Page 276 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Listening Cue
Written and arranged by Gerry Mulligan Download 51 “Jeru”
Performed by Miles Davis and His Orchestra (recorded 1949)
what to listen for: A bouncy tune played by the band a total of three times; at the end of statements one and two, first Davis and then Mulligan play solos. The solos are not blaring or “in your face,” but reserved and in the middle range of the instruments.
reAD . . . a detailed Listening Guide of this selection online. LiSTeN TO . . . this selection streaming online.
WATCH . . . an Active Listening Guide of this selection online.
Figure 16.6
Jeff Koons’s figure
of a woman hugging a toy Pink Panther provokes, as does much Postmodern art, an argument: What is art? What makes a work of genius? While some may say that Koons’s porcelain figure Pink Panther (1988) is not art, it sold at auction on May 10, 2011, for $16.8 million. But does artistic value equate with money? To think further about what makes art— and great art in particular—consider another sculpture shown in this book, Michelangelo’s David (see Figure 4.11). >
Postmodernism
The “isms” seem to be spreading like a virus: Impressionism, Expressionism, Modernism, Neo-classicism, and now Postmodernism. But how to describe the music being composed today? We are modern people, so we might rightly
assume that our art belongs to the Modernist style. But Modernism, it turns out, is not modern, no lon- ger cutting edge. In the years since World War II, Modernism has been superseded by an art we call Postmodern. Seen narrowly, if Modernism distorted traditional melody, Postmodernism abandons it. Viewed broadly, while Modernism was a reaction to, and played off against, the musical elements from previous Western historical periods, Postmodernism does not labor under the “anxiety of influence” of any previous era.
Instead, Postmodernism is an all-inclusive style for a more inclusive age in which almost anything goes. For Postmodernists, art is for everyone, not just an elite few, and all art is of equal potential. Andy Warhol’s paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans or Marilyn Monroe (chapter opener), for example, are just as valuable as Picasso’s creations. Jeff Koons’s blonde (Figure 16.6) is just as meaningful as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Consequently, there is no “high” or “low” art, no “good” or “bad” art, only art—and maybe not even that.
254 chapter sixteen american modernism and postmodernism
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Jeff Koons/Digital Image © The Musem of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY