomen.I would argue- and hereI am infullagreementwith
Craig Owens2s- thatwomen's art,literatureand criticismare an
importantpartofthepostmoderncultureofthe 1970sand 1980sand
indeeda measureofthevitality
and energyofthatculture.Actually,the
in
is
order
the
turnofthesepastyearshas
that
conservative
suspicion
indeed somethingto do withthesociologicallysignificant
emergence
ofvariousformsof"otherness"in theculturalsphere,all ofwhichare
and sanctity
ofcanonand tradition.
perceivedas a threattothestability
Currentattemptstorestorea 1950sversionofhighmodernismforthe
1980scertainly
pointin thatdirection.And itis in thiscontextthatthe
becomespolitically
centraltothedebate
questionofneo-conservatism
about the postmodern.
Habermasand theQuestion
ofNeo-Conservatism
Both in Europe and theU.S., thewaningof the 1960s was accomand soon enoughthereemerged
paniedbytheriseofneo-conservatism,
a new constellationcharacterizedby the termspostmodernismand
neo-conservatism.Even though theirrelationshipwas never fully
elaborated,the Lefttook themto be compatiblewitheach otheror
evenidentical,arguingthatpostmodernism
wasthekindofaffirmative
artthatcould happilycoexistwithpoliticaland culturalneo-conservatism.Untilveryrecently,
thequestionofthepostmodernwas simply
nottakenseriouslyon theLeft,29
in
notto speakofthosetraditionalists
theacademyor themuseum forwhom thereis stillnothingnewand
worthwhileunderthesun sincetheadventof modernism.The Left's
ridiculingofpostmodernismwas ofa piece withitsoftenhaughtyand
dogmaticcritiqueofthecounter-cultural
impulsesofthe 1960s. Dur28. See Craig Owens, "The Discourse of Others,"in Hal Foster,ed., TheAntiAesthetic,
pp. 65-90.
29. It is withtherecentpublicationsby FredJamesonand Hal Foster'sTheAntiAesthetic
thatthingshave begun to change.

AndreasHuyssen 29
ofthe1960swas as much
ingmuchofthe1970s,afterall,thethrashing
a pastimeof the Leftas itwas thegospel accordingto Daniel Bell.
Now, thereis no doubt thatmuch ofwhatwentunder thelabel of
not critical,in
postmodernismin the 1970s is indeed affirmative,
nature,and often,especiallyin literature,
remarkablysimilarto tendenciesofmodernismwhichitso vocallyrepudiates.Butnotall ofitis
and thewholesalewritingoffofpostmodernism
as
simplyaffirmative,
a symptomofcapitalistculturein declineis reductive,unhistorical
and
ofLukics' attackson modernismin the1930s. Can
all too reminiscent
one reallymake such clear-cutdistinctions
as to uphold modernism,
today,as theonlyvalidformof20th-century
"realism,"soan artthatis
adequate tothecondition
whilesimultaneously
reserving
all the
moderne,
old epitheta- inferior,
decadent,pathological- topostmodernism?
And isn'titironicthatmanyofthesame criticswho willinsiston this
distinctionare thefirstones to declare emphaticallythatmodernism
already had it all and thatthereis reallynothingnew in postmodernism...
I would insteadarguethatin ordernotto become theLukics ofthe
postmodernby opposing, today,a "good" modernismto a "bad"
postmodernism,we tryto salvagethe postmodernfromitsassumed
whereverpossible; and thatwe
totalcollusionwithneo-conservatism
the
whether
postmodernismmightnot harborproexplore
question
ductivecontradictions,
perhapsevena criticaland oppositionalpotential. If the postmodernis indeed a historicaland culturalcondition
(howevertransitionalor incipient),then oppositionalculturalpracmustbe locatedwithin
postmodernism,notnecesticesand strategies
sarilyin itsgleamingfagades,to be sure,but neitherin some outside
'aesthetic'art.Justas
ghettoofa properly'progressive'or a correctly
as bringingboth
Marx analyzedthecultureofmodernitydialectically
thecultureofpostmodernity,
too,mustbe
progressand destruction,3'
graspedin itsgainsas wellas in itslosses,in itspromisesas wellas in its
and yet,itmaybe precisely
one ofthecharcteristics
ofthe
depravations;
of
postmodernthattherelationshipbetweenprogressand destruction
culturalforms,betweentraditionand modernitycan no longer be
30. Ofcourse,thosewho hold thisviewwillnotuttertheword"realism"as itistarnishedbyitstraditionally
closeassociationwiththenotionsof"reflection,"
"representation,"and a transparent
reality;but thepersuasivepowerofthemodernistdoctrine
owes muchto theunderlying
idea thatonlymodernistartand literature
are somehow
adequate to our time.
31. Fora workthatremainsverymuch in theorbitofMarx'snotionofmodernity
and tiedtothepoliticaland culturalimpulsesoftheAmerican1960ssee MarshallBerman,All ThatIs SolidMeltsIntoAir:theExperience
ofModernity
(New York:Simon and
Schuster,1982). For a critiqueof Berman see David Bathrick'sreviewessay in this
issue.

30
ThePostmodemrn
understoodtodaythe same way Marx understoodit at the dawn of

modernistculture.
Itwas,ofcourse,Jiirgen
Habermas' intervention
which,forthefirst
time,raised the question of postmodernism'srelationshipto neoconservatism
in a theoretically
and historically
complexway.Ironicalthe
ly,however, effectof Habermas' argument,whichidentifiedthe
was to reinforce
leftpostmodernwithvariousformsofconservatism,
istculturalstereotypes
ratherthanchallengethem.In his 1980Adornoprize lecture,32which has become a focal point for the debate,
Habermas criticizedboth conservatism(old, neo and young) and
postmodernismfornot comingto termseitherwiththeexigenciesof
culturein latecapitalismorwiththesuccessesand failuresofmodernism itself.Significantly,
Habermas' notionofmodernity- themodernityhe wishes to see continued and completed - is purged of
modernism'snihilisticand anarchicstrainjustas hisopponents',e.g.,
Lyotard's,ssnotionofan aesthetic(post)modernismis determinedto
liquidate any traceof the enlightenedmodernityinheritedfromthe
18thcenturywhichprovidesthebasis forHabermas' notionofmodern culture.Rather than rehearsingthe theoreticaldifferencesbetweenHabermas and Lyotardone more time- a taskwhichMartin
Jayhas performedadmirablyin a recentarticleon "Habermas and
- I wantto pointto theGermancontextofHabermas'
Modernism"34
reflections
whichis too readilyforgotten
in Americandebates,since
Habermas himselfrefersto it onlymarginally.
Habermas' attackon postmodernconservatismstookplace on the
heels of thepoliticalTendenzwende
of themid-1970s,theconservative
backlashwhichhas affected
severalWesterncountries.He could citean
withouteven havingto belaanalysisofAmericanneo-conservatism
bor the point thatthe neo-conservativestrategiesto regaincultural
hegemonyand to wipe out the effectof the 1960s in politicaland
culturallifeareverysimilarin theFRG. Butthenationalcontingencies
ofHabermas' argumentare at leastas important.He waswriting
at the
tail end of a major thrustof modernizationof Germanculturaland
politicallifewhich seemed to have gone awrysometimeduringthe
1970s,producinghighlevelsofdisillusionment
bothwiththeutopian
hopes and the pragmaticpromisesof 1968/69.Againstthe growing
32. JiirgenHabermas, "Modernityversus Postmodernity,"NGC, 22 (Winter
1981), 3-14. (Reprintedin Foster,ed., TheAnti-Aesthetic.)
Lyotard,"AnsweringtheQuestion:WhatIs Postmodernism?,"
33. Jean-Frangois
in ThePostmodern
Conditon
ofMinnesotaPress,1984),pp. 71(Minneapolis:University
82.
34. MartinJay,
"Habermas and Modernism,"PraxisInternational,
4:1 (April1984),
1-14. Cf. in thesame issue RichardRorty,"Habermas and Lyotardon Postmodernity,"32-44.

