How Art History Got Jackson Pollock All Wrong: And Why It Matters
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2024
- The popular art historical take on Pollock is that he is important because he made a radical breakthrough, changed the course of art history, and rendered prior styles of painting redundant. This linear model of art history ultimately undermines the worth of his own paintings because it places more importance on ideas and a contrived history than on the inherent worth of art. Worse, this same rhetoric made his own art redundant when the next waves of radical artists mocked him in order to change art history, etc. A further consequence of this imaginary timeline of art history is that more recent artists reacting to Pollock's legacy are creating extreme cringe pieces that work best as self-parody. While Pollock's legacy has become a joke, his actual work is still outstanding.
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Excellent video! You really summed up the main problems that have been afflicting the art world for the last 50 years or so.
I used to be all about 'realism' in art, was a big fan of hyperrealism, and saw that as a goal I should strive for in my own work. Around my mid-30's I started to get involved with things I'd always avoided, like spirituality, psychology, symbols, Jung, etc., all of which changed my outlook on many things. I'd always seen Abstractionism as a kind of con, done by mediocre artists to make money. But my new outlook made me see representative art as sort of redundant; if what we see is not "all there is", then I should try to express that which can't be seen. All of a sudden, I was making abstract art.
And the art from all those artists that I used to frown upon suddenly made sense! Miró, Kandinsky, Dubuffet, Klee, Appel and--of course-- Pollock, all took on a new meaning for me! They were like pioneers who walked the same path I was now on. Finding Kandinsky's book 'On the Spiritual in Art' made me feel I was on the right track, somehow.
I'd studied Art in college, in both Architecture and Design schools, and never had that connection(spirituality and Abstractionism) been even hinted at. I had to experience it bt myself.
Anyway, all this just to say that I totally relate to what you said about how Pollock's art should be interpreted. I've often found myself trying to get this across to other 'skeptics', but you've done a far better job than I ever could.
@@stevenhanson6057 You know how many people have made that same old drop cloth comment? Be original with your troll posts. At least be entertaining.
Thankyou for telling about Kandisky's book. I never heard of it. Maybe I try to find a couple of lines of it at least. Already the title makes me happy about how it fits my today's greatest thought, a revelation of the Soul in/of Art.
You know the Picasso quote; according to him, you have come to abstractionism in the proper way.
wow, this perfectly describes so much of what has been bothering me about modern art and especially art history narratives. thank you!! well done.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The first time I saw a Pollock canvas felt very similar to the first time I drank espresso. I spent hundreds of hours in small art galleries before I was 5 years old. My father was a working artist and actively traded original pieces with other artists, so our house was like a private gallery of paintings, sculpture, pottery, and handbuilt furniture. I got my own hardcover copy of HW Janson's "History of Art" for my birthday at about age 8 or 10. The Pollock reproductions meant nothing me. Then a few years later, I saw my first Jackson Pollock in a large museum. I walked into the gallery where it was mounted high at the far end. It communicated a feeling of menace or hostility. It loomed over the entire room like a dark spirit. It drew me in while it pushed me away. I stood as a middle school student and and tried to work out what the artist had done, but the technique meant nothing in comparison the feelings that the painting evoked.
Interesting anecdote that says something valuable about the whole of an image and what it radiates being more than the sum or the parts or the way it was produced. Thanks for sharing!
I always think " would it have the impact of it wasn't so big.?" It feels like elitist loyalties where not many have the spaces and tools to produce these large pieces . You can't have a fifteen foot abstract leaning angainst a wall in a room in your two story walk up! Lol
I get the same opposing feelings of being repulsed but at the same time inextricably drawn-in, whenever I come across a big, steaming pile of horse manure while hiking. It's just the same. 😛
"It's not about making art, but making art history." Summed up why us 'ordinary' folks find contemporary art cold and confusing. Thanks! I feel nauseated too!
Yes, that's the key point. The problem with the linear model of art history is that it's based on supposed radical developments that change the course of art rather than on the art itself.
@@artvsmachine3703 Pollock's paintings are awesome to look at. Just brilliant. No explanation or history needed, they just look fantastic.
This "making history" attitude has seeped into all aspects of Western culture. We don't elect competent politicians, we elect "firsts". We don't make good movies, we make "the first movie made by this type of person". We don't have bands creating music, we have "iconic performers blazing trails". It's what cultural erasure looks like.
@@hammondOT There never were competent politicians. 'Making history' has always been a thing. Good music and good films are still being made, and bad movies and music have always been made in any era. And there is good art and bad art just as there always was. Jackson Pollock wasn't good because he was a trailblazer, he was good because he made amazing paintings.
@@wstr9963 I didn't say making history doesn't exist or was never a thing until recently. When things are elevated simply because they're promoted as being a "first" (when closer examination finds that's hardly ever the case. Like Pollock not being a trailblazer.) we're no longer elevating truth, we're promoting lies. And that's usually done in service to political forces. You can enjoy his paintings, I hope you do. Because it's nice to enjoy things.
This was wonderful! (I knew I was right NOT to go to Art school! Went to Paris instead and became the nanny to the daughter of the painter and master engraver, Zwy Milshtein).
I love what Pollock said about his work and it's fantastic that you dug that up and made THIS video. It's very different from most of the silliness one gets about Art. I hear the most insanely pretentious gag-worthy verbiage spewed around the subject and think;
"Why???? Can we NOT just let it alone and let it speak for itself? We don't need subtitles, thankyouverymuch."
You really addressed EVERYTHING that is wrong with the Art World (you could elucidate a bit more on the idiots who speak rubbish about Art. We'd all enjoy that!). Thank you thank you! I subscribed and look forward to MORE of your content!!
(I do have a great soft spot for Sister Wendy who has gotten me to look at paintings I would never have given a second glance to. I miss her extraordinary way of seeing what I could not see... and then imparting that capacity to us, the viewers).
Without really making a point, abstract art, I think, serves the art deco market more AND better than realism.
@@robvangessel3766 Well, THAT's an interesting thought. Are you familiar with Erté? (Very popular during the Deco era. Costume design).
My familiarity with the Art Deco and Noveau movements is fair. Rosalind Erte among a number of them, but I had to look her up to remember. I do like her stuff, tho. My sensibilities lie more with the Magic Realists, especially Magritte. @@andreaandrea6716
I went through what I call my Jackson Pollack stage. It is not as easy as people think. I have painted on the floor my whole life. Its how I paint. Long before I knew who he was. In my opinion art is anything you create. . Jackson is one of many favorites. For many reasons!
Thank-you for such a thoughtful, intelligent, fulsome and liberating analysis; I admire the extensive effort you've invested in an excellent video.
You're very welcome! So glad when people see what the video is actually about and don't just get caught up in whether they already love or hate Pollock.
@@artvsmachine3703 you explained it brilliantly and it's such a great point - the method is not the important part of his work. I had seen and read the same message from him but had also been swept away with the art-world claims for him. In fact, I had come to the same conclusion for my own work and other contemporary art that he asserted - techniques and methods are tools for getting to aesthetic outcomes, not ends in themselves. I dislike most 'process painting' for this reason. But as you say in the next video I watched...contemporary artists seem focused on making art history (mostly through sensationalism) rather than making art - at least the ones cherished by the art-world. But people love to be the one to break big news and announcing the next big thing makes the announcer the next big thing too. Although evolution is the way of most things, revolution is more exciting and saleable. Capitalism, ey.
