Pollock emerged on the heals of the war, in the shadow of McCarthyism and the atom bomb.The ideals of "freedom and truth " were everywhere. There was a new urgency in art. Kline, Gorky, Reinhart, Rothko Newman, all died young, three from suicide. Everyone was drinking .The museums were suddenly buying up modern art faster then Clement Greenberg could coin new theories of art.
There was a new appetite for work that lacked an encoded message. Direct work. Not hiding nothing.
sound familiar ?
I think it's timely to look at Pollock.
In 19423 Hans Hoffman asked the young painter what the role of nature was in his work. Pollock replied , I am nature.
Read John Berger on the painter with a name like a prize fighter, for whom Harold Rosenberg inaugurated the term "action painter " :
He was indeed a goy, a redneck, who hated verbal theories and didn't read much. He'd never travelled outside the States , he punched people up, and when he was drunk at parties, he pissed into the fireplace. But whatever miracles cowboys may achieve with lassos, no cowboy could dream of controlling paint as Pollock did. This needs repeating several times, because with his notorious drip paintings he came to be thought of by some as a dripster, a drooler, a mere pourer. Nothing could be further from the truth. The suicide (of his art* ) was committed with mastery, and the desperation was very precise.
Berger goes on to say that what was a ruggedly authentic and personal body of art, was transformed through ideological propaganda into a defense of individualism - a cry of despair was turned into a declaration of democracy.
I think there's little doubt that we are returning to a period where action painting will be valued again, live in situ work over the airbrushed overly curated cost bloated work at the far end of this spectrum. There are lessons we can learn from Pollock's example about the perils of political and cultural opportunism in the act of framing work for a public who are capable of looking with their own eyes.
Watch the famous Hans Namuth footage of Pollock at work, wearing the boots Van Gogh might have worn in the field. 1950.
* John Berger wrote about' the suicide of Pollock's art ' as predating the death of the painter himself . my insertion.
31 people reached
There was a new appetite for work that lacked an encoded message. Direct work. Not hiding nothing.
sound familiar ?
I think it's timely to look at Pollock.
In 19423 Hans Hoffman asked the young painter what the role of nature was in his work. Pollock replied , I am nature.
Read John Berger on the painter with a name like a prize fighter, for whom Harold Rosenberg inaugurated the term "action painter " :
He was indeed a goy, a redneck, who hated verbal theories and didn't read much. He'd never travelled outside the States , he punched people up, and when he was drunk at parties, he pissed into the fireplace. But whatever miracles cowboys may achieve with lassos, no cowboy could dream of controlling paint as Pollock did. This needs repeating several times, because with his notorious drip paintings he came to be thought of by some as a dripster, a drooler, a mere pourer. Nothing could be further from the truth. The suicide (of his art* ) was committed with mastery, and the desperation was very precise.
Berger goes on to say that what was a ruggedly authentic and personal body of art, was transformed through ideological propaganda into a defense of individualism - a cry of despair was turned into a declaration of democracy.
I think there's little doubt that we are returning to a period where action painting will be valued again, live in situ work over the airbrushed overly curated cost bloated work at the far end of this spectrum. There are lessons we can learn from Pollock's example about the perils of political and cultural opportunism in the act of framing work for a public who are capable of looking with their own eyes.
Watch the famous Hans Namuth footage of Pollock at work, wearing the boots Van Gogh might have worn in the field. 1950.
* John Berger wrote about' the suicide of Pollock's art ' as predating the death of the painter himself . my insertion.
31 people reached