AndreasHuyssen 31
cynicism,which has since thenbeen brilliantlydiagnosed and criticized in Peter Sloterdijk'sKritikderzynischen
as a formof
Vernunfi
"enlightenedfalse consciousness,"35Habermas triesto salvage the
emancipatorypotentialofenlightenedreasonwhichto him is thesine
qua nonof politicaldemocracy.Habermas defendsa substantivenotion of communicativerationality,'
especiallyagainstthose who will
with
reason
domination,
collapse
believingthatbyabandoningreason
from
domination.
free
themselves
Of course Habermas' whole
they
of
a
social
around a defenseofenlightcritical
revolves
theory
project
ened modernity,
whichisnotidenticalwiththeaestheticmodernismof
criticsand arthistorians.It is directedsimultaneouslyagainst
literary
politicalconservatism(neo or old) and againstwhathe perceives,not
of a post-Nietzschean
unlike Adorno, as the culturalirrationality
aestheticismembodied in surrealismand subsequentlyin much of
in GercontemporaryFrenchtheory.The defenseof enlightenment
many is and remainsan attemptto fend offthe reactionfromthe
Right.
During the 1970s, Habermas could observehow Germanartand
ofthe 1960s,
literature
abandoned theexplicitpoliticalcommitments
a decade oftendescribedin Germanyas a "second enlightenment";
how autobiographyand Erfahrungstexte
replaced the documentary
experimentsin prose and dramaoftheprecedingdecade; howpolitia newromanticism,
cal poetryand artmade wayfora newsubjectivity,
how a newgenerationof studentsand youngintela new mythology;
lectualsbecame increasingly
wearyof theory,leftpoliticsand social
to
flock
towardtherevelationsofethnology
instead
science,preferring
and myth.Even thoughHabermas does notaddresstheartand litera- withtheexceptionofthelateworkofPeter
tureofthe1970s directly
Weiss,whichis itselfan exception- itseemsnottoo much to assume
inlightofthepoliticalTendenzwende.
thisculturalshift
thathe interpreted
is
and
Derridaas youngconservatives
his
of
Foucault
Perhaps labelling
as much a response to Germanculturaldevelopmentsas it is to the
Frenchtheoriststhemselves.Such a speculationmaydrawplausibility
fromthefactthatsince thelate 1970s certainformsof Frenchtheory
havebeen quite influential,
especiallyin thesubculturesofBerlinand
Frankfurt,
among those of the youngergenerationwho have turned
awayfromcriticaltheorymade in Germany.
35. PeterSloterdijk,Kritik
derzynischen
The firsttwo chaptersof SloterVernunfl.
dijk'sessayappear in Englishin thisissue.Sloterdijkhimselftriesto salvagetheemanfromHabermas', ways
different
cipatorypotentialof reason in waysfundamentally
which could indeed be called postmodern.For a brief,but incisivediscussion in
English of Sloterdijk'sworksee Leslie A. Adelson, "Againstthe Enlightenment:A
57:4 (Fall 1984), 625-631.
TheorywithTeeth forthe 1980s," GermanQuarterly,

32
ThePostmodem
Itwould be onlya smallstep,then,forHabermasto concludethata

artindeed fitsin all too smoothlywith
post-modern,post-avantgarde
and is predicatedon abandoningthe
variousformsof conservatism,
Buttome,thereremainsthequesemancipatory
projectofmodernity.
tionofwhethertheseaspectsofthe1970s - despitetheiroccasionally
narcissismand falseimmediacy- do
highlevelsof self-indulgence,
notalso representa deepeningand a constructive
displacementofthe
emancipatoryimpulsesof the 1960s. But one does not have to share
Habermas' positionson modernity
and modernismto see thathe did
indeed raisethemostimportantissuesat stakein a formthatavoided
the usual apologies and facilepolemics about modernityand postmodernity.
relatetomodHis questionswerethese:How does postmodernism
culturaleclecticismor pluralernism?How arepoliticalconservatism,
in contemand anti-modernity
interrelated
ism,tradition,
modernity
the
Western
culture?
To
extent
can
cultural
and
what
socialforporary
mationofthe1970sbe characterizedas postmodern?And,further,
to
whatextentis postmodernisma revoltagainstreasonand enlighten- a quesment,and atwhatpointdo suchrevoltsbecome reactionary
tion heavilyloaded with the weightof recentGerman history?In
comparison,thestandardAmericanaccountsofpostmodernismtoo
oftenremainentirely
tiedto questionsofaestheticstyleor poetics;the
occasional nod towardtheoriesof a postindustrialsocietyis usually
intended as a reminderthat any formof Marxistor neo-Marxist
thoughtis simplyobsolete. In theAmericandebate,threepositions
outlined.Postmodernismis dismissedoutright
can be schematically
as a fraudand modernismheld up as theuniversaltruth,a viewwhich
reflectsthe thinkingof the 1950s. Or modernismis condemned as
elitistand postmodernism
the
praisedas populist,aviewwhichreflects
ofthe1960s.Or thereis thetruly1970spropositionthat"anythinking
thinggoes," whichis consumercapitalism'scynicalversionof"nothingworks,"butwhichatleastrecognizesthattheolderdichotomiesno
longerwork.Needless to say,none ofthesepositionseverreachedthe
level of Habermas' interrogation.
However, therewere problems not so much withthe questions
Habermas raised,as withsome oftheanswershe suggested.Thus his
attackon Foucaultand Derridaas youngconservatives
drewimmediatefirefrompoststructuralist
where
the
quarters,
reproachwas turned
around and Habermas himselfwas labelled a conservative.At this
point,the debate was quicklyreduced to thesillyquestion:"Mirror,
ofus all?" And yet,the
mirroron thewall,who is theleastconservative
battlebetween"Frankfurters
and Frenchfries,"as RainerNaigeleonce
referred
toit,is instructive
twofundamentally
difbecause ithighlights

AndreasHuyssen 33
ferentvisionsof modernity.The Frenchvision of modernitybegins
withNietzscheand Mallarm6and is thusquite close to whatliterary
criticism
describesas modernism.Modernity
fortheFrenchis primarily
- thoughbyno meansexclusively- an aestheticquestionrelatingto
the energiesreleased by the deliberatedestructionof language and
otherformsof representation.For Habermas, on the other hand,
modernitygoes back to the best traditionsof the Enlightenment,
whichhe triesto salvageand to reinscribeintothepresentphilosophical discourseina newform.In this,Habermasdiffers
radicallyfroman
earliergenerationofFrankfurt
School critics,
Adornoand Horkheimer
who, in TheDialecticofEnlightenment,
developed a view of modernity
whichseems to be much closerin sensibility
to currentFrenchtheory
thantoHabermas. ButeventhoughAdornoand Horkheimer'sassessmentoftheenlightenment
was so muchmorepessimisticthanHabermas',36 theyalso held on to a substantivenotionof reason and subwhichmuchofFrenchtheoryhas abandoned. It seemsthatin
jectivity
thecontextoftheFrenchdiscourse,enlightenment
is simplyidentified
witha history
ofterror
and incarceration
thatreachesfromtheJacobins
via the
ofHegel and Marxto theSovietGulag.I thinkHabermas ismitarecits
rightin rejectingthatview as too limitedand as politically
dangerous.Auschwitz,afterall, did notresultfromtoo much enlightened reason- eventhoughitwas organizedas a perfectly
rationalized
death factory- but froma violent anti-enlightenment
and antimodernityaffect,which exploited modernityruthlesslyforits own
purposes.At thesame time,Habermas' turnagainsttheFrenchpostNietzscheanvisionofmoderniti
as simplyanti-modernor, as itwere,
postmodern,itselfimplies too limitedan account of modernity,at
leastas faras aestheticmodernityis concerned.
In the uproar over Habermas' attackon the French poststructheAmericanand European neo-conservatives
wereall but
turalists,
forgotten,but I thinkwe should at least take cognizance of what
culturalneo-conservatives
actuallysay about postmodernism.The
answerisfairly
simpleand straightforward:
theyrejectitand theythink
itis dangerous.Two examples:Daniel Bell,whosebook on thepostindustrialsocietyhas been quoted timeand again as supportingsociologicalevidencebyadvocatesofpostmodernism,
actuallyrejectspostmodernismas a dangerouspopularizationofthemodernistaesthetic.
Bell'smodernismonlyaimsat aestheticpleasure,immediategratificationand intensity
ofexperience,all ofwhich,to him,promotehedonism and anarchy.It is easy to see how such a jaundiced view of
36. Cf.JiirgenHabermas, "The Entwinementof Mythand Enlightenment'
ReNGC,26 (Spring-Summer1982), 13-30.
readingDialectic
ofEnlightenment,"

34
ThePostmodern
modernismis quite underthespellofthose"terrible"1960s and cannotat all be reconciledwiththeausterehighmodernismofa Kafka,a

