The Fantastic World between Modernism and Postmodernism

Morell's work is extremely interesting in terms of modernism and post-modernism because its polymorph essence which makes this artist one of the best and most innovative artists in last two decades. 
If we take his whole ouvre we can cleary see how his most mature work is not done following always the same rules. Rules are not precise and the concept of art is incredibly wide: projects such as "Theatre" and "Photograms", for example, are so ontologically different but so close in terms of feelings at the same time.

He decided consciously to leave behind the rules imposed from the Academics and the modernists, embracing the idea of art as a something that links more capacities and media. He builds up and manipulate the scenes he's photographing. He's making questions about the essence of art. As the postmoderns he creates an art that hits strongly the viewer in a way that he doesn't understand what he does have in front of him.
But his ambiguity is notable: at the same time the construction is so modern, structured, sometimes also classical.
The use of B&W and the elegance of his photos is typical of the modernist movement more than the post-modernist. 
He's a player, he plays with reality trying to make it look better, not so different from works such as Eggleston's or Weston's. 
While the pop culture doubtless interests him, his desire to develop and study the possibilities his media can give is too much modernist and puristic for a post-modernist.
From this point of view Morell is hard to define because his personal style so saturated of two cultures that lived in the same period but he gives us a great way to understand those two movements in a more clear way.

http://www.abelardomorell.net/

http://www.amazon.com/Postmodernism-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192802399/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305657168&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Postmodernism-Movements-Modern-Eleanor-Heartney/dp/0521004381/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305657184&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Since-1900-Antimodernism-Postmodernism/dp/0500285357/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1305657184&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/Camera-Obscura-Abelardo-Morell/dp/0821277510/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305657219&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Abelardo-Morell-Monographs/dp/0714845728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305657219&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Oxford-Worlds-Classics-James/dp/0199535671/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305657239&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Dalloway-Annotated-Virginia-Woolf/dp/0156030357/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1305657265&sr=8-14