Saltz is a hack. Great overview of the meaning and significance of Pollock. Thanks so much for this wonderful analysis.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for summing up why I am so glad now that I did NOT go to art school! I wanted to sooo much at the time but couldn't afford it, and now I am immensely grateful I didn't! To have been submerged in the whole "new genre" kind of attitude would have been a soul-killer. I got a great foundation in junior college that served me well, and ultimately realized that, in authentic art, it's not about the initials behind your name or the school you went to - the proof is (so to speak) in the pudding. And it's not what some critic writes words about. Thank you!
"I got a great foundation in junior college". Me, too. I often wish I'd stopped there, or at least after my undergrad education. My MFA program was even more deadly.
@@artvsmachine3703 I'm so sorry! Now I'm even more thankful I didn't go for an MFA later. But this gave you the background and capacity to show how wrong that whole mindset is - THANK YOU!
EXCELLENT video. For a long time I've felt that nobody really gets Pollock's work the way I do, or at least nobody in media I've seen. Who cares whether or not your kid could do it, who cares whether or not it broke new ground. Pollock's best work is so obviously, breathtakingly Great, and so many people are so reluctant to just look at the fucking things!!! LOOK at his paintings!!! That's all it takes to get it. No other information required.
Edit: I am now realizing that this video is less about how much Pollock rules and more about this disease of trying to make art history, rather than art. Still a great video, I agree with everything you said, you're so right king
Another edit: I love how neatly and devastatingly you skewered these critics of abstract expressionism in your conclusion. Really well done
It's both. My objective was to counteract the narrative that has been imposed on art, but I also wanted to legitimize Pollock, which I mostly did through visuals. I combed the internet for the best and largest images, and details of his work. I hoped skeptics would be persuaded just by seeing his work in a visually appealing presentation. The photos of him working are also extremely persuasive. People who don't like Pollock and watched the video, and didn't come away liking Pollock's art more, are not appealed to by aesthetic beauty in and of itself. Though I gather most of the people with the "5-year old" and "drop cloth" and "alcoholic" comments just breezed in to take a pot shot and didn't watch the video.
Didn't used to be a very big fan of Pollock, but someday I bought a book about him regardless. I was like, okay, the paintings are really good and I could definitely see something going on there, but it wasn't until some random night where I watched some video on Disney Animation development and randomly had his book open next to me. I stared a little bit at his Summertime 5 painting (in a tiny format) and after having just seen those Micky Mouse animation panels is where the genius of his work really struck me. Its like a ballet dancer choreographed on the canvas and you can keep looking up and down (or left and right to be more accurate^^) and you'll just see this never ending dance of this stick figure thing.
Its truly a magnificent experience.
Looking at his paintings with that kind of headspace its a completely transformative experience, you'll start seeing this kind of animation in a lot of them and personally I'm convinced that's what he was really about. He started as a figurative painter and that's what he always was at his core.
Interestingly there is this anecdote in the book where at his last exhibition, whenthey showed a movie of him working his drip paintings he had a complete meltdown, shouted 'Im not a phony!', fell back into his alcoholism and died shortly after, never touching a canvas again.
I always wondered why? Did he forget in that moment why he was painting in the first place? With all that fuzz about the action painting thing and the permanent focus on his persona? That's my head cannon at least xD
For me he became my favorite painter, even surpassing the likes of my boy Vincy.
I don't think there is anyone who can truly match his genius in painting.
Nice anecdote. I don't know if people realize that it takes an imaginative leap to understand the work of artists. In other words, the audience has to meet the artist part way. In your case animation triggered the leap. For me, when it comes to Pollock, I saw neurons and firing neural networks: the electrical patterns of brain activity. But in my case that's just the boost to "get" it. Now I just see the paint.
It's more on the coattails of art philosophy.
Care to elaborate?
@@larikmezey3924I'd like to know too
Very well-done video and perspective that I appreciate very much! I've struggled with appreciating Pollock for years. I did/do appreciate it as visual music, but not much more than that. This excellent narrative advanced my appreciation to a degree. I still see Pollock's work as not much more than visual music, which is still pleasing to "consume" and think about, but not revolutionary or that impactful (to me), and reinforced the thoughts I've had about the superficiallity of art critics who tend to oversimplify and focus on the artist rather than the art itself (ala action painting being the point rather than the art itself). I also think we only talk about "famous" artists, while many, many "non-famous" artists are producing much more impactful and insightful art (IMO) that never get any press.
Right. There's a lot of great art being made that doesn't get much attention at all. I have featured unknown or little known artists on my blog, and am one myself.
This video is amazing! I think Pollock would really appreciate it. You nailed it with the satire that is radicalism as well as children wanting to make art history and not art, well done! I am truly grateful you made this.
Much appreciated!
AWESOME! Thanks for showing.
You bet!
Love this insightful piece.
Jackson made pictures that resonate with people when they take the time to look.
Well done!
I like to understand Pollock's action paintings (and similar works) as the act of "automating" the creative process by collaborating with forces that are somewhat beyond the artist's control: gravity, air resistance, velocity and viscosity of the paint.
That's a good way of putting it.
Performance art = the art of the Grift
Postmodernism is so f-ing stupid. Pollock was alright, but the rest of it is just irrationality personified. Look at me, my parents had sex once.
I think the comparison to music as an analog to the visual experience of a Pollock piece is a great way to start appreciating his work. Thank you for another great video.
Cheers. Yes, if you apply any ideas about art to music, it is a litmus test of their validity. It works every time. Somehow we are much less vulnerable to BS about music than we are to it about art.
Indeed. I can feel the jazz in Pollock's work in much the same way I feel Mozart in Rothko's. I guess it's all an expression of vibration.
Maybe the comparison is great because Pollock told us himself Jazz was an inspiration.
Or, rather, Pollock made the comparison because it reflects reality, and this comparison between abstract art and instrumental music needs to be made again and again because, for some reason, some people demand that all paintings be representational.
Best video I’ve seen all year! Thank you.
Wow, thanks!
"I just think they're neat."
Jokes aside, I admit I'm the perfect reflection of "I don't know much about art but I know what I like," and think his work is more interesting than a lot of more conventional approaches just because it's a cool sort of texture to get lost in. I don't care what critics say very much, but it's real cool to see someone go into depth about misconceptions. Good vid, man.
Pollock was also influenced by the ritual dances of Native American “sand painters”. From the little I understand about it; they would mark out an area on the ground in which they would dance once they had prepared themselves to channel certain spirits. In their hands they would carry coloured sand which they would gradually pour onto the ground. At the end of the dance an image was left which recorded the movements of the dancer and which could be read for meaning. Then the image would be blown away by the breeze, leaving the ground as it was before.
I find that observing Pollocks paintings with this in mind is helpful. I also find the film of him painting instructive, too, because you can see the rhythm, dynamism and grace with which he moves around the painting and this “body language” is recorded on the canvas, becoming part of the work’s content alongside all the other decisions he makes in the painting process.
He worked with the Navaho. He worked to show nature. And the move and become nature.
@@JoshuaShipton-g7j 👍
@@JoshuaShipton-g7j he also worked with the CIA
Great video! Informative, funny, well-edited, personable, and thought-provoking.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Glad you enjoyed it.
If I were an art history professor, I would make my students watch this. Why is it such a radical concept to listen to the artist's thoughts on their own work? Throughout this video, I couldn't help but think of the line from the film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance, about printing the legend over the facts. So it goes with everything...
I just subscribed to your channel. Looking forward to watching your old videos.