Sch6nbergor a T.S. Eliot.At anyrate,Bell sees modernismas somethinglikean earliersociety'schemicalwastedepositswhich,duringthe
1960s,began to spillover,notunlikeLove Canal, intothemainstream
ofculture,pollutingittothecore.Ultimately,
BellarguesinTheCultural
Contradictions
modernismand postmodernismtogether
ofCapitalism,
are responsibleforthe crisisof contemporarycapitalism.37
Bell - a
postmodernist?Certainlynot in the aestheticsense,forBell actually
shares Habermas' rejectionof the nihilisticand aestheticisttrend
withinmodernist/postmodernist
culture.But Habermas may have
been rightin thebroaderpoliticalsense. ForBell'scritiqueofcontemporarycapitalistcultureis energizedby a visionofa societyin which
thevalues and normsofeverydaylifewould no longerbe infectedby
aestheticmodernism,a societywhich,withinBell's framework,
one
mighthave to call post-modern.But any such reflectionon neoconservatismas a formof anti-liberal,anti-progressive
postmodernoftheterm
ityremainsbeside thepoint.Giventheaestheticforce-field
no
neo-conservative
would
dream
of
postmodernism,
today
identifying the neo-conservative
projectas postmodern.
On thecontrary,
culturalneo-conservatives
oftenappear as thelastditchdefendersand championsofmodernism.Thus in theeditorialto
thefirst
issueofTheNewCriterion
and inan accompanyingessayentitled
"Postmodern:Artand Culturein the 1980s,"3s HiltonKramerrejects
thepostmodernand countersitwitha nostalgiccall fortherestoration
of moderniststandardsof quality. Differencesbetween Bell's and
Kramer'saccountsof modernismnotwithstanding,
theirassessment
of postmodernismis identical.In the cultureof the 1970s, theywill
onlysee loss ofquality,dissolutionoftheimagination,declineofstandardsand values,and thetriumphofnihilism.Buttheiragenda is not
arthistory.Theiragenda is political.Bell arguesthatpostmodernism
"underminesthesocial structureitselfby striking
at themotivational
and psychic-reward
systemwhichhas sustainedit.""9Kramerattacks
thepoliticizationof culturewhich,in his view,the 1970s have inherited fromthe 1960s, that"insidious assault on the mind." And like
Rudi Fuchsand the1982 Documenta,he goes on toshoveartbackinto
37. Of course thereis anotherline of argumentin the book whichdoeslinkthe
crisisofcapitalistculturetoeconomicdevelopments.ButI thinkthatas a renderingof
Bell's polemical stancetheabove descriptionis valid.
38. The Editors,"A Note on TheNewCriterion,"
TheNewCriterion,
1:1 (September
1982), 1-5. Hilton Kramer,"Postmodern:Artand Culture in the 1980s," ibid.,3642.
39. Bell, TheCulturalContradictions
ofCapitalism,
p. 54.

AndreasHuyssen 35
the closetof autonomyand highseriousnesswhereit is supposed to
uphold thenewcriterionoftruth.HiltonKramer- a postmodernist?
No, Habermas was simplywrong,itseems,in his linkageofthepostBut again thesituationis more commodernwithneo-conservatism.
meanscritique,enlightplex thanitseems. ForHabermas,modernity
enmentand humanemancipation,and he is notwillingtojettisonthis
politicalimpulsebecause doing so would terminateleftpoliticsonce
and forall. Contraryto Habermas, the neo-conservativeresortsto
an establishedtraditionof standardsand values whichare immune
to criticismand change. To Habermas, even Hilton Kramer'sneoconservativedefenseofa modernismdeprivedofitsadversarycutting
edge would have to appear as post-modern,post-modernin thesense
The questioninall ofthisisabsolutelynotwhetherthe
ofanti-modern.
of
modernism
are or are not greatworksof art. Only a fool
classics
could denythattheyare. Buta problemdoes surfacewhentheirgreatness is used as unsurpassablemodel and appealed to in orderto stifle
contemporaryartisticproduction.Wherethathappens,modernism
a figureof
itselfis pressedintotheserviceofanti-modernresentment,
et
desanciens
discoursewhichhas a long historyin themultiplequerelles
desmodernes.
The only place where Habermas could rest assured of neoconservativeapplause is in his attackon Foucault and Derrida. Any
suchapplause, however,would carrytheprovisothatneitherFoucault
And yet,Habermas was
norDerridabe associatedwithconservatism.
right,in a sense, to connect the postmodernismproblematicwith
Roughlysince the late 1970s, debates about aespoststructuralism.
criticismhave intersected
theticpostmodernismand poststructuralist
to both postof neo-conservatives
in the U.S. The relentlesshostility
structuralism
and postmodernismmay not prove the point,but it is
certainlysuggestive.Thus theFebruary1984 issue ofTheNewCriterion
containsa reportby Hilton Krameron the Modern Language Association'scentennialconventionlast December in New York,and the
reportis polemicallyentitled"The MLA Centennial Follies." The
and
major targetofthepolemic is preciselyFrenchpoststructuralism
itsAmericanappropriation.But thepointis notthequalityor thelack
at theconvention.Again,therealissue
thereofin certainpresentations
feminist
Marxistcriticism,
is a politicalone. Deconstruction,
criticism,
all lumped togetheras undesirablealiens,are said to have subverted
Americanintellectuallifevia theacademy.Reading.Kramer,theculturalapocalypseseemsnear,and therewould be no reasonforsurprise
ifTheNew Criterion
were soon to call foran importquota on foreign
theory.
for
What,then,can one concludefromtheseideologicalskirmishes

36
ThePostmodern
a mappingof postmodernismin the 1970s and 1980s? First,Habermas wasbothrightand wrongabout thecollusionofconservatism
and
postmodernism,
dependingon whethertheissueistheneo-conservative
politicalvisionofa post-modernsocietyfreedfromall aesthetic,i.e.,
hedonistic,modernistand postmodernist
subversions,orwhetherthe
issue is aestheticpostmodernism.Secondly,Habermas and the neoconservatives
are rightin insistingthatpostmodernismis notso much
a questionofstyleas itis a questionofpoliticsand cultureat large.The
neo-conservative
lamentabout thepoliticizationof culturesince the
1960s is onlyironicin thiscontextsincetheythemselveshave a thorare
oughlypoliticalnotionof culture.Thirdly,theneo-conservatives
also rightin suggesting
thatthereare continuities
betweentheoppositionalcultureofthe1960sand thatofthe1970s.Buttheirobsessivefixation on the 1960s, whichtheytryto purgefromthe historybooks,
blindsthemtowhatis different
and newin theculturaldevelopments
ofthe1970s.And,fourthly,
theattackon poststructuralism
byHabermas and theAmericanneo-conservatives
raisesthequestionofwhatto
make of thatfascinatinginterweaving
and intersecting
of poststructuralismwithpostmodernism,
a phenomenonthatis muchmorerelevantin theU.S. thanin France.It is tothisquestionthatI willnowturn
in mydiscussionofthecriticaldiscourseofAmericanpostmodernism
in the 1970s and 1980s.
orPostmodern?
Poststructuralism:
Modemrn
The neo-conservative
towardboth is not reallyenough to
hostility
establisha substantivelinkbetweenpostmodernismand poststructo establishsuch a link
turalism;and itmayindeed be more difficult
thanitwould seem at first.Certainly,
sincethelate1970swe haveseen
a consensusemergein theU.S. thatifpostmodernismrepresentsthe
mustbe its
contemporary
"avantgarde"in thearts,poststructuralism
in
"critical
Such
a
is
itself
favored
equivalent
parallelization
theory."40
theories
and
of
and
which
blur
by
practices textuality intertextuality
theboundariesbetweentheliterary
and thecriticaltext,and thusitis
notsurprising
thatthenamesoftheFrenchmai'trespenseurs
ofour time
occur withstriking
in the discourseon the postmodern.41
regularity
40. I followthecurrentusage in whichtheterm"criticaltheory"refersto a multitudeof recenttheoreticaland interdisciplinary
endeavorsin thehumanities.Originally,CriticalTheorywas a much more focused termthatreferredto the theory
developedbytheFrankfurt
School sincethe1930s.Today,however,thecriticaltheory
oftheFrankfurt
School is itselfonlya partofan expanded fieldofcriticaltheories,and
thismay ultimatelybenefititsreinscription
in contemporary
criticaldiscourse.
41. The same is not alwaystruethe otherway round,however.Thus American
practitioners
ofdeconstruction
usuallyarenotveryeagertoaddresstheproblemofthe

AndreasHuyssen 37
On a superficiallevel, the parallels seem indeed obvious. Just as
postmodernartand literaturehave takentheplace ofan earliermodernismas themajor trendofour times,poststructuralist
criticismhas
decisivelypassed beyondthetenetsofitsmajor predecessor,theNew
Criticism.Andjust as theNew Criticschampionedmodernism,so the
- as one of the mostvitalforcesof the
storygoes, poststructuralism
intellectual
lifeofthe1970s- mustsomehowbe alliedwiththeartand
literatureof itsown time,i.e., withpostmodernism.42
Actually,such
if
which
is
not
made
thinking,
always
explicit,givesus a
quiteprevalent
firstindicationof how American postmodernismstilllives in the
shadowofthemoderns.Forthereis no theoreticalor historicalreason
oftheNew Criticismwithhighmodernism
to elevatethesynchronism
of criticaland artisticdisinto norm or dogma. Mere simultaneity
course formationsdoes notper se mean thattheyhave to overlap,
disunless,ofcourse,theboundariesbetweenthemare intentionally
literature
as well
mantled,as theyare in modernistand postmodernist
discourse.
as in poststructuralist
in
And yet,howevermuch postmodernismand poststructuralism
the U.S. may overlap and mesh, theyare farfromidenticalor even
homologous. I do not question thatthe theoreticaldiscourseof the
1970s has had a profoundimpacton theworkofa considerablenumber of artistsboth in Europe and in the U.S. What I do question,
however,is thewayin whichthisimpactis automaticallyevaluatedin
theU.S. as postmodernand thussuckedintotheorbitof thekindof
criticaldiscoursethatemphasizes radicalruptureand discontinuity.
is much
Actually,both in France and in the U.S. poststructuralism
closer to modernismthan is usually assumed by the advocates of
postmodernism.The distancethatdoes existbetweenthecriticaldiscourses of the New Criticismand poststructuralism
(a constellation
whichis onlypertinentin theU.S., notin France)is notidenticalwith
thedifferences
betweenmodernismand postmodernism.I willargue
is primarilya discourseof and about modernthatpoststructuralism
suchas practicedbythelatePaul de
postmodern.Actually,Americandeconstruction,
Man, seems altogetherunwillingto granta distinctionbetweenthemodernand the
as in
postmodernat all. Wherede Man addressestheproblemofmodernitydirectly,
hisseminalessay"LiteraryHistoryand Literary
andInsight,
he
Modernity"inBlindness
and insightsofmodernismbackintothepastso thatultimately
projectscharacteristics
all literaturebecomes, in a sense,essentiallymodernist.
42. A cautionarynotemaybe inorderhere.The termpoststructuralism
is bynow
about as amorphous as 'postmodernism,'and it encompassesa varietyof quite differenttheoreticalendeavors. For the purposes of my discussion,however,the differencescan be bracketedtemporarily
in order to approach certainsimilaritiesbeween different
poststructuralist
projects.

