Post- structuralism is largely a theory regarding structures, whether they are deep or surface-level, in literature and culture and contends that we must go behind the plans to the underlying social formations. Postmodernism challenges universal truths and recognizes the demise of totalizing literary narratives like realism, much like post- structuralism and deconstruction. Amelia Jones advances the idea of body/self, which refers to the artist's body as the enactment of self, in her essay Postmodernism, Subjectivity, and Body Art. She draws attention to how body art may give artists presence. Amelia Jones writes categorically about how Mendieta involves her body in ritual acts, and how she leaves an absent imprint of her body which she describes as “wound on the landscape (Jones 27).” Comparing Mendiata’s work to Mary Kelly’s one, Amelia Jones depicts how the two artists negotiate absence of the female body, and also how they rely on the cultural or contextual information to read. According to Jones, the body is both insistently “here” and also always “absent’. She quotes Peggy Phelan and states “performance marks the body itself as loss (Jones 34).” For Amelia Jones, Phelan’s claim is overstated, as “pure presence is an outdated remnant of modernism” (Jones 35). Jones describes formalism, a standard for High Modernism, as dependent upon disinterestedness and disembodiment. Her argument is that the inclusion of the body as material signifies a shift from modernist work to post-modernist opuses. According to Amelia Jones, the splintered postmodern body is best represented through mediated forms as compared to momentary presence (Jones 42). She argues that body art merges life, and the body is subject and object at the same time (41). She further links the body with narcissism, the relationship between the person and others, and how the body is enactment of the self. (Jones 42). Further, she recognizes the aesthetic and performative links of Schneemann to abstract expressionist, arguing that the inclusion of the body is working “within the language of abstract expressionism, but against the grain of its masculinity assumptions” (Jones 42).
In Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction, the author was displaced as the sole authority and the reader could interpret and develop meaning from the literary work. Once the author is “dead,” texts and writings become plural and the process of interpretation is collaborative. Foster (42) argues against “disinterest” common in structuralism. Foster holds that post- structuralism sought to remove the boundaries that have viewed systems as autonomous. As a result, Foster admits that language and texts place the frame at the centre of speech. The modernist notion of the author as the source authority and knowledge is quashed. As a cultural movement, post- structuralism has advocated for the things to be seen as part of a system and everything existed in the context of something else. According to post-structuralism, the fixed intellectual reference point was not ideal. Foster argues that post- structuralism has emerged from the need to deviate from structuralism that has viewed every system as autonomous (42). Citing Michel Foucault, and exploring Derrida’s double session, Foster describes the post- structuralism nature of linguistics (44). In terms of body art, Foster explains the “presence” of reality in performance. While Derrida defines languages is made up of units (or signifiers) with no inherent meaning and relate to the other units through their difference, Foster argues for the need for language to acquire meaning.
Works Cited
Foster, David. “Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction.” Art History: Theory & Methodology: Structuralism. New York: Routledge, 2011. 42-50. Print.
Jones, Amelia. Postmodernism, Subjectivity, and Body Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998
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