Thanks Andrew. I should have a new video out within a week.
Thank you for this. It feels like a beautiful embrace.
You're very welcome
This was a very comprehensive look into Jackson's Art, who really guided a meditating form of painting that is modernly relevant as well as insightful.
Thank you.
For me, far more meditative that Rothko, for example.
@@kokolanza7543good day, why do you think this? Not that I disagree with you, just wondering about your perspective. I had to revisit Rothko's Art from time to time & I could see his patience with spatial relationships as well as the consistency of keeping his colors pragmatic, even when it was about blocks of colors.
I am guessing that Rothko weighed in time & space, possibly bringing one into thinking thus meditating (even if it was reactionary).
I think that Jackson's Art was meditative in an active sense, a lot was going on in those canvases but it was not crowded to the point the meditativeness was dismantled.
Hi @@shaunlaisfilm It's likely that I'm not getting everything from Rothko (or any artist). I'm a pretty active long-term meditator (an empty attentive mind) and am strongly drawn to more representative things than Rothko - Medieval painting for example, considering that as portraying not dogma but the inner life & a particular spiritual 'narrative'. 19th & 20th c Japanese scenes of nature or daily life. You have spent more time with Rothko than I have. Solid colors and shapes have not connected with me. Nor have Kandinsky's quite different and supposedly spiritual paintings, though I keep working on it. I love that he and so many others of his generation connected with Theosophy. That indicates to me that they 'got it'. Also the social commitments of so many German painters of the 20s. Always glad to learn from the reactions of people who are genuinely engaged with 20thc artists that I just don't get. Pollock is so much busier than Rothko, maybe they're complementary? Thanks for your thoughts! It bothers me a little that Rothko was a big smoker, seems a bit contradictory to the serenity & detachment of spirituality. Of course the 20th c was such a nightmare (still not over) that it seems all art, and all of the rest of average folks (like me, b1947) were pathologically influenced by a deeply sick and wrongheaded scientism and consumerism. Anyway, my 2¢ from rural Arizona about 50 minutes from the Phoenix Art Museum. Sending good vibes.
@@kokolanza7543good day, I hope that all is well. Thank you for the intellectual response.
I do understand your comparison when it comes to past centuries of Art being placed next to Kandinsky & Rothko. The clarity & even the efforts of clarity in an Italian Renaissance painting is still fascinating even when it is visually evaluated in today's time.
Jackson's Art was busier than Rothko. While he was alive, I don't know if Rothko had accomplished what he was seeking, even when he was calculating these solid colors, it could be one of these investments where the outcome was undervalued when it first emerged.
What Rothko was seeking could be the same internal visual map that Robert Rauschenberg was seeking with using the color of white: which could be about abiding to simplicity while still wanting a profound mission to be a possibility.
I think post 20th Century Art, specifically Painting, had a more logical sense of clarity.
Perhaps Jackson's activity in his Paintings did maneuver away from the precision in the rhythm of colors that are seen in a Kandinsky painting or the specificness in a pair of colors in a Rothko painting, yet at the same time, the clarity in allowing the drips, drops & lines of expressionism in a Jackson painting was something that is actively alive even after he passed away is something that is ongoing, encouraging in many aspects, especially in this 21st Century.
@@shaunlaisfilm Hi Shaun, Richard here aka kokolanza. Thanks for your thoughtful insights and ideas about some major 20th c artists! I’ve checked out Rauschenberg some more following your comment on the “internal visual map that Robert Rauschenberg was seeking with using the color of white: which could be about abiding to simplicity while still wanting a profound mission to be a possibility.” That’s a good place to start, opens a window. Still looking into his works, no observations yet. That goat thing turned me off, but familiarity with the larger corpus and vibe of his works is more useful than considering just one work with little context.
My thoughts may be of no use or relevance to you. In the first place, I’m not really knowledgeable about art. Fwiw, my background is literature and philosophy, and I’m of a different generation than you. I feel a growing need to be with the visual impressions and statements artists provide. Really enjoy the experience! It seems to me that art has been upended and overturned by 3 things in the past 150 years or so - a different clientele, more based in $$ than in the Church, aristocracy, and tradition; the totally disorienting loss of cultural norms; and the effect of technology, particularly photography, film, and the great new ability to reproduce artworks so that we can experience them through inexpensive repros, books, and on the computer. It’s as if the ground was ripped away from under all of our feet, and artists have been very sensitive in reporting their responses to the traumas and new possibilities. A LOT of 20th c art seems to be experimental, much of it pretty unsuccessful, and a lot of it simply commercial. Not all, by any means. All of it is transitional, as is our global system - and capitalism, by its very nature (K. Marx). As is often said about Rauschenberg's contribution in particular, art in general has been greatly opened up and its limits greatly expanded during this entire period.
So many early 20th c artists jumped on the Modern industrial bandwagon up to and even after WWI, when in fact there was so much destructive, inhumane, and coarse in it. Of course, I have the advantage of looking back at the whole thing 100 years later. I mean JUMPED on the machine bandwagon without, it seems to me, thinking it through. That’s just my impression. Guys like Léger I find a bit hard to take (dehumanizing?) and the Italian futurists (speaking generally). But there are so many artists I admire or find intriguing - di Chirico the first name that comes to mind - that there’s no need to gripe about anybody. You may be in a completely different place artistically, which is much appreciated to hear.
If you feel like it, you can check out mydelululifedotcom, my blog currently in abeyance while I work on the book (The Land Beyond Thought). Or send a message to transletixathotmaildotcom to continue the conversation. Best wishes for your endeavors as you go through this amazing moment of history. I’ll be continuing with Rauschenberg for a bit, he seems to have a rich artistic imagination. R, in mining town AZ.
I'm a photographer, who has been agonising over questions such as "what is art?" There are a lot of people who like to sound very clever while saying nothing.
So, I will simply say thank you.
Subscribed.
I'm planning on covering that precise issue in an upcoming video. Stay tuned. It will be likely titled, "Sorry, It's Not Art."
@@artvsmachine3703 I look forward to seeing it.
For what my uninformed opinion is worth, I feel the answer can only truly be found by going wider - cinema, poetry, music, architecture, etc.
That aside, I'm doing that thing where I'm sucking in huge volumes of information, hoping my brain will synthesise some sort of an answer at some stage. The question seems to be in the category of hard problems.
Anyway, thank you again.
You're right to pan back. What do all those art forms have in common? It's aesthetics. Art is a coalescing of meaning in a sophisticated aesthetic production. Art speaks in the language of aesthetics, which is a kind of coherent arranging of form, sound, color, etc... If something isn't communicating in the language of aesthetics, it's not art, it's something else. Everything can't be art, and need not be.
Wow! Thank you, thank you…I have had these same thoughts since the early 1990’s. I hold a BFA and an MFA. I am so tired of the Joke, deconstructionist, mockery art that has been pushed for way too long. Cheers-Greg
Jackson Pollock is the reason why I took up art. His paintings are very inspiring.
Why??
I love when people say “a five year old can do those”. As an artist, I quickly let them know “ no, they absolutely cannot”. If you’re an artist you know what I’m saying.
Yeah, they just don't get it. And I like to ask those people what art do they like, and usually they can't think of anything that they really give a hoot about. So, they are like people who aren't really interested in music, taking a dump on free-form avant-garde jazz. If you don't even like a form of art, you aren't going to like the more esoteric, complex, or difficult varieties of it. They are really just announcing their philistinism (ignorance).
What use is art if only another artist can appreciate it?