38
ThePostmodern
ism,43and thatifwe are to locatethepostmodernin poststructuralism

itwillhave to be foundin thewaysvariousformsofpoststructuralism
haveopened up newproblematicsinmodernismand havereinscribed
modernisminto thediscourseformationsof our own time.
Let me elaboratemyviewthatpoststructuralism
can be perceived,
to a significant
degree,as a theoryof modernism.I willlimitmyself
here to certain points that relate back to my discussion of the
constellationin the1960s and 1970s:the
modernism/postmodernism
and gender.
questionsof aestheticismand mass culture,subjectivity
Ifitis truethatpostmodernity
is a historicalconditionmakingitsuffrommodernity,
thenitis striking
to see
ficiently
unique and different
how deeplythe poststructuralist
criticaldiscourse- in itsobsession
with&criture
and writing,
and in itsdisplacement
allegoryand rhetoric,
of revolutionand politicsto theaesthetic- is embedded in thatvery
modernisttraditionwhich,at least in Americaneyes,it presumably
transcends.Whatwe findtimeand again is thatAmericanpoststructuralistwritersand criticsemphaticallyprivilegeaestheticinnovation
and experiment;thattheycall forself-reflexiveness,
not,to be sure,of
theauthor-subject,
butofthetext;thattheypurgelife,reality,
history,
societyfromthe workof artand its reception,and constructa new
a new artforart's
autonomy,based on a pristinenotionof textuality,
sakewhichis presumablytheonlykindpossibleafterthefailureofall
and any commitment.The insightthatthe subject is constitutedin
languageand thenotionthatthereis nothingoutsidethetexthaveled to
the privilegingof the aestheticand the linguisticwhichaestheticism
has alwayspromotedtojustify
itsimperialclaims.The listof'no longer
possibles'(realism,representation,
etc.,etc.)is as
subjectivity,
history,
as itused to be in modernism,and itis very
long in poststructuralism
similarindeed.
Much recentwritinghas challengedtheAmericandomesticationof
Frenchpoststructuralism.44But it is not enough to claim thatin the
transfer
totheU.S. Frenchtheorylostthepoliticaledge ithas inFrance.
The factis thateven in France the politicalimplicationsof certain
formsof poststructuralism
are hotlydebated and in doubt.45 It is not
just the institutionalpressuresof Americanliterarycriticismwhich
have depoliticizedFrenchtheory;the aestheticisttrendwithinpost43. This partof theargumentdrawson theworkabout FoucaultbyJohnRajchman,"Foucault,or theEnds ofModernism,"October,
24 (Spring1983),37-62,and on
the discussionof Derrida as a theoristof modernismin Jochen Schulte-Sasse'sintroductionto PeterBiirger,Theory
oftheAvantgarde.
44. JonathanArac,Wlad Godzich,WallaceMartin,eds., TheYaleCritics:
DeconstructioninAmerica
of MinnesotaPress,1983).
(Minneapolis: University
45. See Nancy Fraser'sarticlein thisissue.

AndreasHuyssen 39
itselfhas facilitatedthe peculiar Americanreception.
structuralism
Thus it is no coincidencethatthe politicallyweakestbody of French
writing(Derridaand thelateBarthes)has been privilegedinAmerican
literaturedepartmentsover the more politicallyintendedprojectsof
Foucaultand Baudrillard,Kristevaand Lyotard.But evenin themore
politicallyconscious and self-conscioustheoreticalwritingin France,
the traditionof modernistaestheticism- mediated throughan extremelyselectivereadingofNietzsche- is so powerfula presencethat
thenotionofa radicalrupturebetweenthemodernand thepostmodthat
striking
ern cannotpossiblymake much sense. It is furthermore
betweenthe various poststrucdespite the considerabledifferences
turalistprojects,none ofthemseems informedin anysubstantialway
by postmodernistworksof art.Rarely,ifever,do theyeven address
postmodernistworks.In itself,thisdoes not vitiatethe powerof the
theory.But it does make fora kindof dubbingwherethe poststructuralistlanguage is not in syncwiththe lips and movementsof the
postmodernbody.Thereis no doubtthatcenterstagein criticaltheory
is held by the classical modernists:Flaubert,Proustand Bataille in
Barthes;Nietzscheand Heidegger,Mallarm6and Artaudin Derrida;
Nietzsche,Magritteand Bataillein Foucault;Mallarm6and Lautr6amont,Joyceand Artaudin Kristeva;Freudin Lacan; BrechtinAlthusThe enemiesstillare realism
serand Macherey,and so on ad infinitum.
mass cultureand standardization,
and representation,
grammar,communicationand the presumablyall-powerfulhomogenizingpressuresof the modern State.
I thinkwe mustbeginto entertainthenotionthatratherthanofferand developingan analysisofcontemporary
inga theory
ofpostmodernity
withan archeology
culture,Frenchtheoryprovidesus primarily
ofmoda theoryofmodernismatthestageofitsexhaustion.It is as ifthe
ernity,
creativepowersofmodernismhad migratedintotheoryand come to
text - the owl of
full self-consciousnessin the poststructuralist
offers
Minervaspreadingitswingsatthefallofdusk.Poststructuralism
both in the
a theoryof modernismcharacterizedby Nachtriiglichkeit,
and thehistoricalsense. Despiteitstiesto thetradition
psychoanalytic
itoffersa readingofmodernismwhichdifofmodernistaestheticism,
fromthoseofferedbytheNew Critics,byAdorno or
ferssubstantially
by Greenberg.It is no longerthemodernismof"the age ofanxiety,"
theasceticand torturedmodernismofa Kafka,a modernismofnegathemodernismofthe
and alienation,ambiguityand abstraction,
tivity
closed and finishedworkof art.Rather,it is a modernismof playful
a modernismall
ofan unlimitedweavingoftextuality,
transgression,
and reality,in itsdenial of
confidentin itsrejectionof representation
a modernismquite
and ofthesubjectofhistory;
thesubject,ofhistory,

40
ThePostmodern
dogmaticin itsrejectionofpresenceand in itsunendingpraiseoflacks

and absences, deferralsand traceswhichproduce, presumably,not
bliss.46
anxietybut, in Roland Barthes'terms,jouissance,
ofmodernismin
Butifpoststructuralism
can be seen as therevenant
the guise of theory,thenthatwould also be preciselywhatmakes it
postmodern.It is a postmodernismthatworksitselfout notas a rejection of modernism,but ratheras a retrospective
readingwhich,in
some cases,is fullyawareofmodernism'slimitations
and failedpolitical ambitions.The dilemmaofmodernismhad been itsinability,despitethe best intentions,to mountan effective
critiqueof bourgeois
modernityand modernization.The fateof the historicalavantgarde
especiallyhad provenhowmodernart,evenwhereitventuredbeyond
forcedback intotheaestheticrealm.
artforart'ssake,was ultimately
Thus thegestureofpoststructuralism,
totheextentthatitabandonsall
to
a
that
would
go beyondlanguagegames,beyond
pretense
critique
epistemologyand theaesthetic,seemsat leastplausibleand logical.It
freesartand literature
fromthatoverloadofresponsibilities
certainly
- tochangelife,changesociety,changetheworld- on whichthehistoricalavantgardeshipwrecked,
and whichlivedon in Francethrough
the1950sand 1960sembodiedinthefigureofJeanPaul Sartre.Seen in
seemsto seal thefateofthemodernist
thislight,poststructuralism
project which,even whereit limiteditselfto the aestheticsphere,always
upheld a visionofa redemptionofmodernlifethroughculture.That
suchvisionsare no longerpossibleto sustainmaybe attheheartofthe
postmoderncondition,and it may ultimatelyvitiatethe poststructuralistattemptto salvageaestheticmodernismforthelate 20thcentury.At any rate,it all begins to ringfalsewhen poststructuralism
does inAmericanwritings,
as thelatest
presentsitself,as itfrequently
thusironicallyassuming,in itsinstitutional
"avantgarde"in criticism,
the kind of teleologicalposturingwhich poststrucSelbstverstiindnis,
turalismitselfhas done so much to criticize.
But evenwheresuch pretenseto academic avantgardismis not the
issue, one may well ask whetherthe theoreticallysustained selflimitationto languageand textuality
has notbeen too higha priceto
and
is
not
it
this
whether
self-limitation
pay;
(withall itentails)which
makes thispoststructuralist
modernismlook like the atrophyof an
earlieraestheticismratherthan its innovativetransformation.
I say
could
atrophybecause theturn-of-the-century
Europeanaestheticism
stillhope to establisha realmof beautyin oppositionto whatit perceived as thevulgaritiesof everydaybourgeoislife,an artificial
para46. 'Bliss' isan inadequaterenderingofjouissance
as theEnglishtermlacksthecrucial bodilyand hedonisticconnotationsof theFrenchword.

