Modernist art can be traced back to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in which technological changes created cultural changes for much of the West. Postmodernist art was designed to contradict modernism, critique social norms and entice revolution, breaking apart the capitalist, democratic and industrial ideas brought about by modernism. Terry Barrett even says that “Postmodernism does not merely chronologically follow modernism, it reacts against modernism, and might better be called anti-modernism.” Postmodernist criticize modernity claiming that it shepherds ideas of oppression of people even though there is a promise of freedom and equality with modernism.

The split between modernism and postmodernism is truly a split between art which is considered aesthetically pleasing and art which often reaches the borders of what art actually is.  For instance, if looking at a painting from the enlightenment period, there is definitive evidence it is a painting and it looks beautiful. But then you look at a Happenings from the 1960’s in Andy Worhol’s studio and question what the word beautiful means and if it can be interpreted objectively, only to come to the conclusion it cannot.  Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and that is one thing postmodern artists strive to do; break down the barrier between aesthetics and beauty, showing they are not related.

Postmodernism also brought about artists like Jackson Pollock and with Pollock art became more of an act than a final piece; thats not to say his works aren’t worth thousands of dollars. With the rise of Jackson Pollock’s popularity came what is known as abstract expressionism. Pollock said his paintings were not made to beautiful, but he made them to express how he was feeling, and this expression was the art. Furthermore when looking at the concept of “art for art’s sake” which was brought up by Greenberg and was aimed at taking the context out of art and straying as far away from it as possible and tying it back to postmodernism there is a simple link.  This goes back to the idea of postmodernist art breaking down modernist art by not looking at the final piece, but at the artist and the extension of the artist into the work or the artist making the work an extension of themselves.