What use is art if it doesn't move you without a complimentary Wikipedia article and a photo/video of making of said art?
If you say: "You don't get it", I say: "That's exactly my point."
In A Gadda Da Vida can stand on its own. So can a Dalí or a Banksy. Or a drawing of a house and a tree by a 5-year old.
The art in this video is just artsy art for artists.
You don’t have to be a artist to understand that a five year old can’t do it.
I disagree largely. Especially in a loose abstract form, a child certainly could do this. My response is always “well then they should!” Being a successful artist is as much about networking and sales as it is about doing the work, if the kid enjoys doing it, fuckin do it. If they’re successful, cool! I’m not gonna be mad about a child prodigy.
You don't need to be an artist or have any extraneous information in order to understand the work. This is particularly true in the case of artists like Pollock. Rather, you have to spend time with the work. That's what he said, that's what I said, and that's reality.
The most popular quote from this, fantastic video, is "it's not making art, but art history." Which i believe is true but to boil it down further and to spread it further amongst the "Instagram art" of today it's making art just to be seen. In a sea of art that's so readily available for viewing, like we're all on a boat in this sea, one has to master and manipulate the algorithm to inch towards the top. I love how you pointed out that what made Pollack more famous than his actual art were the photograps of him in action. And then i open up Instagram and everyone who wants to be seen is pressured into making a reel of them in action. By far MY favorite quote of this, fantastic video, is at the very end: "unwitting, cringe level self parody." True groundbreaking art exists and it's being made all the time but it's hard to see in this sea of parody. I love how in the end Pollack went back to what i feel is far more exceptional art. My quip to all the "drip" artists out there is "what else you got?" Do you have the license to shoot a super soaker full on paint onto a canvas in your underwear during a cleverly crafted 15 second reel with the latest pop culture song being used in the background? Or is that all you have to offer?
Thanks for the support! It's great to get more in-depth and insightful comments. I enjoyed this bit quite a lot: "My quip to all the "drip" artists out there is, "what else you got?" Do you have the license to shoot a super soaker full on paint onto a canvas in your underwear during a cleverly crafted 15 second reel with the latest pop culture song being used in the background?"
Sometimes with artists like Mondrian, we can see by their early work that they were capable of quite a lot more than one might guess from their mature style, but in other cases, artists presume to be "beyond painting" (see Paul McCarthy) just because they do performance art, and I always want to see the astounding art they did in painting just before they broke through to a whole other level. In other words, let me see your black belt performance before your mystical Matrix Part 2 magical mystery moves.
And while you say that, and it's a great observation, on the other hand, we have all the "my 5-year-old could do that" and "it's my drop cloth" comments that are exercises in dimwittery. The middle ground is so much more rich and interesting.
@@artvsmachine3703 Funny because during your video I was also thinking of the gallery visits I've made with friends who would say similar things. "I could do that." And that's when I'll defend all artists because though I may have strong opinions on what they may create I'll always defend their right to exist. Just setting yourself up with a medium and time aside to make something you call art and thus referring to yourself as one is half the battle. Putting yourself and your work out there isn't easy and no, not everyone can do it wherever they're lacking creativity or they just don't believe in themselves. Some people ride the line between marketer and artists rather well. I've been watching IG followers go from one finger painting disaster to building their website, creating popular reels, submitting requests to have their own shows and actually getting them and sale after sale while this other person is so self conscious and anxious and depressed they need someone else to do that stuff for them because they're going to die in anonymity having their talent and voice vanish while muted blob art person is all over the place because they have no qualms marketing their brand. I have some abstract pieces I've made over the years. Not MY favorite. Usually done to make backgrounds for future projects or just experimentation. And all my non creative friends that come over and look through my stuff absolutely love those. Those are the ones they want to buy. Of course I'll oblige and I do enjoy making them but they're definitely not what I consider my best stuff. But as they say art is subjective. And really most people aren't past the threshold of true art appreciators. They just want something that's going to look good in their living room and compliment the accents of their pillows. And full circle back to Pollack, if Time Magazine, TIME MAGAZINE called that the future of art well then we can be old fuddy duddys so take down the sailboat painting and let replace it with a muted blob art finger painting that has a price tag of 2,000 dollars because it MUST be good.
"They just want something that's going to look good in their living room and complement the accents of their pillows." Ouch! I almost forget these kinds of lowest common denominator takes on art, as well as my snappy retorts from decades ago. It's basically asking art to be the equivalent of elevator muzak. I don't put Muzak on my playlist, and hopefully neither do they. If my art were music, you wouldn't play it in an elevator. I prefer art to be like a hard rock song. You listen when you are in the mood and really get into it. You don't play it on repeat in the living room ad nauseum. Art that is designed to be milquetoast is DOA, and, come to think of it, that's why a lot of minimalism and Abstract-Lite adorns the foyers of banks.
Incidentally, you can be unsuccessful at marketing without being "self conscious and anxious and depressed". I put my art out there, but I am not an in-your-face spammer. Someone once said that my art was "jarring." That was a brilliant, one-word piece of art criticism. Also, this is not what people want on their pillowcase. Consider my favorite 20th-century artist is Francis Bacon.
Thanks for the convo.
This video is not about Pollack and it’s a brilliant critique of those who say they followed.
Correct. It's more about the ideas imposed on his art by art historians and critics, and how that has had a negative impact on the art and artists that followed.
on point you said everything i want to say ... this day's art is about the videos you make about how you make art not about the art it's self
When I observed a Pollack, almost immediately I saw him applying the paint. The longer I looked, following many volumes and trajectories, one can see the artist actually moving at each shape and color. It was like watching a ghostly image of its creation completely separate from the piece mistakenly hung on a wall. Created on the floor, it should be experienced on the floor.
I’ve been trying to learn more about art insofar as painting is concerned. This is only the second video I’ve seen from this channel and I love it. I went into this thinking that Pollack was what the critics said which never impressed me and came out of it really needing to see more of his work and truly appreciating it. Great great work
Thank you very much for making this video to put points about Pollock I've always believed and told me a few things about other artists musical or otherwise I often knew nothing about.
You're very welcome. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thank you for a very enjoyable eye opener that has given me a better appreciation of Pollock's paintings, i.e his work rather than his technique.
You're very welcome
Thank you for sharing the secret that Art History is a marketing tool. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Hats off to all my fellow creators who use art to "Say Something" that moves them and the viewer instead of creating something for favorable reviews.
Thanks for the insight. Hard to disagree with your conclusions once you explain them. Well done!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I just like the colors, and the way that it all goes together. I love Kandinsky for the same reason. It does not tell a story, but the color choices seem to create an atmosphere that I enjoy. I just choose not to analyze it too much, I just enjoy.
Well said
Amazing research and perspective on this!!
Cheers! Thanks for watching and commenting.
I experienced two competing threads of personal knowledge of art while taking in your terrific video:
(1) standing in front of the work of Ernst, Kandinsky, Pollock & de Kooning, appreciating slowly the complexity & mastery;
(2) being briefly impressed w/ the novelty of Yves Klein's nude models w/ blue paint being squished on the canvas, Yoko Ono having her clothes snipped off, etc.
The first thread, I always knew, was about *art.* The second thread was more about *ideas* of how to make art-usually bad art.
Pollock & the other great painters made work I return to again & again, appreciating something new each time.
But the work that is stunts, ideas only? One exposure was enough. For ultimately theirs was not art, and thus shallow.
Sorry to hear that Jerry Saltz got it wrong, because I like his book, How to Be an Artist.
