The Modern Grotesque Body

Abstract

Are modernism and the grotesque historical art movements, confined to a specific series of contexts and causes, or are they genres—styles of writing that appear and reoccur in response to changing social and economic circumstances, unbound from a specific moment in time. Why be grotesque and shocking then and today? This conclusion argues that modernism demonstrates the inherent modernity of the grotesque as a response to new and uncertain developments in technology and society that conventional language of realism cannot capture or understand. The modernist grotesque body acts as a framework for understanding how artists and authors respond to modernity, and more needs to be done in analysing how modernism and the grotesque persist today, including in meme culture and social media.