Andreas
Huyssen 41
dise thoroughlyhostileto officialpoliticsand the kind ofjingoism
Such an adversaryfunctionof
knownin Germanyas Hurrapatriotismus.
at a timewhencapimaintained
be
however,can hardly
aestheticism,
into
the
talitselfhas takentheaestheticstraight
commodityintheform
In
an
and
ofstyling,
age ofcommodityaesthetadvertising packaging.
has
itself
become
aestheticism
ics,
questionableeitheras an adversary
of criture
To
on theadversary
insist
or as a hibernating
strategy.
function
and of breakinglinguisticcodes when everysecond ad bristleswith
domesticatedavantgardistand moderniststrategiesstrikesme as
caught preciselyin thatveryoverestimationof art's transformative
forsocietywhichis thesignatureofan earlier,modernist,age.
function
is merelypracticedas a glass bead game in
Unless,of course,&criture
happy,resigned,or cynicalisolationfromthe realm the uninitiated
keep callingreality.
Take the later Roland Barthes.47His ThePleasureoftheTexthas
ofthepostmodernfor
become a major,almostcanonicalformulation
manyAmericanliterarycriticswho may notwantto rememberthat
yearsago Susan Sontaghad called foran eroticsof art
alreadytwenty
and stiflingprojectof academic interintendedto replace the stuffy
between Barthes'jouissanceand
pretation.Whateverthe differences
being
Sontag'serotics(therigorsof New Criticismand structuralism
therespectiveFeindbilder),
Sontag'sgesture,at thetime,was a relatively
radical one preciselyin that it insistedon presence,on a sensual
experienceof culturalartifacts;in thatit attackedratherthanlegitimized a sociallysanctionedcanonwhoseprimevalueswereobjectivity
from
and distance,coolnessand irony;and in thatitlicensedtheflight
and
of
the
netherlands
into
culture
of
pop
horizons
the lofty
high
camp.
Barthes,on theotherhand,positionshimselfsafelywithinhighcultureand themodernistcanon, maintainingequal distancefromthe
pleasuresand the
Rightwhichchampionsanti-intellectual
reactionary
which favors
Left
the
and
of
anti-intellectualism,
boring
pleasure
The Left
hedonism.
disdains
and
combat,
commitment,
knowledge,
and
of
Marx
the
Barthes
as
claims,
have
cigars
indeed
forgotten,
may
as
be
not
or
signihowever
may
But
may
convincing
cigars
Brecht.48
forgetsBrecht'sconstant
fiersof hedonism,Bartheshimselfcertainly
and purposefulimmersionin popularand massculture.Barthes'very
un-Brechtiandistinctionbetweenplaisirand jouissance- which he
47. My intentionis not to reduce Barthesto thepositionstakenin his laterwork.
The Americansuccess of thiswork,however,makes it permissibleto treatit as a
symptom,or, ifyou will,as a "mythologie."
48. Roland Barthes,ThePleasureoftheText(New York: Hill and Wang, 1975), p.
22.

42
ThePostmodern
simultaneouslymakes and unmakes49- reiteratesone of the most

tiredtopoiofthemodernistaestheticand ofbourgeoiscultureatlarge:
therearethelowerpleasuresfortherabble,i.e.,massculture,and then
thereis the nouvellecuisineof the pleasure of the text,ofjouissance.
as a conas a "mandarinpraxis,"50
Bartheshimselfdescribesjouissance
sciousretreat,
and he describesmodernmass culturein themostsimplistictermsas petit-bourgeois.Thus his appraisal ofjouissancedepends on theadoptionofthattraditionalviewofmass culturethatthe
Rightand the Left,both of which he so emphaticallyrejects,have
sharedover the decades.
This becomes even more explicitin ThePleasureoftheTextwherewe
conread: "The bastardformofmass cultureis humiliatedrepetition:
tent,ideologicalschema,the blurringof contradictions- theseare
repeated,but thesuperficialformsare varied:alwaysnewbooks,new
programs,new films,news items,but alwaysthe same meaning."''
Wordforword,such sentencescould have been writtenbyAdorno in
the 1940s. But,then,everybodyknowsthatAdorno'swas a theoryof
modernism,not of postmodernism.Or was it? Given the ravenous
eclecticismof postmodernism,it has recentlybecome fashionableto
includeevenAdornoand Benjaminintothecanon ofpostmodernists
- trulya case ofthecriticaltextwritingitselfwithoutthe
avantla lettre
interference
ofanyhistoricalconsciousnesswhatsoever.Yetthecloseness ofsome ofBarthes'basic propositionsto themodernistaesthetic
could makesucha rapprochement
plausible.Butthenone mightwant
to stoptalkingofpostmodernism
and takeBarthes'writing
altogether,
forwhatitis: a theoryofmodernismwhichmanagesto turnthedung
intothegold ofaestheticbliss.The
ofpost-68politicaldisillusionment
miracumelancholyscienceof CriticalTheoryhas been transformed
into
a
new
it
but
still
a
is, essentially, theoryof
lously
"gay science,"
modernistliterature.
Barthesand his Americanfansostensiblyrejectthemodernistnotionofnegativity
i.e.,witha critireplacingitwithplay,bliss,jouissance,
cal formofaffirmation.
But theverydistinctionbetweenthejouissance
provided by the modernist,"writerly"textand the mere pleasure
(plaisir)providedby "the textthatcontents,fills,grantseuphoria,"52
culreintroduces,throughtheback door, the same highculture/low
49. See Tania Modleski,"The TerrorofPleasure:The Contemporary
HorrorFilm
and PostmodernTheory,"paper givenat a conferenceon mass culture,Centerfor
TwentiethCenturyStudies,University
ofWisconsin-Milwaukee,
April 1984.
50. Barthes,p. 38.
51. Barthes,p. 41 f.
52. Barthes,p. 14.

AndreasHuyssen 43
of
turedivideand thesame typeofevaluationswhichwereconstitutive
of Adorno's aestheticwas predclassicalmodernism.The negativity
icatedon theconsciousnessofthementaland sensualdepravationsof
to a societywhich
modernmass cultureand on his relentlesshostility
needs such depravationto reproduceitself.The euphoricAmerican
appropriationof Barthes'jouissanceis predicatedon ignoringsuch
problemsand on enjoying,notunlikethe 1984 yuppies,thepleasures
connoisseurismand textualgentrification.
of writerly
That, indeed,
maybe a reasonwhyBartheshas hita nervein theAmericanacademy
son who has finallyabanoftheReaganyears,makinghimthefavorite
doned his earlierradicalismand come to embracethefinerpleasures
Buttheproblemswiththeoldertheoriesofa
oflife,pardon,thetext."5
fromanxiety
are notsolvedbysomersaulting
modernismofnegativity
Such a leap diminishesthe
and alienationinto the bliss ofjouissance.
wrenchingexperiencesofmodernityarticulatedin modernistartand
itremainsbound to themodernistparadigmbywayofsimliterature;
and it does verylittleto elucidate the problem of the
reversal;
ple
postmodern.
betweenplaisirand jouissance,
Justas Barthes'theoreticaldistinctions
thereaderlyand thewriterly
text,remainwithintheorbitofmodernist
notionsabout authoraesthetics,so thepredominantpoststructuralist
reiteratepropositionsknownfrommodernism
ship and subjectivity
itself.A fewbriefcommentswillhave to suffice.
In a discussionof Flaubertand the writerly,
i.e., modernist,text
Bartheswrites:"He [Flaubert]does notstoptheplayofcodes (or stops
one
so that(and thisisindubitablytheproofofwriting)
itonlypartially),
he
is
his
is
writes
behind
there
a
neverknows
subject
ifhe responsibleforwhat (if
of
for
of
the
labor
that
the
verybeing writing(themeaning
language);
fromeverbeing
constitutesit)is to keep thequestion Whois speaking?
answered."54A similarlyprescriptive
denial of authorialsubjectivity
underliesFoucault'sdiscourseanalysis.Thus Foucaultends his influ"Whatmatter
entialessay"WhatIs an Author?"byaskingrhetorically
who's speaking?"Foucault's"murmurof indifference'5""
affectsboth
and thespeakingsubject,and theargumentassumesitsfull
thewriting
polemical forcewiththe much broader anti-humanistproposition,
discussedat a
53. Thus thefateof pleasureaccordingto Bartheswas extensively
forumof last year'sMLA while an hour later,in a session on the futureof literary
This,it
variousspeakersextolledtheemergenceofa newhistoricalcriticism.
criticism,
scene
and tensioninthecurrentlitcrit
seemstome,marksan importantlineofconflict
in the U.S.
54. Roland Barthes,S/Z(New York: Hill and Wang, 1974), p. 140.
55. Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" in language,counter-memory,
practice
Press, 1977), p. 138.
(Ithaca: Cornell University