Anyway, thank you!
Well said.
Ok this is the best video explainer on Pollock I've ever seen
I’ll always remember when I overheard a guy at the Met telling his girlfriend that people only like Pollock because they’re told they should like him. I think people either like him because his work is nice to look at or dislike him because they think he’s pretentious. The irony is that the artistic critiques of Pollock end up exemplifying that “edgy artist who over relies on theatrics” way more than Pollock ever did.
There's truth in all that.
This Vid is Fantastic!!!! you nailed it!
Cheers. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Having spent around 20 years trying achieve a representation of Jackson’s work I can confirm it’s pretty much impossible , because it’s as much the person as the art . A not particularly nice person by all accounts who did little to improve his disposition , and even deliberately over shadowing his wife’s Lee Krasner’s work in order to further his own career . But all that aside he was an artistic powerhouse , a man of his time . And thanks to Peggy Guggenheim we able to see, the fruits of his labour . Love or hate his work where still discussing his contributions , as so many others will be as leaves in the wind and disappear without a trace .
That sounds fairly accurate according to my compas of reality.
Being an artist for all of my life... it's disheartening to see that being an artist, that is seen in our modern world is to be the most vile, weirdo you can possibly be just to make an impact!
I'm for a visual, spiritual experience, expressed through the properties of paint and other mediums . I refuse to be degraded as an artist because my perceptions are not found in a garbage bin.
Ah, imagine taking a 10-week college course with Paul McCarthy where you are expected to make "new genre" art. Fortunately, there's a whole rainbow of art out there. I am trying to stand up for visual art that uses visual language in a sophisticated way and argue against the anti-art tradition that says painting is dead, the author is dead, and conceptual art has replaced it once and for all. When I was in art school, I stopped painting because I wouldn't be taken seriously. Now I reject that belief system.
I like this comment and I appreciate the video as well. Thank you!
I found this a great video. Congratulations. I will definitely watch more of your content.
Awesome, thank you!
That's how it felt to be a traditional artist in the last decades of the twentieth century. The few teachers I dealt with at the college level were very supportive of post-abstraction. While I liked some the abstract, and still do, what came after wards made no sense, and all an artist with some sense of realism (or reality) was to do was to strike out on your own, like an itinerant artist in the colonial days. You work a full time job, and paint for yourself or for a few others when you have time, while the colleges and the major galleries preached what was really a false history.
I wasn't able to make the art I wanted in college, and after my first quarter in grad school I stopped painting and drawing completely because it was considered reactionary, redundant, and irrelevant. Now I do whatever the hell I want.
Love this critique, thanks! 🌼
Glad you enjoyed it!
I mean, his art would make a good album cover. Look at the Stone Roses album. But you could easily just do it yourself with minimal time.
Nope. You cannot. Because it would be a copy.
Yeah, it's not "minimal time" either. Even the work of the best forger's isn't convincing to a trained eye.
Try and come down from those particularly high horses chaps. Does it sound like Kev is suggesting that his album cover would simultaneously be an intricate forgery aimed at duping the art world into thinking Pollock had come back from the dead for one last gig? EMBARRASSING.
An entertaining, informative excursion into art history and criticism by a videographer who is also a good writer.
Cheers! Thanks for watching and commenting. I'm alse heartened that someone noticed the writing that is also a part of the video.
Thank you for mentioning Janet Sobel.
I do feel nauseated. Thanks. Although I assert that these pieces might be worthwhile if footage of their creation were played in reverse.
Reversing might help. I think some of them have themselves moved on by now. I know the Shart Abstract Expressionist is now making paintings of weird frogs and the like. Much improved. Ah, you know who Janet Sobel is, "The Ukrainian Grandmother of Action Painting".
One of the best videos I have watched, if not the best.
Thanks so much!
In the 1940s and 1950s one often heard the moment “but what does it mean ?” Telling them to just look at it never satisfied them.
My mother was a painter and studied with students of Puvis de Chavannes and directly with Hans Hoffman. She took me to museums all the time and never made any distinctions between ancient and modern art. Only between good and not so good.
Pollock is an unusually fine painter. Unbelievably lyrical and even profound.
I especially appreciated your close up’s of Monets work. I would not be at all surprised if Valesquez’s work showed the same kind of thing.
I really appreciate your doing this video.
Pollack is timeless and silly performance artists will be forgotten while he sill be remembered. For the art not the method.
Thanks so much for watching and commenting. Yes, your observation about people asking "what does it mean" gets to the core of the matter. To me, it is like asking what a guitar, violin, or piano solo means. Art is to be enjoyed, savored, and slowly imbibed. Art isn't about providing conclusions that align with people's preexisting beliefs or not. I read that the Buddha, when asked if there was life after death, refused to answer, and his reason was something to the effect that a "yes" or "no" answer in words would have no significant meaning in relation to reality. Life and death cannot be summed up as "yes" or "no." And so it is with art. It can't be reduced to a sentence that we either like or don't like or want or don't want to hear.
Your mother was extremely lucky to study with two fine masters with completely different approaches. Puvis de Chavannes died before 1900, so that must have been a long time ago. I don't think about him much, but I just looked him up and was reminded how phenomenal an artist he was. He is extremely underrated. I just added him to my list of artists I want to make a video about.
I wish I could have studied with such great painters. The instruction I got was mostly on the performance art, conceptual, and political ends of the spectrum. Thus, even though I have an advanced degree in art, I am largely self-taught when it comes to drawing, painting...
Cheers!
Crap and charlatanry is indeed a timeless phenomenon. Where is the art in this?
If you watched the video, you'd see how comically bad the art that came out of this tradition was, including vomit, shart, and "egg plop" paintings. But you didn't watch the video, and anyone who did can see right through your comment.
Thank-you Sir for digging...
You bet!
Jackson Pollack‘s interest in psychoanalytic ideas was a very important aspect to his work that was very much ignored by art critics.
Thank you for this. I adore his work but cannot normally read or listen to anything about him without getting annoyed.
You're very welcome!
pollok will always be my second favorite painter after van gogh, i love the vitality nd energy of his works, it is raw movement, those paints are unique because there is no way to replicate them.
and sadly, internet has helped give pollock and his work a sort of bad aura for reasons ill never understand. it is good to see someone making a hnest video about pollock instead of following the trend and hating him for no reason.
Eh, doesn’t matter. The reality is the art is there. It exists. That’s enough. And I’d like to see anyone else do these to his level. First of all, it would be a rip off. Secondly, it’s extremely physically demanding. Thirdly, it’s harder than you think
Thanks for this, well done
Glad you liked it, Don "the painter"!
What a great video. Pairs nicely with Roger Scrutons In Defense of Beauty which has some similar sentiments. I'm honestly curious if you'll cover the involvement of the CIA in popularizing Abstract Expressionism for the sake of winning the Cold War on a cultural front.
Thanks! I think other channels have covered the CIA involvement. I tend to stick to my own personal insights and my favorite art. As I sometimes say, if you can find it somewhere else, I won't bother making a video or writing an article about it. Ah, I think Scruton is right about beauty in the sense that aesthetics are integral to visual art. I don't personally think that anything and everything is art.
Great critique, I enjoyed hearing it.
Much appreciated!
Jackson Pollock's "art" is OF COURSE pure nonsense. Nobody should appreciate them, not even suspect they were meant as art, if the sheets were found anonymously in the garbage in a backyard, without any known history. The emperor's new clothes is simply a psychological phenomenon that exist.
