Reflexivity and Postmodernism
Punk artists engage at a critical level with those who witness their art and stress a sense of distance in order to critique how their art gets the audience to buy into the ideology of their culture.
In P.S. Mueller's cartoon, No.19, he depicts a man with long dark hair covering his face as a punk, with two alien-like beings next to him saying to each other "I bet we could sell it something demeaning and worthless." This cartoon acts to point out the irreverent inconsistencies with punk culture and how so many people attempt to align themselves with the aesthetic while ignoring the whole point of punk. That while punk does have roots which stressed the idea of looking a certain way, dressing or buying items which visually align one's style is a form of conformity and isn't punk.
While this cartoonist does not outrightly align himself with the punk culture, his informative cartoon speaks to the theme of reflexivity. The changing standards of punk ideology have caused a theme of self-awareness to emerge as postmodern ideology continues. The postmodern and reflexive art works to appropriate some of punk's more general and benchmark styles and ideology, and then engages itself with the art by taking a critical stance on the constantly changing issue: what makes punk punk?
As a result, cartoonists and creators alike end up using punk art as representative of their own views on society, to the point that punk aesthetic in reflexivity and postmodernism are used to either parody or make fun of events as a commentary of the whole. Postmodernism is incorporated into punk aesthetic mor and more as time moves on. In the beginning, punk was meant to reflect political, anti-establishment views and viewership, while now, punk art through the use of internet and other methods of exposure have shown punk art to be self aware of its distance from its own at one time universal concepts to universal presence.
Williamson, Eugenia. “Punk Crock: Whistling Eternal Yesterday.” The Baffler, no. 29, 2015, pp. 110–119., www.jstor.org/stable/43959249.
In P.S. Mueller's cartoon, No.19, he depicts a man with long dark hair covering his face as a punk, with two alien-like beings next to him saying to each other "I bet we could sell it something demeaning and worthless." This cartoon acts to point out the irreverent inconsistencies with punk culture and how so many people attempt to align themselves with the aesthetic while ignoring the whole point of punk. That while punk does have roots which stressed the idea of looking a certain way, dressing or buying items which visually align one's style is a form of conformity and isn't punk.
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| P.S. Mueller Comic |
While this cartoonist does not outrightly align himself with the punk culture, his informative cartoon speaks to the theme of reflexivity. The changing standards of punk ideology have caused a theme of self-awareness to emerge as postmodern ideology continues. The postmodern and reflexive art works to appropriate some of punk's more general and benchmark styles and ideology, and then engages itself with the art by taking a critical stance on the constantly changing issue: what makes punk punk?
As a result, cartoonists and creators alike end up using punk art as representative of their own views on society, to the point that punk aesthetic in reflexivity and postmodernism are used to either parody or make fun of events as a commentary of the whole. Postmodernism is incorporated into punk aesthetic mor and more as time moves on. In the beginning, punk was meant to reflect political, anti-establishment views and viewership, while now, punk art through the use of internet and other methods of exposure have shown punk art to be self aware of its distance from its own at one time universal concepts to universal presence.
Williamson, Eugenia. “Punk Crock: Whistling Eternal Yesterday.” The Baffler, no. 29, 2015, pp. 110–119., www.jstor.org/stable/43959249.