- WWI 1914-1918: 16 million killed, 20 million wounded
- WWII 1939-1945: 60 + million killed
-art's relationship to politics: 1940s-50s in U.S. = disenchantment w political art---> abstract expressionism becomes galvanizing aesthetic
-abstract expressionism: the finally realized vision of greenburg's theory of modernism- flatness, depthlessness, frontality, two-dimensionality, appeal only to the eyes, no sense of space; flatness is unique to pictorial art, painting of painting
- rejecting politics by retreating into abstraction
- knowledge of mexican muralism
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| mural- jackson pollock 1943 movement, energy in linework dynamism bright colors layering edge to edge composition slivers of canvas seen but conservators don't want to restretch the canvas & disturb the paint path from figurative paintings to abstraction & letting his lines go free vaguest suggestion of figures war (WWII) painting radical chance derived drip as response to atomic weapons |
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| one (number 31, 1950)- pollock letting gravity intervene & paint to drip inviting chance to determine the lines that touch the canvas uses housepaint, industrial paint, paint stick, dried brushes, etc.: non-artistic materials "all over" pictures as opposed to easel painting rejecting history of western painting through one-point perspective, thinking about painting as window into another world all surface no center, no place for eye to rest |
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| autumn rhythm, number 30- pollock 1950 black frequently enters in- calligraphic |
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| stenographic figure- jackson pollock 1942 surrealist but calligraphy? lines automatic drawing idiograms/symbols dream symbology? |
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| totem lesson 2- pollack 1945 automatic drawing idiograms/symbols |
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| moon woman cuts the circle- pollock 1943 intertwining of symbolic figures animated/active/sense of motion/aliveness abstracted to extreme degree- unclear what we're looking at |
-revolutionary style
-embodiment of ambition for absolute liberation
-modern art was slipping: become dull & repetitious or artists were defecting to earlier forms
-did not seem like pollock accomplished something
-the "act of painting," the new space, the personal mark that builds its own form & meaning, the new materials = cliches of college art departments
-created some magnificent paintings but also destroyed painting
-random play of hand on canvas became increasingly important, less attached to representation
-automatic approach to art
-knew the difference btwn a good & bad gesture- took time to think of when to "act"
-far from the idea of a complete painting
-no identifiable form
-four sides of canvas are left-off of the activity --> imaginations continue indefinitely
-all-over unity, freshness of personal choice
-mural scale paintings = ceased to become paintings, became environments
-doesn't offer us familiarity like tromp l'oeil
-space of creations not clearly palpable- can experience spacial extension by moving in & out of of -lines & splashings
-pollock has a certain blindness, a mute belief in everything he does
-his crudeness is frank & uncultivated, unsullied by training or finesse
-artists will show us the world that has always been around us but ignored
-all will become materials for concrete art
- europe vs. U.S. mentality; many european artists came to U.S. & mentored american students
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| cubism & abstract art- alfred barr 1936 cover of exhibition catalog for cubism & abstract art chronologic diagram of art movements & how they relate to one another text in black representative of white european people, in red is non-european inspirations |
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| how to look at modern art in america- ad reinhardt 1946 tree branches out to the present argument that illusionistic painting is dying |
- 1940s: aesthetic (abstraction & representational) & individual politics (communism) conflicts
- modernist theory gains traction--> american artists skeptical of art w burden of political ideals
- embrace of abstraction = embracing artists' freedom to make what they want to make & develop their own aesthetic
- retreat into apolitical modernism lays the ground for 1950s as "american century" for politics & art
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| "the irascibles" life magazine 1951 artists seeking own style w personal painterly mark irascible = a person easily made angry? group boycotting "american painting today" exhibition |
- abstract: achieve transcultural/universal mode of expression that connected to something fundamental in human nature
- expressionism: personal mark/painterly autograph
- influenced by carl jung's idea of collective unconscious
-interested in native american & ancient mythology
-universal symbols/modes of expression
-modern man discourse: explanation for collage of ideas that artists are interested in, interrogation of who is the modern man, how do we characterize him, what sort of art best expresses modern man
- herald rosenburg vs. clement greenburg
rosenburg:
-performative gesture is the important part of work
-romanticizing act of painting itself
-canvases are aftereffect of the real work of art of battling w the canvas
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| stills from jackson pollack 51- hans namuth 1951 video of pollock working helps rosenberg develop his ideas |
- not trying to make propaganda through abstract art
-pollack's partner
-same sources but art is so different
-limitations bc she was a woman
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| composition- lee krasner 1949 |
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| untitled- krasner 1949 |
vs.
"the man in the gray flannel suit" = male counterpart to 50s housewife (rise of mass culture, awareness of cultural power of consumption, post-WWII expansion of economy, participate in economy by buying things)
willem de kooning:
-moves back & forth btwn figure & abstraction
-never gives up on figuration
-almost collages of body parts
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| untitled- willem de kooning 1948-49 almost calligraphic |
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| excavation- de kooning 1950 dense overlay of shapes & figures |
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| woman I- de kooning 1950-52 fragmented & reassembled female bodies aggressive |
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| woman number 5- de kooning 1953 masculine power of abstract expressionism became overtly sexual violent; canvas as female body? |
- jazz influences abstract expressionism
-"the world wasn't beautiful"
-"what was there to beautify?"
-"saying something that would be important to oneself"
-"start from scratch"
-"we couldn't build on anything"
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| phantasy II- norman lewis 1946 unclear bodies |
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| harlem courtyard- norman lewis 1954 |
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| vir heroicus sublimus- barnett newman 1950-51 color field painting large abstract planes of color small vertical lines called zips |
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| who's afraid of red, yellow, & blue III- newman 1966-67 mid. 20th century approach to sublime- aesthetic experience of being overwhelmed by the terrifying beauty, so immense that you lose sense of self, connected to something larger than you |
-mounted traveling exhibitions of abstract expressionist art
-promote image of U.S. as culturally advanced & avant-garde (cultural warfare)
-openness to debate= freedom of expression
-some exhibitions were overtly supported by CIA
-pollock elevated even further by his solo show
-exhibitions are major cultural events bringing the culture/artwork into their lives (no internet)
-globalization of contemporary art, building of art discourse
-investment in cultural & psychological warfare = why CIA wants to invest in exhibitions
-make people see U.S. as better culture bc we can support this art
-artists are non-political but art becomes ideological weapon to show U.S. as democratic & progressive
eva cockcroft: (ignorance of artists that they were being turned into commodities; insulting artists for not being more self-aware)
-"rejecting materialistic values of bourgeois society... indulging in the myth that they could exist entirely outside the dominant culture in bohemian enclaves, avant-garde artists generally refused to recognize or accept their role as producers of a cultural commodity"
-"abstract expressionism, weapon of the cold war"
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