“Scales in the Local”: Wittgenstein, Lyotard, and the Postmodern, Rediscovered in Conceptual Art (Part One)

Authors:

Pages: 268-286
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/CSAU8530

Abstract:

This text takes up various aspects of a conceptual art project titled “Scales in the Local” in relation to key ideas of postmodern philosophical thought. More particularly, the conceptual focus of the authors of the project on the local, elemental, and uniquely singular is juxtaposed with the shifting focus of postmodern culture from the universalist metanarratives of the Enlightenment to the particularity of the singular. The project, which was implemented by a team of artists with different approaches to it, is seen as addressing and inducing reflections about major issues and concerns of our time. The work of the different artists is analyzed, drawing upon thinkers who left highly significant marks on postmodern philosophical thinking, including Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Lyotard, and Foucault, among others. While the discussion of the participating works of art is inevitably arbitrary, its main purpose is to be a source of further reflections.

Keywords:

local; particular; universal; postmodern; deconstruction; socio-cultural reflection; self-knowledge; self-creation; life assertion.

Download

NA