Figurative painting and sculpture in the post-truth age

Before modernism, there was a 'God' at the source of all natural events and at the center of life, who could not speak of a search for truth. With revolutions and trade, modernism dominated Europe and America. Rationalism and rationality prioritized modernism, excluding all traditions, and with the Renaissance and Reformation, the state administration removed religion and placed reason/science in the center. Modernism, which turned into monophonicism with colonialism and World Wars, lost its power over time and with the developing technological possibilities, and left its place to 'postmodernism', which means 'post modernism'. There has been debate about whether postmodernism is an anti-modernism and its scope. Great narratives such as 'truth' in modernism, science and rational approach have evolved into subjective thoughts and trivialization of truth with postmodernism. People, whose perceptions have started to change with the traditional media, are experiencing a digital evolution with the wars they watch on TV and their life transformed into a virtual world. Moreover, this evolution does not take place only around itself. Man is the main object of this evolution. The human being, who can think what he thinks, can imagine beyond space and time, has exposed the world of images since the most primitive times. He started from a reality with the figures he drew on the cave walls and the goddess figurines whose fertility he believed in. There is also a reality that figurative painting and sculpture establish with objects in the outside world. For a long time, artists have transferred the objects they see in the outside world into their works. This situation has turned into an identity where content and concept come to the fore rather than form with conceptual art. With postmodernism, the globalizing world, capitalism, and developing technology, concepts and knowledge have become ubiquitous at any time. Art, which does not progress independently of the society in which it lives, has taken its place in the post-truth period by getting its share from the virtualized life, abundance of content and consumption frenzy. One of the leading international figurative works of today, in this period when the truth has become insignificant; Marlene Dumas, Alex Katz, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst are studied in a post-truth context. In addition to these, Eyüp Ataş works are considered in the same context, considering that they reflect the characteristics of the post-truth period.