I've been having a little conversation within a conversation about Formalism on Facebook. I struggle because some of these people have read a lot of philosophy, and I have read, basically, none, but I have some ideas about art, maybe not always the correct ideas.
I brought up that, as a student, I remembered discussions about "Pluralism". I don't remember having discussions about Postmodernism until I was already out of school. I tried to delete that but I guess, not fast enough. Maybe if I had taken a class with Josh Kind I would have heard about Postmodernism. Probably.
Saul Ostrow Pluralism was a code word for regionalism/ and minor practices - rather than diversity - and multiplicity, which is what post-Modernism was meant to signal.
So, upon further reading - A kind of populism or democratization in the artworld. The idea that the outer regions could produce anything as vital seemed to threaten the Mega-center, and then in a reverse way, the artists "out west" had chips on their shoulders. It's kind of insulting in a way, but you can go live and New York if you want to, or you can always carry around with you the stigma of working and living outside New York, and so, outside the artworld.
Both Pollock and Rauschenberg came from those outer regions, but they had to create their work in NYC for it to be validated, or maybe their work would not have developed somewhere else? I suppose you could wonder about that, argue about it. They're both gone.
The "isms" keep shifting in their meanings over time. Stella's work shifted greatly itself - I wonder if that's related somehow, and how conscious was he in that shift. Were his minimalist early works too confining?
I wonder if west coast art is considered "regional/minor"? I suppose it is, just like Chicago. And I live in Arizona, not even... But still, I persevere, kind of.