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Joseph,

you are welcome to define it "Europen", if you wish: that’s a compliment
for those of us who were born on this ancient continent, but the paintings
of the authors I recommended to view are postmodern only in their
being "post postmodern" and therefore "neo-baroque", as the author itself
describes his work and has the critique confirms for the presence of neo-
decadent aestheticized elements . For those who have experience of the
baroque in city architectures, churches and buildings, like we do, here, in
the low parts of Europe (imagine how present ios Baroque in Naples!) or
furniture,(my mother's old dining room was all baroquesque) for instance,
there is not a glimpse of a doubt that the manneristic and honeyed kitsch
in the paintings’ compositional elements are firmly carrier of a baroque
discourse which mocks the post-romantic pose and it prefers to it the
mask,the sentimental, the nauseous pose, aiming to state a posture rather
than suggesting ideas (as postmodernity does, in its critical adaptation of
past styles and the blending of all of them, as in Umberto Eco’s work and
theories).

As I said in one of my previous posts, some male-transexual performances
their “travestimenti” are utterly neo-baroque in their being outrageously
provocative towards the gender establishment (there is no strong critique
of the class struggle, as I pointed out, nor a consciousness that goes
towards the political in an overt way. If postmodernity goes to the very
core of the XXth century marxist critique to capitalist society (and
therefore to class struggles and clash of ideologies), neo-baroque is
beyond all this.

That’s why the king (or better the Queen) of the neo-baroque is Elton John
who spends 2000 dollars a day in flowers and sheds 2000 tears at whoever
funeral, sobbing aloud.

To exploit the Elton John's subject further, more neo-baroque that any
think is indeed his Aida, especially the central scene of the Princess’s
fashion show: the adaptation itself of Verdi’s Aida (which in itself was
already rather kitsch for its interst in the exotic) into a Broadway
musical (which I had the fortune to be invited to, while in NY and which
made me leave the theatre with a knot of baroquesque emotions in my throat,
leading to tears).


A neo-baroque work, in visual art, is not as layered as a postmodern one:
it enjoys superficiality and the provocations relies on this kind of
irritant effect.

But please, note: these definition are mine, I am not quoting any critic of
aesthetics, therefore I am the only one who should be held responsible of
my own words and definitions here.

I would like to conclude my post thanking the Mighty Lord Jesus, the Holy
Mary and all the High Rows of Angels and Archangels that Old Europe has
this passion for infinite sub-definitions .

Erminia