Modernity's Posthumous Life: From Documenta to Bauhaus, Artists Revisit a Tired Concept

In a critical essay for artpress, Thibaut de Ruyter examines the contemporary relevance of modernity and modernism in art. He argues that the term 'modern' has become so polysemic that it requires constant redefinition. De Ruyter traces the resurgence of modernist themes to Documenta 12 (2007), which posed the question 'Is Modernity our Antiquity?'—a query that became a cliché in art circles. He critiques the 2009 Bauhaus centenary exhibitions at Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau and New York's MoMA for reducing the school to a decorative style. However, he praises Sabine Breitwieser's exhibition 'Modernologies' (first shown at MACBA Barcelona in 2009, then at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw until April 2010) for offering a rigorous, pluralistic approach to modernity. De Ruyter notes a proliferation of artists appropriating modernist architecture—from Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographs of Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building to Cyprien Gaillard's videos set in Ricardo Bofill's postmodern complexes. He warns that much of this work amounts to superficial imitation, lacking the ideological substance of the original movements. The essay concludes that modernity has become a style, emptied of its progressive, social content, and that no new prefix (hyper-, alter-, meta-modern) has successfully revived its meaning.