This video is more about the problem with the linear model of art history, where artists are valued for "radical" breakthroughs that supposedly make all prior art irrelevant. This belief system has led to the "egg plop" and paint sharting art which makes Pollock look like da Vinci.
I didn't have time to include it in this video, but there are some sketchbooks of his that show he could draw well. Interestingly, I can easily spot fake Pollock paintings because Pollock did have a highly developed eye and lots of training under a great painter, and I guess it does make a difference who splatters and drips paint on a canvas on the floor. But, yeah, lots of people don't like this kind of art. You might like some of the other art I'll make videos about if I can get out of the starting gate.
@@artvsmachine3703 Some of Pollock's paintings are decorative, even beautiful in an abstract way. But we can find and see exactly the same in a drop of oil in water, and even a child can drop the oil by accident. Pollock may very well have been an OK artist in his youth, but he found it much more profitable to go the lazy way and exploit intellectual naivety, probably even decieve himself. Sorry, but after 30 years of interest in art and art history (I have even worked in an art museum), this is the conclusion I have reached about much of modern so-called art. The Emperor's new clothes.
I see what you're saying, but at the same time, I remember when I discovered the ab ex painters. It was love at first sight. A drawing teacher in Jr. College opened a book and showed us a de Kooning painting, and even across the room, looking at a small reproduction in a book, I was floored. I liked the whole thing about applying paint in a luscious way without it having to be figurative (and I did very tight drawings using a mechanical pencil). But I am not myself an abstract artist, as I like the challenge of representation. And I do feel the abstract expressionists limited themselves and monopolized techniques as part of a marketing agenda. I wrote an article titled "10 Abstract Expressionists and the Signature Styles That Killed Them" back in 2013 about this: artofericwayne.com/2013/12/10/art-vs-exhibitionism/
Whatever reservations we have, however, at very least abstract expressionists were still painting, still trying to make aesthetically compelling images, trying to do something transcendent and meaningful. Compare that to Maurizio Cattelan's banana taped to a wall and Martin Creed's crumpled notebook paper balls, each individually shown and sold on a pedestal. How about the plop egg or shart paintings? Compared to all this, the abstract expressionists are closer to Rembrandt. So, I would say that the Emperor was at least wearing a codpiece back then. Today we mock the idea of caring if the Emperor had clothes or not, and artists flash their audiences.
Art history is far more of a web and the linear approach is very misleading. Have you ever watched the documentary about the Hairy Who and Chicago Imagists? It does a good job explaining this in relation to the Imagists' work and their interests. Check it out. You'd like it.
@@andrewchambers9752 _All_ history is more of a web, and linear history is always misleading (and naive, I should say). For example, abstract painting did not begin with Kandinsky, and not even with Hilma af Klint; I would think that "depictions of the undepictable" had its roots in Book of Ezekiel, and even Ezekiel was probably not the first... And literary historians have told me that already some ancient Greece poets experimented with the _sound_ of words without interest in the _meaning_ of words, which is similar to 20th century "language poetry".
Minimum seven words for youtube algorithm. Very insightful analysis. Thank You
I like how Pollock's work always gets a conversation going. That's the real art to me.
Hunter Biden does that even better.
A car crash can get a conversation going. That should not be what determines artistic value.
@@gabrielamora6265 car wrecks ARE art to me, crash (1996) is my citizen kane
True. A conversation takes place in linguistics. The function of visual language communication is not just to instigate communication in another language. Those who say the purpose of art is to start conversations miss the purpose of art. Art must do something that conversations cannot. Art is not just a prop or visual aid for conversation. This subordinates are to the word, and even to a heap of BS.
The novel by J. G. Ballard was superior to the film by David Cronenberg, but in both cases these are artworks about car crashes (and people who have a bizarre erotic fixation on them), and not just accidents on the street. There's a difference between saying "war is art" and "Guernica is art". The latter is saying that art is art.
Iam a faux finish artist, and i enjoyed pollock's works like i admire a single slab of marble or granite.
Loved this video, thank you. Good criticism of criticism.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm so glad you addressed this subject. There are so many creative people who have not received proper credit for their innovations. I know an inventor in the arts who actually has US patents on them but has received little credit in comparison to the frauds. The biggest fraud is in history books and has a Wikipedia article. Whereas the real inventor was denied a Wikipedia article and has been published only in less well known publications. If that isn't bad enough there is a RUclipsr with a major following who took credit for his art too. He has over 30K likes last time I checked and hundreds of people calling him a "genius", while the real genius is covered-up. 🧚♀
What's the thing, it sounds interesting and I want to complain about it
Pollock was at the right place at the right time.
Probably a true part of the picture. There were probably hundreds, thousands, or more artists who were as good but just didn't have the right circumstances to allow them to flourish.
@@artvsmachine3703
I did the same type thing with water colors
I was in a book store one day and at the cash register were book marks painted like I painted
I had to buy some. The lady at the cash register said her artist friend made them. I said “I paint just like this too!” She asked “What art school did you go to?” I said “None. I just do it naturally” She got miffed and turned up her nose at me and became dismissive
Well, you can see why she was put off. Perhaps if she saw your watercolors she would have been persuaded.
What a awesome video! I just wanted to comment, that you've just gained a new subscribtion but then I realized that I've already been subscribed - whoops. Gotta check out your other works.
Glad you found it. RUclips is snuffing out my channel.
Pollock is exactly what the paint producers were always looking for.
Good one! They would have really loved it if he used artist's paints in that quantity rather than commercial house paints and such.
The reason is that the paint dries quickly. It is the reason they used house paint (unfortunately, this cheap paint flakes and changes color--Pollock's colors have changed a lot). This was acrylic housepaint which had only very recently been invented. Picasso is the first to use house paint, and that is one of many influences of Picasso on abstract expressionists. It also affected the color palette because I don't see that they mixed the colors much. They pretty much used the colors that came out of the can, and these tended to be colors which satisfied bourgeois color tastes for interior and exterior house paint--another unexplored avenue into the influence of house paint on these artists.
Pollock could not have done his paintings with oil because the thickness of the strokes meant he would have had to wait forever to get one layer to dry.
It is important to understand that Pollock would paint a certain amount then wait for it to dry and then paint more. His paint layers do not bleed into each other unless that is an effect he intends, and he,doesn't intend it very often. For the most part, these are distinct paint layers, and this is one way in which Pollock is a very traditional painter. It is very traditional to paint in stages, waiting for each stage to dry. This is why Pollock imitators wind up with mud, but Pollock doesn't.
@@johnryskamp2943 so acrylics have been introduced in order to prevent artists from using wall paint at the home depot store?
Great points and additional info. Thanks!
@@johnryskamp2943 It was oil paint. He didn't use acrylic paint. It was alkyd house paint, still oil paint, but the alkyd acts as a quick drying resin, same as quick dry mediums for oil painters today. It would have taken at least over night to dry on top.
I don't know why you combine art with old school Battlestar Galactica themes, but I love it. That dramatic theme at the start is so over the top and perfect!
Can't believe someone finally figured out where I nicked my opening score from! If you see more of my videos I tend to throw in some self-indulgent creative stuff.
Great art content as well btw, I love your take on Jackson Pollock
I love album artwork! Theres an excellent doc on Hypgnosis (creator of many album covers of the 1970s) called "Squaring the Circle." Highly, highly recommended.
