Hope and Humanism

4400 USD

48″ x 48″ x 1.5″ acrylic on canvas.

I’ve been listening to a lot of punk lately and it suddenly struck me how very postmodern punk is. So, when a podcast about postmodernism appeared in my feed, I listened.

The podcast’s argument: Postmodernism, while momentarily subversive (vs. order and authority), was co-opted by capitalism. Desires became manufactured around consumerism—meaningless stuff to fill our meaningless existence in a value-less society.
 
Depressing, right? And the podcaster lamented that our postmodern existence has no end in sight. So I began hoping for a post-postmodernist world…

Turns out, post-postmodernism is called metamodernism and (according to some) has been the prevalent cultural philosophy for over a decade. Where have I been??
 
In metamodernism, there’s still the melancholic irony of postmodernism (think Seinfeld and Simpsons) but there is also hope and humanism, along with a hunger for meaning. It’s like a state of in-betweenness, or constant oscillation like a pendulum.

I’m relieved to think we may have already shifted into this more hopeful alternative state. Given the state of things in our world, I find it easier to believe that we’re stuck. But, if I look closely at the grassroots I think I can see the change…
 
This painting is called ‘Hope and humanism.’