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Tag Archives: Jackson Pollock
Pulses
Been reading Emerson. He confirms something mentioned more than once on this blog: “Nature hates calculators; her methods are saltatory and impulsive. Man lives by pulses; our organic movements are such; and the chemical and ethereal agents are undulatory and … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Emerson, feeling, Jackson Pollock, meaning, nature, series, sex, time, value
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And more
Back in my teaching days I was once challenged by a student who asked why I was always harping on about Jackson Pollock. Might have mentioned that artist three times in three different classes on contemporary art. The student just … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, time
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Biomorphic
The previous comments on Hofmann and Stella started me thinking about this work. Most of the Moby Dick works combine the curvy forms of the wave/whale shapes with geometrical sections, but this one is completely biomorphic, maybe even expressionist. The … Continue reading
Demons
Some readers might be confused by my references to demons, especially in the context of the quote from Boris Groys in an earlier post, which might leave the impression that they are personal. The demons I’m talking about are social. … Continue reading
Entangled
The interlacing method offers a beautiful dance of forms, as complex and layered as one could want, unified through the unbroken flow of line. Clearly, this is an important source for Pollock. But also important are all the pictorial possibilities, … Continue reading
The Wall
I want to be clear that the inhuman does not mean geometry, which in fact is all too human. The concept is not idealist and has nothing to do with ideas of “purity,” such as pure abstraction or pure form, … Continue reading
Art and the Inhuman
Following on from the previous post, the way that paintings overcome the necessary limits of a single work attributable to a single author is through the objectivity of the aesthetic, but this is not well understood today because both viewers … Continue reading
Scale and Composition
Shep Steiner’s recent comment affirms that T.J.Clark’s recent LRB article on Picasso and British art is worth reading. What Clark is responding to is Picasso’s skill at scaling the image to the size of the canvas, something that all great … Continue reading
Drawing and Writing 2
Frankenthaler’s literary interests are well known, in fact given away by the title of one of her pictures, Seven Types of Ambiguity, also the title of a book by William Empson, one of the most widely read works of literary … Continue reading
Helen Frankenthaler
I was moved by Anne Wagner’s obituary for Helen Frankenthaler in the April 2012 issue of Artforum. Every artist has to make their own canon, never more than today, when almost all artists are educated by art historians. Frankenthaler belongs … Continue reading
Drawing and writing
A few years ago I saw a show of Gego and the distinguished Argentine artist Leon Ferrari at MoMA. Ferrari’s work repels me—a purely instinctive reaction. Normally I might expect that feeling to reverse at some point, but in his … Continue reading
The Theater of Art
Both Scott Lyall and David Court have some skepticism about the concept of theatricality, probably because of the too heavy presence of Michael Fried in that discussion so far, so I thought it might be a good idea to take … Continue reading
One Number 31 1950
Reeling from the De Kooning show, I wandered downstairs in search of something different to look at and was seriously shaken by Pollock’s gigantic One Number 31. Whoever describes Pollock’s work as “flat” has no eyes or body to see … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, form, Jackson Pollock, light, space
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Once only
There’s a lot more to say about time, and a lot that’s important for art, but I would like to talk about my kind of art. I would call it an additive tradition, running from Pollock through Frankenthaler, Louis and … Continue reading
Time and Space
Spent an enjoyable afternoon with Josh Thorpe, an excellent artist with very good ideas about the relative value of experience and theory. He recently published a guide book to Dan Graham’s pavilions, which also contains an interview with the artist. … Continue reading
Rothko’s Flaw
Rothko described Pollock as a “continuous and self sustaining advertising concern.” I think he was talking about himself, because his work depends so much on the caption he provided. The flaw in Rothko’s work is that it is two things, … Continue reading
Organicism Going Forward
I do not want to make a work that is limited by my own ability, or by the narrow compass of what I am able to comprehend on a normal day. In the era of global conceptualism this is exactly … Continue reading
Automatism
Automatism, as I see it, is rarely practiced. The important thing is that the work should emerge out of it’s own immanent tendency. Both the ego of the artist and all teachable methods for voiding that ego are external to … Continue reading
Critical Shibboleths
The thoughts on this blog are getting complex because there are simultaneous independent lines of inquiry. I want to continue with my attempt to show the extent to which “objective” illusions are produced by desire and sustained by knowledge. I … Continue reading
Echo Again
Before carrying on with the topic from the previous post I’d like to pick up an earlier thread that also links the objective matter of abstract painting with the movement of the imagination. Somehow I suspect that quotes from Harold … Continue reading
Pollock’s Place
The previous post is obviously wrong when it says that Pollock’s work was not theorized as a place. Harold Rosenberg‘s famous formulation that the so-called “action painters” had reinvented the canvas as “an arena in which to act,” describes how … Continue reading
Grids Part 5
In a recent conversation with painter Yunhee Min I was provoked to the following thought about grids: What I find most interesting in what you are saying is your use of geometry to make an origin for yourself. [referring to … Continue reading
Carla Accardi
Accardi’s works on transparent plastic stand somewhere between Pollock’s glass paintings and Ingrid Calame’s sheets of Mylar that drape off the wall on to the floor. By using cylinders she doesn’t have to build supports and doesn’t have to rely … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Italian Art, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged Carla Accardi, illusion, Jackson Pollock, space
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Pollock again
The other day saw the abstract expressionist show at the AGO for the third time. As mentioned in an earlier post, Shep Steiner sent me his recent piece on Pollock, including a detailed analysis of Echo, one of the so-called … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, figuration, Jackson Pollock, meaning, nature
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Perspectives on Pollock
Last week Shep Steiner sent me his latest piece on Pollock, a chapter of the book he’s working on. As always his work is really great, and it sent me back to Clark, Greenberg and others. I’m grateful to Shep … Continue reading
Out of the container
Our knowledge of the world is like a net, the more closely woven, the more holes it has. Robert Smithson, Non-site, 1967