44
ThePostmodern
inheritedfromstructuralism,
ofthe"deathofthesubject."Butnoneof
thisis more than a furtherelaborationof the modernistcritiqueof
traditionalidealistand romanticnotionsofauthorshipand authenticiand intentionality,
self-centered
and perty,originality
subjectivity
More importantly,
itseemstome thatas a postmodern,
sonal identity.
I would ask different
havinggone throughthemodernistpurgatory,
questions.Isn'tthe"deathofthesubject/author"
positiontiedbymere
reversaltotheveryideologythatinvariably
theartistas genius,
glorifies
whetherformarketing
purposesoroutofconvictionand habit?Hasn't
capitalistmodernizationitselffragmentedand dissolved bourgeois
subjectivityand authorship,thus makingattackson such notions
somewhatquixotic?And, finally,doesn't poststructuralism,
whereit
simplydeniesthesubjectaltogether,
jettisonthechanceofchallenging
theideology
(as male,white,and middle-class)bydeveloping
ofthe
subject
alternativeand different
notionsof subjectivity?
To rejectthe validityof the question Who is writing?or Who is
speaking?is simplyno longera radical positionin 1984. It merely
duplicateson thelevelofaestheticsand theorywhatcapitalismas a systemof exchangerelationsproducestendentially
in everydaylife:the
in theveryprocessofitsconstruction.
denialofsubjectivity
Poststructuralismthusattackstheappearanceofcapitalistculture- individualism
writlarge- butmissesitsessence;likemodernism,itis alwaysalso in
syncwithratherthanopposed to therealprocessesofmodernization.
The postmodernshave recognizedthisdilemma.Theycounterthe
modernistlitanyof the death of the subjectby workingtowardnew
theoriesand practicesof speaking,writingand actingsubjects.56The
conquestionof how codes, texts,imagesand otherculturalartifacts
stitutesubjectivity
is increasingly
beingraisedas an alwaysalreadyhistoricalquestion. And to raise the question of subjectivity
at all no
longercarriesthe stigmaof being caughtin the trapof bourgeoisor
has been cut
petit-bourgeoisideology;the discourseof subjectivity
loose fromitsmooringsin bourgeoisindividualism.It is certainlyno
accidentthatquestionsofsubjectivity
and authorshiphaveresurfaced
witha vengeancein thepostmoderntext.Afterall,itdoesmatterwho is
56. This shiftin interest
back toquestionsofsubjectivity
is actuallyalso presentin
some ofthelaterpoststructuralist
forinstancein Kristeva'sworkon thesymwritings,
bolic and the semioticand in Foucault'sworkon sexuality.On Foucault see Biddy
Martin,"Feminism,Criticism,and Foucault," NGC, 27 (Fall 1982), 3-30. On the
relevance of Kristeva's work for the American context see AliceJardine, "Theories of
the Feminine,"Enclitic,
4:2 (Fall 1980), 5-15; and "Pre-Textsforthe Transatlantic
Feminist,"YaleFrench
Studies,62 (1981), 220-236. Cf. also Teresa de Lauretis,Alice
Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinemnla(Bloomingtonll: Indiana University Press,

1984), especially ch. 6 "Semiotics and Experience."

Andreas
Huyssen 45
speakingor writing.
Summingup, then,we facethe paradox thata body of theoriesof
modernismand modernity,
developed in Francesincethe 1960s,has
come to be viewed,in theU.S., as theembodimentofthepostmodern
in theory.In a certainsense, this developmentis perfectly
logical.
Poststructuralism's
readings of modernism are new and exciting
enough to be consideredsomehowbeyondmodernismas ithas been
criticismin the U.S.
perceivedbefore;in thisway poststructuralist
to
the
of
the
real
very
postmodern.But againstany
yields
pressures
withthe postmodern,we must
facileconflationof poststructuralism
insiston the fundamentalnon-identiyof the two phenomena. In
offersa theoryof modernism,not a
America,too, poststructuralism
theoryof the postmodern.
As to the French theoriststhemselves,theyrarelyspeak of the
we mustremember,is
postmodern.Lyotard'sLa Condition
Postmoderne,
theexception,not therule.57"'
Whatthe Frenchexplicitlyanalyze and
and la modemrniti.
Wheretheytalkaboutthe
reflect
upon isletexte
moderne
thequespostmodernat all, as in thecases ofLyotardand Kristeva,58
tionseems to have been promptedbyAmericanfriends,and thediscussionalmostimmediatelyand invariablyturnsback to problemsof
themodernistaesthetic.For Kristeva,thequestionofpostmodernismi
in the20thcenturyand
is thequestionofhowanything
can be written
She goeson tosaythatpostmodernhowwecan talkaboutthiswriting.
themoreorlessconscious
whichwritesitselfwith
ismis "thatliterature
intentionof expandingthe signifiableand thusthe human realm."59
oflimits,she
ofwriting-as-experience
WiththeBatailleanformulation
sees the major writingsince Mallarm6and Joyce,Artaudand Burroughsas the"explorationof thetypicalimaginaryrelationship,that
tothemother,throughthemostradicaland problematicaspectofthis
relationship,language."'6 Kristeva'sis a fascinatingand novel apand one thatunderproach to the question of modernistliterature,
Butitdoes notyieldmuchforan
standsitselfas a politicalintervention.
and postmodernity.
betweenmodernity
explorationofthedifferences
Thus itcannotsurprisethatKristevastillshareswithBarthesand the
ofmodernisman aversionto themedia whosefuncclassicaltheorists
57. Jean FrangoisLyotard,La Condition
(Paris:Minuit,1979). English
Postmoderne
translationThePostmodern
Condition
(Minneapolis: Univerityof Minnesota Press,
1984).
58. The EnglishtranslationofLa Condition
includestheessay,imporPostmodemrne
tantfortheaestheticdebate,"AnsweringtheQuestion:Whatis Postmodernism?"For
see "Postmnodernisn?"
Bucknell
25:11
Review,
Kristeva'sstatement
ointhiepostmnodcrnl
(1980), 136-141.
59. Kristeva,"Postmodernism?"137.
60. Ibid.,139 f.

46
ThePostmodern
tion,she claims,is to collectivizeall systemsof signsthusenforcing

society'sgeneraltendencytowarduniformity.
contemporary
who
like Kristevaand unlike the deconstructionists
is a
Lyotard,
in
the
his
thinker,
essay"Answeringthe
political
defines postmodern,
is
a
What
as
Postmodernism?,"
recurring
stagewithinthe
Question:
modernitself.He turnsto theKantiansublimefora theoryofthenonrepresentableessentialto modernartand literature.Paramountare
whichis linkedto terrorand
his interestin rejectingrepresentation,
and his demand forradical experimentationin the
totalitarianism,
arts.At firstsight,the turnto Kant seems plausible in the sense that
Kant's autonomy aestheticand notion of "disinterestedpleasure"
standsat thethresholdofa modernistaesthetic,ata crucialjunctureof
of sphereswhichhas been so importantin social
thatdifferentiation
thoughtfromWeberto Habermas.And yet,theturnto Kant'ssublime
fascinationwiththesublimeof the uniforgetsthatthe 18th-century
verse,the cosmos, expressespreciselythatverydesireof totalityand
whichLyotardso abhors and persistently
criticizesin
representation
Habermas' work.6'Perhaps Lyotard'stext says more here than it
means to. If historicallythe notion of the sublime harborsa secret
desirefortotality,
thenperhapsLyotard'ssublimecan be read as an
to
totalize
the
aestheticrealmbyfusingitwithall otherspheres
attempt
oflife,thuswipingout thedifferentiations
betweentheaestheticrealm
on whichKantdid afterall insist.Atanyrate,itis no
and thelife-world
coincidencethatthe firstmodernsin Germany,theJena romantics,
builttheiraestheticstrategies
ofthefragment
preciselyon a rejectionof
the sublime which to them had become a sign of the falsenessof
bourgeoisaccommodationto absolutistculture.Even todaythesublime has not lost its link to terrorwhich, in Lyotard'sreading,it
opposes. Forwhatwould be more sublimeand unrepresentablethan
thenuclearholocaust,thebomb beingthesignifier
ofan ultimatesublime.Butapartfromthequestionwhetheror notthesublimeis an adeit
artand literature,
quate aestheticcategoryto theorizecontemporary
is clear thatin Lyotard'sessaythe postmodernas aestheticphenomenon is notseenas distinctfrommodernism.The crucialhistoricaldistinctionwhichLyotardoffers
inLa Condition
Postmoderne
is thatbetween
of liberation(the Frenchtraditionof enlightenedmodthemgtargcits
ernity)and oftotality
(theGermanHegelian/Marxist
tradition)on the
one hand, and the modernistexperimentaldiscourse of language
and itspresumableconsegameson theother.Enlightenedmodernity
61. In fact,ThePostmodemrn
Condition
is a sustainedattackon the intellectualand
political traditionsof the Enlightenmentembodied for Lyotard in the work of
JfirgenHabermas.

