According to the front page of http://www.artsmia.org/modernism/ modernism is artists of an era looking forward to escape the past, in my own paraphrasing. However looking forward isn't often seen as such. It's seen as drawing upon previous influences to create new ideas. This grounds new art in the past for the most part. Only those artists whose style is so unique and distinctive that past influence is undetectable aren't dropped into this category, but those radicals sometimes don't get very far.
Moderism, like Post-Moderism, in my opinion, are the two categories of art that need to be constantly dedefined. Afterall, wasn't Impressionism once modern? It would have been the modernism of the time, but got recalled, renamed, and given a thin veneer of dust to drop into the history books. Modernism however cannot be a past style otherwise it isn't modern. And yet, when I think of modernism, I can't help but think of when I was probably first exposed to the term in the 1980's and so those styles to me remain the epitome of moderism.
Consequently, I never understood post-modernism. How can we paint what hasn't even happened yet? Post as an affix means after the fact. After modern is the future, and I think if we could see into the future, we'd have a whole slew of things before the time, other than art. But Post-modernism, like modernism, becomes ingrained my mind in relation to when I learned it, and I can't help but think of big meaningless shapes that people look at but don't want in their house.
Moderism, however doesn't necessarily need to be an enigmatic moniker onto art we can't necessarily identify as modern. It is simply a matter of finding what everyone else is doing and apply your own sense of flair to the common art. Or be a trend setter, work until you think you have a great design and replicate constantly with minute variations, commonly referred to as flooding the market. If it catches on then, welcome to modernism; if it doesn't, then try again.
Some time back I assigned the exercise of "The Universe According to Mr. Jingles", and I wasn't talking about the "Green Mile" mouse. I was talking about how any person might perceive the structure of the universe. I chose a forensics specialist, I think when CSI came out, and how that person might perceive the structure of the universe.
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