Also, thank you for this video. I value and look forward to your highy informative and aestheticly pleasing videos 😎👍
Oh, cheers. I've been wanting to do videos about album covers. I'll check out the video. Sounds familiar, like maybe he did some punk covers or something. Worth watching again.
@@artvsmachine3703it's definitely worth watching again
Also "Pollock wasnt radical, but was audacious" cool - and Holman, omg 😳 I've never seen his work before...incredible
Ah, somebody caught on to the difference between radical and audacious. Rock on!
Thank you for an insightful talk. You have probably read Allan Kaprow's "The Legacy of Jackson Pollock," but if not, I'm sure you will enjoy it.
I have NOT read that. Will track it down at some point. Not sure if I'll like it or not. Performance artists don't even realize that they are "contemporary theater," in which case they are so far adrift from reality I'm not sure I trust their opinions. But, it is of interest.
Pollock didn't do anything because he had no control over the image. He didn't produce anything. An abstraction of an abstraction isn't anything at all. Pollock story is simply The Emperor's New Clothes retold.
His work didn't require the kind of control that a Dali painting did; that's true. There's a reason there are a ton more fake abstract expressionist paintings than surrealist paintings. But I can tell fake Pollocks from original ones, and that's because there's still control involved, and it matters how developed one's aesthetic sensibility is. For an analogy, a real musician can probably make better music out of throwing pots and pans down a staircase than your average person.
@@artvsmachine3703 My problem is in calling it art. An abstraction of an abstraction is a philosophical impossibility. The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe explained the idea. Pollock work didn't contain any ideas. What he did was make color shows that were interesting to the eye. It took skill to do what he did just like it take skills to produce the kind light shows that were popular during the psychedelic era. People who produce such shows are artisans rather then artists because the medium is the real message.
Haha haters will always hate
@@TomTom-rh5gkBut he said he was just trying to get his message on canvas, and it could have been done in any fasion. I don't know what he was saying either, but apparently he was saying something.
@@nineteenfortyeight6762 Thank you for you answer. The language of art is far to rich to convey messages that can be said in words. But saying he wanted to convey a message isn't enough. In my option and yours is just a good as mine he didn't have enough control over the paint to convey any message. I think we will have to agree to disagree at this point.
Davis Alfaro Siqueiros taught Pollock to do this style. Siqueiros did it first as a teacher to Pollock. Pollock was a fan of Siqueiros and went from new york to Siqueiros' work shop in Pomona California just to learn from him. Watch David Alfaro Siqueiros documentaries.
Siqueiros was undoubtedly an influence. I wouldn't go so far as to give him full credit. My video is about getting away from the linear model of art history, not just changing the players and keeping the domino effect.
I have never seen (in person) a Pollock worth looking at more than once. Rothko took me years to finally appreciate. Pollock is like Covid-19, important and important to avoid.
Gotta' love the COVID-19 analogy. I like that you got Rothko and that it took you years to crack it. I fell in love with all of abstract expressionism at the tender age of 18, but I'm an experimental artist myself and a lover of paint and color. I often find myself sometimes falling in love with artists' palettes and the mixed paint on them over their final products?
Art is like music. There's some great music in the jazz category that I just haven't quite synced with yet. On the other hand, I almost instantly get into any traditional music from India or Pakistan. Some art requires more patience or a greater leap of the imagination for some people. There is definitely something to Pollock, but he may just not be your cup of tea. A lot of Matisse and even Cezanne leaves me cold. So, it's OK to not like some art. We can't all like the same stuff.
Thanks for watching the video. Have a good one.
Such a wonderful comment, Thank you so much. I'm an old musician. Both classical, pop and jazz. I love much of the classic music from the East. Some, like Pollock, are micro tonal; sort of like fine paint splatters; seriously. So enjoyable to share with you. Michael Franks likes Cezanne, so I must too. I am not saying I understand any of the great artist who paint, I am only saying that so much of it moves me, I feel good, happy or sad when being in the presence of their works. Live long, and prosper. Lazoma Chavez. @@artvsmachine3703
Your anecdote brought back one of my favorite memories.. When I was 12, I pulled off the library shelf Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America... thinking it was about fishing! Read it straight through, eyes wider by the page.. What a lesser experience it would been if I'd known what I was supposed to expect.
If it wasn't about trout fishing, what was it about?
I really appreciated the video and the new info you gave me on the artists that came before Pollock, as an artist myself in study I've loved Pollock since the first time I saw his paintings as a child but it was because it captivated me in the way the art felt profound, at the time I had no Idea it was action paiting and came to learn that from school and I genuinely thought he was the first to do that and I thought that was quite important though I did know it had been done a in Japan and China a long time ago, but it does make more sense that he just polished what came before him which does take a bit of the speciality of what he did away but does not render is art obsolete or meaningless on the contraire it just puts it in a more realistic and human space in art history and let us focus more on the art itself because all of his works were always amazing to me just for what they were much before I ever understood what action painting was. I could feel the intent and emotion of his creations but as you said most of the contemporaries came out with blind understandings of what he did and why it worked, what I always felt was the emotion and the humanity in his works not to say that all those that came after him were useless and meaningless, I would not agree with that but I would say they were maybe misguided or misdirected in their intentions to just make art history as you said which I completly agree with you, but the only one you added as an example to this bunch that I would disagree with is Hermann Nitsch. Not in the way that he didn't really continue what Pollock which he pretty much didn't but what he created were great pieces of performance art that are about your physicality with the paint but not at all about technic, his works are kind of processions of blood and guts but done through paint and a lot of paint, there are pieces that are just about the fisical amounts of paint slowly drying like a kind of fleshy material, its more like a sacrificial procession which In my opinion its a genius way of making art, but I never really related that to Pollock in my head, even though it is called fisical art its just a different thing as you showed and explained Pollock was precise and a obvious painting student while Hermann, for at least what I know, is obviously trying to make something different it almost feels like the thing you showed that art historians look at it as a way of making it be more about the art history rather than the pieces themselves. I would advise you to maybe look at more Hermann Nitsch but if you end up in the same place you started I can understand his art isn't for everybody its quite weird and kind of meaningless in the way a painter looks at painting. I also kind of liked from what you showed Niki de Saint Phalle and her pieces, they seem at least legit in the way they seem to convey a real artistic statement but the conection to Pollock is fleamsy at best and on that I'm 100% with you because joining this two artist to what Pollock did only makes their art important in the way that paint gets projected onto the canvases instead of in Pollocks case being more about the beauty of his painting skills and the others the amazing preformances/statements of their art and also on Hermann specifically the experience of being apart of his gory sacrificial processions rendering all their art meaningless unless they were "pushing the boundaries of painting". Loved the video! Again thank you for giving me a better understanding of where Pollock's art stands!!
Yeah, I didn't really have time to do justice to Hermann Nitsch, and the footage of Niki de Saint Phalle is amazing. I just use them loosely as examples of art after Pollock emphasizing the "action" part of action painting and not the "painting" part, and then generally moving away from painting [image making] and towards performance and conceptual art. I'm fine with all kinds of art-making, but it's worth considering that when I was in art school, you couldn't be a painter at all and be taken seriously. So, these movements gain some of their legitimacy historically as having evolved out of painting and rendering it redundant. They launched a rhetorical war on painting, and that was their "anti-art" attack. Chris Burden said, and honestly believed, that if Michelangelo were "alive today," he'd be doing conceptual performance art. But one form of art does not replace another, and performance and conceptual art do not use visual language the same as drawing or painting does, and no more replace it than they do music.