AndreasHuyssen 47
quences are pittedagainstaestheticmodernism.The ironyin all of
to
this,as FredJamesonhas remarked,62is thatLyotard'scommitment
is politically"verycloselyrelatedto theconradicalexperimentation
natureofhighmodernismthatHabermas
ceptionoftherevolutionary
inheritedfromthe Frankfurt
School."
faithfully
No doubt, thereare historically
and intellectually
specificreasons
forthe Frenchresistanceto acknowledgingthe problemof the postmodernas a historicalproblemof thelate 20thcentury.At the same
time,theforceof theFrenchrereadingofmodernismproperis itself
shaped bythepressuresofthe 1960s and 1970s,and ithas thusraised
tothecultureofour owntime.But
manyofthekeyquestionspertinent
itstillhas done verylittletowardilluminatingan emergingpostmodern culture,and it has largelyremainedblind to or uninterestedin
manyofthemostpromisingartisticendeavorstoday.Frenchtheoryof
which ilthe 1960s and 1970s has offeredus exhileratingfireworks
of modernism,but, as
luminatea crucial segmentof the trajectory
afterduskhas fallen.Thisviewis borneout
appropriatewithfireworks,
bynone lessthanMichelFoucaultwho,in thelate 1970s,criticizedhis
own earlierfascinationwithlanguage and epistemologyas a limited
projectofan earlierdecade: "The wholerelentlesstheorizationofwritSwaningwhichwe sawinthe1960swas doubtlessonlya swansong."63
song of modernism,indeed; but as such alreadya moment of the
postmodern. Foucault's view of the intellectualmovementof the
1960s as a swansong,it seems to me, is closer to the truththan its
Americanrewriting,
duringthe 1970s,as the latestavantgarde.
Whither
Postmodernism?
The culturalhistoryof the 1970s stillhas to be written,and the
inart,literature,
variouspostmodernisms
dance,theater,architecture,
music
will
and
have to be discussed separatelyand in
film,video,
forrelatingsome
detail.All I wantto do now is to offera framework
recent cultural and political changes to postmodernism,changes
which already lie outside the conceptual networkof "modernism/
avantgardism"and have so farrarelybeen included in thepostmodernismdebate.64
I would argue thatthe contemporary
arts- in thewidestpossible
sense,whethertheycall themselvespostmodernistor rejectthatlabel
- can no longerbe regardedas just anotherphase in thesequence of
modernistand avantgardistmovementswhichbegan in Paris in the
62. FredricJameson,"Foreword"to Lvotard,ThePostmodern
Condition,
p. XVI.
63. Michel Foucault, "Truth and Power," in Power/Knowledge
(New York: Pantheon, 1980), p. 127.
64. The majorexceptionis CraigOwens,"The DiscourseofOthers,"in Hal Foster,ed., TheAnti-Aesthetic,
p. 65-98.

48
ThePostmodemrn
1850s and 1860s and whichmaintainedan ethosofculturalprogress

and vanguardismthroughthe 1960s. On thislevel,postmodernism
cannotbe regardedsimplyas a sequel to modernism,as thelateststep
in theneverendingrevoltof modernismagainstitself.The postmodfromboth modernismand
ern sensibilityof our time is different
avantgardismpreciselyin thatit raisesthequestionofculturaltraditionand conservationinthemostfundamental
wayas an aestheticand
a politicalissue. It doesn'talwaysdo it successfully,
and oftendoes it
And yet,mymainpointabout contemporary
exploitatively.
postmodernismis thatit operatesin a fieldof tensionbetweentraditionand
innovation,conservationand renewal,mass cultureand highart,in
whichthesecondtermsare no longerautomatically
privilegedoverthe
of
a
field
tension
which
can
no
be
first;
longer graspedin categories
suchas progressvs.reaction,Leftvs. Right,presentvs.past,modernism
vs. realism,abstractionvs. representation,
avantgardevs. Kitsch.The
factthatsuch dichotomies,whichafterall are centralto the classical
accountsof modernism,have brokendown is partof the shiftI have
been tryingto describe.I could also statethe shiftin the following
terms:Modernismand theavantgardewerealwayscloselyrelatedto
social and industrialmodernization.They were relatedto it as an
adversaryculture,yes,but theydrewtheirenergies,not unlikePoe's
Man oftheCrowd,
fromtheirproximity
to thecrisesbroughtabout by
modernizationand progress.Modernization- such was thewidely
heldbelief,evenwhenthewordwas notaround- had tobe traversed.
There was a visionof emergingon theotherside. The modernwas a
world-scaledrama playedout on theEuropean and Americanstage,
withmythicmodernman as itsheroand withmodernartas a driving
had envisioneditalreadyin 1825.Suchheroic
force,
justas Saint-Simon
visionsofmodernityand ofartas a forceofsocial change(or,forthat
matter,resistanceto undesiredchange)are a thingofthepast,admirable forsure,but no longerin tunewithcurrentsensibilities,
except
perhaps withan emergingapocalypticsensibilityas the flipside of
modernistheroism.
Seen in thislight,postmodernismat itsdeepestlevelrepresentsnot
just anothercrisiswithinthe perpetualcycleof boom and bust,exhaustionand renewal,whichhas characterizedthetrajectory
ofmodernistculture.It ratherrepresents
a newtypeofcrisisofthatmodernist
cultureitself.Of course,thisclaimhas been made before,and fascism
indeed was a formidablecrisisofmodernistculture.But fascismwas
neverthealternative
tomodernity
itpretendedtobe, and oursituation
fromthatoftheWeimarRepublicinitsagony.It
todayis verydifferent
was onlyin the1970sthatthehistoricallimitsofmodernism,modernityand modernizationcame intosharpfocus.The growingsensethat

AndreasHuyssen 49
we are not bound to complete
the projectof modernity(Habermas'
and
still
do
not
or
necessarilyhave to lapse intoirrationality
phrase)
intoapocalypticfrenzy,the sense thatartis not exclusivelypursuing
some telosofabstraction,non-representation
and sublimity- all of
thishas opened up a hostofpossibilitiesforcreativeendeavorstoday.
And incertainwaysithas alteredourviewsofmodernismitself.Rather
thanbeingbound toa one-wayhistory
ofmodernismwhichinterprets
itas a logicalunfoldingtowardsome imaginary
goal,and whichthusis
based on a whole seriesofexclusions,we are beginningto exploreits
and contingencies,
contradictions
itstensionsand internalresistances
to itsown "forward"movement.Postmodernismis farfrommaking
modernismobsolete. On the contrary,
it casts a new lighton it and
appropriatesmanyof itsaestheticstrategiesand techniquesinserting
themand makingthemworkin newconstellations.
Whathas become
ofmodernismin criticaldisobsolete,however,arethosecodifications
coursewhich,howeversubliminally,are based on-a teleologicalview
ofprogressand modernization.Ironically,thesenormativeand often
reductivecodificationshave actuallyprepared the ground for that
repudiationof modernismwhichgoes by the name of thepostmodern.Confrontedwiththecriticwho arguesthatthisor thatnovelis not
behind the
up to thelatestin narrativetechnique,thatitis regressive,
timesand thusuninteresting,
the postmodernistis rightin rejecting
modernism.Butsuchrejectionaffects
onlythattrendwithinmodernismwhichhas been codifiedintoa narrowdogma,notmodernismas
such.In someways,thestoryofmodernismand postmodernismislike
thestoryofthehedgehogand thehare:theharecould notwinbecause
therealwayswas more thanjust one hedgehog.But theharewas still
thebetterrunner...
The crisisof modernismis more thanjust a crisisof those trends
withinitwhichtieitto theideologyofmodernization.In theage oflate
capitalism,itis also a newcrisisofart'srelationshipto society.Attheir
toarta privimostemphatic,modernismand avantgardism
attributed
leged statusin the processes of social change. Even the aestheticist
fromtheconcernofsocialchangeis stillbound to itbyvirwithdrawal
of an artificial
tue of itsdenial of the statusquo and theconstruction
paradise of exquisite beauty.When social change seemed beyond
grasp or took an undesiredturn,artwas stillprivilegedas the only
authenticvoice of critiqueand protest,even when itseemed to withdrawintoitself.The classicalaccountsofhighmodernismattesttothat
fact.To admitthatthesewereheroicillusions- perhapseven necessaryillusionsin art'sstruggleto survivein dignityin a capitalistsociety
- is not to denythe importanceof artin social life.
But modernism'srunningfeudwithmass societyand mass culture

