Inducing knowledge by enduring experience: The function of a postmodern pragmatic aesthetic in Linda Montano's 'Living Art'

In Has Modernism Failed? (1984), Suzi Gablik calls for a postmodern art that has preserved the values that modernism lost over the 20th century, stating that only through "direct knowing" may we be shocked out of art-for-art's-sake. In Art As Experience (1934), John Dewey similarly proposes that "thinking is a kind of doing," recommending an instrumental art in one's drive to better him/herself.; Contemporary artist Linda Montano challenges the status quo by exploring the nature of art beyond its material value. In her Living Art performances (1970--1986), Montano creates a postmodern pragmatic aesthetic that is conducive to the unique interchange between knowledge and experience.; Using descriptive analysis, this study investigates the functional relationship between postmodernism and pragmatics as an aesthetic in performance art. Particularly, it addresses how Gablik's theory and Dewey's methods provide a framework in which Montano's art may be discussed as instrumental to both self and society.