@@artvsmachine3703Don't you think that the focus on J.P.'s method was just a reaction to apparent facile means, not the art-historical import of those means. Georges Mathieu, the dandy self-aggrandizing lyrical abstraction painter was the real "action painter", but he was panned in America by political considerations (CIA and cold war stuff). Kind of a loss, since his work still retained a sensitivity to aesthetics that J.P.'s works lack.
There's an agenda behind everything. Luckily, this takes nothing away from the beauty of his work.
Excellent video!
Thank you! Cheers!
This is completely true! I’ve been always misunderstood as a painter by the local art stablishment, I’ve been working with digital tools for some years for painting abstract expressionism. Therefore, they’re seem unable to value my pieces as a “work of art” (they don’t label anything digital as art) & more over, any conceptual piece intended to celebrate stablished artists ego thru normalized radicalization of performative actions gets labeled as triumphant art, rewarded with the prices.
However, my belief simply sticks to a similar idea as Pollock; enjoying the painting by itself BUT while keep trying to make it a NEW thing.
😂 👌
Ended quitting the fairs game cause museums already feel even less related to arts than a bank would be…
"they don’t label anything digital as art" Right. So stupid. I've been dealing with this for a couple decades. But they'll now accept AI digital art as art, just don't let a human do it the hard way.
I'm with you on "Inna Godda Da Vida."
With the proper chemical enhancement and a fresh charge on your earbuds, you can turn off your lights and turn on the long side and play it on repeat till your batteries run down, and it will never sound like it's repeating itself.
I don't think it's a more important album than _Pet Sounds,_ however.
Enjoyed this.
Personally I see abstract expression as an attempt at communicating the latent space of visual experience which at it's core is a field of noise. Like looking at clouds or staring at rippling water, our minds start to differentiate visual information out of the chaos.
How our minds develope information from chaos is like a fingerprint of our own character, a reflection of who we are at a fundamental level.
I think of abstract expression as trying to capture that reflection at the moment of conception.
To be able to distinguish someone's visual character at such a primitive stage is what is really being revealed. Like looking at the blurriest photograph of someone's face and still being able to distinguish one person from another.
The fact that we can distinguish Pollack's splatter painting from another indicates both that even at that level an artist's style can be recognized, and at the same time indicates the viewers ability to recognize it themselves.
Many people are simply not aware enough of their own visual processes to recognize any difference, so they mock it, or completely miss the point.
Interesting theory.
@@artvsmachine3703if a peace is developed well enough, it's easy for it to become a conversation, and like you can sort of know how they try to expain the world the same can some extent be done for how they breathe, smell, walk and hold their coffee, from absent minded things like an individual line from a 2nd proto skect or how they hold a spoon
I'm really enjoying these videos. It's a bit of a humbling experience to relearn or rethink or reconceptulize an Artist impact or meaning. Fantastic.
As a side note, any chance you're looking into Madonna of the Rocks and its restoration? Or thoughts in general on that one.
Commodity. A typical American sadness shared with the likes of Kerouac without the Canadian inflection.
I remember when I was at Sarah Lawrence College, the big art scandal was “Piss Christ.” An aquarium filled with urine and a model of Jesus suspended in it. Some were calling for the death penalty while others admired the groundbreaking nerve of the subject matter. It lasted for what felt like a long time and then flamed out. But yes, there was much intelligent and unintelligent discussion. That’s what felt like the value really was rather than art.
I remember that, and I argued with some protestors outside the Brooklyn Museum who wanted the show to be shut down. It was also because of Chris Ofili's "Madonna" that used elephant dung and adult picture clippings. You're right that the discussion misses the point, because the discussion happens in a different language: linguistics.
Paul Jackson Pollock January 28, 1912-August 11th, 1956
I guess "Jackson Pollock" sounded better than "Paul Pollock".
Gravity should get half the credit
Good one.
There is no such thing as gravity... It's a manmade term.. To mislead.
I will say, you've given me an interest in taking a more close-up, surface level look at Monet. From a distance, he's a bit lotus-eater-dreamy for my taste. Granted there were reasons for why he painted in those palettes....
As for Yoko Ono, I think she was literally just trying to identify other people who had the same world perspective, the same aesthetic orientation, as it were.
I think it worked out for her; John, yes. George, Paul, and Ringo, no: pretty definitive.
Once the shock has passed, I rather like her.
FWIW, I agree with you about Pollock, and about a great deal of the "performance art" (although not paint sharting, thanks for that, paint barfing and the "I'm Making Myself Blind" horned lizard man; the facts I didn't need to know.)
I was never against performance art. I have always been against self-conscious attempts to _"Matter,"_ with a capital M. Art is essentially communication, and if all you're saying is that you want to be noticed, the means regardless, then perhaps it were better to remain silent and be more greatly appreciated.
Hans Hofman was a beautiful, big daddy! Great piece you've put together! Thanks!
His point was that there are fake people pretending to appreciate fake art... And they pay.
That really would apply to a few minutes of the video, but I'm definitely not saying Pollock is fake.
@@artvsmachine3703 I'm saying that's what Pollock's point was.
Ah. Got it. Have a good one!
who cares how the art gets made as long as it is interesting to look at. I'm not a Pollock fan but at least a few of his pieces are pleasing to the eye - cannot say that about much of newer art
True.
I used to give Pollock a hard time until you showed the egg lady, vomit lady, and the sharter. I think I'm in love with the woman who used a gun to spray on her sculptures though.
Right. Keeping it all in perspective. Niki de St. Phalle was easy on the eyes, and it's amazing that the footage of her 60's performances still exists. She went on to make sculptures that she's better known for. Uma Thurman could have played her in a movie.
Stream of consciousness art is awesome. Realism lost its appeal once cameras were invented
For some, that is true. But realism still appeals to millions of people. I'm for all kinds of art existing, just like we don't want to only eat the same food every meal. Variety is awesome. And it's never the medium or style, but how far one takes it so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and something sort of magical happens. That magic is the real art.
Great insight and appreciation. This is a critic that Pollock would be grateful for. Every artist of value can find deep truths and inspiration in this short statement.
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it and understood my message.
Would love to hear you talk about Rothko
I'll add it to the list. Might wanna check out the video I just made about Gerhard Richter if you like abstract paintings. His large squeegee paintings are absolutely spectacular. ruclips.net/video/9ggQMADhqik/видео.html
Thank you for bringing this insight to public attention.
I like this Picasso quote: "If I knew the meaning of art, I wouldn't tell you."
This was VERY interesting to me! I love Jackson Pollocks works but I have to admit that I never felt they had a bigger spiritual meaning. I mean NO disrespect at all but I think Jackson Pollock had alot going on in his life and needed a way to deal with that. He saw other artists like Janet Sobels works and used their techniques. ALOT of artists simply create to create. In my point of view it's not a very complex, deep thing. Painting was a coping mechanism for him and it's as simple as that. That is the way I see it though, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I can't say that I understand radical art but do NOT and NEVER did think that Jackson Pollocks works fit in that category. I did NOT know that anyone else used the dripping technique that he did. Until you mentioned it that is. Thank you for that! I honestly think that some people take art WAY too far. I've always thought that! Many times, art DOES have a huge spiritual meaning to me. Infact, it usually does. I just can't fully understand going to the extreme that some do. I get their intent sometimes but not every time. I do NOT understand why they can't find some other way of expressing themselves. I honestly would NEVER, NEVER take it as far as some. To each their own, whatever floats a person's boat I suppose. Anyway, good video. Thanks again.