50
ThePostmodern
as well as the avantgarde'sattackon highartas a supportsystemof

culturalhegemonyalwaystookplace on thepedestalofhighartitself.
And certainlythatis wheretheavantgardehas been installedafterits
failure,in the 1920s, to createa more encompassingspace forartin
sociallife.To continuetodemandtodaythathighartleavethepedestal
and relocateelsewhere(whereverthatmightbe) is topose theproblem
in obsoleteterms.The pedestalofhighartand highcultureno longer
occupies theprivilegedspace itused to,justas thecohesionoftheclass
whicherecteditsmonumentson thatpedestal is a thingof the past;
recentconservativeattemptsin a numberofWesterncountriesto restorethedignityoftheclassicsofWesternCivilization,fromPlatovia
Adam Smithto thehighmodernists,and to send studentsback to the
basics,provethepoint.I am not sayingherethatthepedestalofhigh
artdoes notexistanymore.Of courseitdoes, butitis notwhatitused
to be. Since the 1960s,artisticactivitieshave become much more diffuseand harderto containin safecategoriesor stableinstitutions
such
as theacademy,themuseum or even theestablishedgallerynetwork.
To some, thisdispersalof culturaland artisticpracticesand activities
willinvolvea senseofloss and disorientation;
otherswillexperienceit
as a newfreedom,a culturalliberation.Neithermaybe entirely
wrong,
butwe should recognizethatitwas notonlyrecenttheoryor criticism
thatdeprivedtheunivalent,exclusiveand totalizingaccountsofmodernismoftheirhegemonicrole. It was theactivitiesofartists,
writers,
filmmakers,architects,
and performers
thathavepropelledus beyond
a narrowvision of modernismand given us a new lease on modernismitself.
In political terms,the erosion of the tripledogma modernism/
can be contextually
relatedtotheemergence
modernity/avantgardism
of the problematicof "otherness,"which has asserteditselfin the
socio-politicalsphereas much as in theculturalsphere.I cannotdiscuss herethevariousand multipleformsofothernessas theyemerge
in subjectivity,
fromdifferences
genderand sexuality,race and class,
and spatialgeographiclocationsand distemporalUngleichzeitigkeiten
locations.ButI wanttomentionatleastfourrecentphenomenawhich,
inmymind,areand willremainconstitutive
ofpostmodernculturefor
some timeto come.
we havecome to
Despiteall itsnoble aspirationsand achievements,
recognize thatthe cultureof enlighenedmodernityhas also always
(thoughby no means exclusively)been a cultureof innerand outer
imperialism,a readingalreadyofferedbyAdornoand Horkheimerin
the 1940s and an insightnot unfamiliarto those of our ancestors
involvedin themultitudeofstruggles
againstrampantmodernization.
Such imperialism,whichworksinsideand outside,on themicroand

AndreasHuyssen 51
macrolevels,no longergoes unchallengedeitherpolitically,
economicallyor culturally.Whetherthese challengeswill usher in a more
habitable,less violentand moredemocraticworldremainstobe seen,
and itis easyto be skeptical.Butenlightenedcynicismisas insufficient
an answeras blue-eyedenthusiasmforpeace and nature.
The women's movementhas led to some significantchanges in
social structure
and culturalattitudeswhichmustbe sustainedevenin
thefaceoftherecentgrotesquerevivalofAmericanmachismo.Directthe women's movementhas nourishedthe emerly and indirectly,
and creativeforcein the arts,in
gence of women as a self-confident
filmand criticism.
The waysinwhichwe nowraisequestions
literature,
ofgenderand sexuality,readingand writing,
and enunciasubjectivity
tion,voice and performanceare unthinkablewithoutthe impactof
feminism,even thoughmanyoftheseactivitiesmaytakeplace on the
marginor even outside the movementproper.Feministcriticshave
also contributedsubstantially
torevisionsofthehistory
ofmodernism,
notjust by unearthingforgotten
artists,but also by approachingthe
male modernistsin novel ways.This is truealso of the"new French
feminists"
and theirtheorizationofthefeminineinmodernistwriting,
even though theyofteninsiston maintaininga polemical distance
froman American-type
feminism.65
During the 1970s, questions of ecology and environmenthave
deepened fromsingle-issuepoliticsto a broad critiqueof modernity
and modernization,a trendwhichis politicallyand culturallymuch
inWestGermanythanin theU.S. A newecologicalsensibility
stronger
manifestsitselfnotonlyin politicaland regionalsubcultures,in alterand thenew social movementsin Europe, but italso
nativelife-styles
in a varietyofways:theworkofJosephBeuys,
artand literature
affects
certainland artprojects,Christo'sCaliforniarunningfence,thenew
naturepoetry,thereturnto local traditions,
dialects,and so on. It was
due
to
the
especially
growingecological sensibilitythatthe linkbetweencertainformsofmodernismand technologicalmodernization
has come under criticalscrutiny.
There is a growingawarenessthatothercultures,non-European,
non-Westernculturesmustbe metby means otherthanconquest or
domination,as Paul Ricoeur put itmore thantwentyyearsago, and
thattheeroticand aestheticfascination
with"the Orient"- so prominent in Westernculture,includingmodernism- is deeply problematic.This awarenesswillhaveto translateintoa typeofintellectual
65. Cf. Elaine Marksand Isabelle de Courtivron,eds., NewFrench
Feminisms
(Amherst:University
ofMassachusettsPress,1980). Fora criticalviewofFrenchtheoriesof
thefemininecf.theworkbyAliceJardine
citedinFootnote56 and heressay"Gynesis,"
12:2 (Summer 1982), 54-65.
diacritics,

52
ThePostmodern
workdifferent
fromthatof the modernistintellectualwho typically
spokewiththeconfidenceofstandingatthecuttingedgeoftimeand of
beingable to speakforothers.Foucault'snotionof thelocal and specificintellectual
as opposed to the"universal"intellectual
ofmodernity
a
out
the
of
of
dilemma
into
locked
ourownculmayprovide way
being
tureand traditions
whilesimultaneously
their
limitations.
recognizing
In conclusion,itis easyto see thata postmodernist
cultureemerging
fromthesepolitical,socialand culturalconstellations
willhaveto be a
of
resistance
to
thateasy postpostmodernism resistance,including
modernismofthe"anythinggoes" variety.Resistancewillalwayshave
to be specificand contingentupon the culturalfieldwithinwhichit
or nonoperates.It cannotbe definedsimplyin termsof negativity
collectiveprojidentitytla Adorno,norwillthelitaniesofa totalizing,
ectsuffice.
Atthesame time,theverynotionofresistancemayitselfbe
Afterall, thereare
problematicin itssimpleoppositiontoaffirmation.
affirmative
formsofresistanceand resistingformsofaffirmation.
But
thismaybe morea semanticproblemthana problemofpractice.And
it should not keep us frommakingjudgments.How such resistance
can be articulatedin artworksin waysthatwould satisfy
theneeds of
the politicaland those of the aesthetic,of the producersand of the
recipients,cannotbe prescribed,and itwillremainopen to trial,error
and debate. But it is time to abandon thatdead-end dichotomyof
politicsand aestheticswhichfortoo long has dominatedaccountsof
trendwithinpoststructuralism.
modernism,includingtheaestheticist
The pointis nottoeliminatetheproductivetensionbetweenthepolitical and the aesthetic,betweenhistoryand the text,betweenengagementand themissionofart.The pointis toheightenthattension,even
to rediscoveritand to bringitback intofocusin theartsas well as in
criticism.No matterhow troublingit may be, the landscape of the
postmodernsurroundsus. It simultaneouslydelimitsand opens our
horizons.It's our problemand our hope.


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Mapping the Postmodern

Author(s): Andreas Huyssen

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In thefirsthallswe filedpasta golden pillar,actuallya metalcylinder

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literatureand the arts.While skepticismabout the feasabilityof an

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stake.The modernistutopiaembodiedin thebuildingprogramsofthe

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language or of literaturebut of the aestheticof high modernism."'7

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19. The specificconnotationsthe notion of postmodernity

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does not seem to implya major breakwithmodernismas it does in

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Modernismitselfhad enteredthemainstreamvia mass reproduction

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postmodernismof the 1960s had some of themakingsof a genuine

and fromwhat I have called the ideology of modernization.The

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Edward Lucie-Smith,Artin theSeventies

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paintingsof Frida Kahlo would stillbe knownonly to a handfulof

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understoodtodaythe same way Marx understoodit at the dawn of

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Itwould be onlya smallstep,then,forHabermasto concludethata

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modernismis quite underthespellofthose"terrible"1960s and cannotat all be reconciledwiththeausterehighmodernismofa Kafka,a

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ism,43and thatifwe are to locatethepostmodernin poststructuralism

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dogmaticin itsrejectionofpresenceand in itsunendingpraiseoflacks

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simultaneouslymakes and unmakes49- reiteratesone of the most

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Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinemnla(Bloomingtonll: Indiana University Press,

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