The Fate of Irony

Irony is one of the defining characteristics of postmodernism. But has it now fallen victim to an ironic twist of fate? Has it exhausted its own repertoire or is it still a meaningful strategy, a necessary aspect of our culture, or perhaps even a powerful weapon with which to defend ourselves against fundamentalist world pictures? Where and how is irony understood? Now that we live in an age of globalization, has it become a universal language that draws on a collective pool of references, or is it still culture-specific? These questions and others like them are vital to our understanding of contemporary art. The Fate of Irony explores the many different ways in which ironic strategies can be deployed. The artistic positions presented not only demonstrate a frequently tongue-in-cheek, critical attitude to art’s societal, political and social contexts and systems, but also home in on the intercultural comprehensibility of verbal and pictorial irony.