![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Francis_Bacon_-_Second_Version_of_Triptych_1944_-_Hi______Res_cropped_opt.jpg\" "\\"T\\"")
<\/a>Francis Bacon, Second Version of Triptych<\/em>, 1944, 1988, oil and alkyds on canvas, each panel 198 x 147.5 cm. Tate Modern, London \u00a9 Estate of Francis Bacon \/ SODRAC (2013)<\/p>\nI\u2019m not alone in suggesting that modernism has persisted. In his 1981 essay Against Post Modernism: Reconsidering Ortega, Peter Halley made the claim that modernism was not outdated, only badly formulated to begin with. He blamed critics for universally buying into Greenberg\u2019s definition of modernism, which did not consider the full range of 20th century art. Within Greenberg\u2019s theory, dada and surrealism are expunged. Here, even analytic cubism posed a problem and had to labeled \u201ccounter-revolution.\u201d Bacon\u2019s work, by virtue of its figuration is retrograde and consequently orphaned. For Benjamin Buchloh, European neo-expressionism, since it signified a return to representation, were labeled as \u201ccyphers of regression.\u201d The box of modernism as defined by Greenberg shatters as we attempt to cram the art of the past century into it.<\/p>\n
Why not see modernism as a seeded garden, and abstraction as a blossoming into abstract-expressionism and colour field? The post modernism that took root in the 60s, could better be termed post formalism. A great deal of the art of the past half century is the flourished outgrowth of Duchamp\u2019s brand of modernism. Rather than post or past, the subsequent influence of his art, viewed in this way, is a logical continuum \u2013 still modernism.<\/p>\n A contemporary artist that has successfully exploited the breadth and potential of modernist painting to suit his own expressive ends, is Peter Doig. With licks from Matisse, Munch, and even Daumier, the artist sponges across the colour fields of Rothko as if the canvas were a ballpark \u2013 modernism at one end and contemporary art at the other. By playing both ends simultaneously, Doig gleefully runs up the painterly score at his pleasure. As with Bacon, little outside reference is needed to \u201cget\u201d the work. Doig\u2019s pictorial intelligence is that of an athlete, the meat of the event being on the playing field of the canvas, not in the Sunday morning colour commentary.<\/p>\n The Stan Douglas exhibition at the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto was prologued by a wall text, in which the artist stated: \u201cIt is not always necessary for the viewer of my work to be aware of every source and reference. If a work cannot be understood on any level by just experiencing and having everyday knowledge of television and film, then the work is not successful.\u201d If the statement is not exactly a disclaimer, they are words that soothe and comfort to allay contextual anxiety. To quote Relyea again on Krauss, \u201ca pivotal moment marking the transition from modernism to the more expanded field of postmodernism,\u201d was the moment that access to the artworks required \u201ca long chain of explanation.\u201d Regarding the burden imposed on both artist and viewer, Relyea quotes Hal Foster, \u201cAs one moves from project to project, one must learn the discursive breadth as well as the historical depth of many different representations \u2013 like an archaeologist who enters a new culture with each new exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Stan Douglas, Midcentury Studio: Cache<\/em>, 1948, 2010, digital fiber print mounted on Dibond aluminum, image: 45.7 x 61 cm, paper: 73.7 x 86.4 cm<\/p>\n<\/a>Peter Doig, Cricket Painting (Paragrand),<\/em> (detail), 2006\u20132012, oil on canvas, 118.25 x 78.75 in. (300.4 x 200 cm)<\/p>\n