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In Reply to: How can you be so right about this posted by tinear on October 22, 2003 at 13:06:03:
and I think some of them are really stunning. Many of them are not, however. They're muddy, and they retread ground already covered. The abstract expressionists have alot in common, centrally the fact that their early work was either boringly social realist, derivative of the recent European masters, or plain bad. I saw the Rothko retrospective and was stunned at what a downright poor draughtsman he was. In Pollock's case, he was so enthralled by second-generation surrealists like Gorky that he probably wouldn't have produced anything of special value were it not for his 'discovery.'Now, I'm certainly not of the school that dismisses abstract expressionism with bullshit 'my six year old could do that' sentiments; my area of emphasis, in the course of getting my flagrantly useless bachelor's degree, was the art of the 20th century avant-garde. BUT...it was a gimmick. A creatively fruitful, financially profitable gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless, in all their cases. Pollock did not have the intellect to match the heroism of his gestures, and he didn't really have the daring, either. The phrase "critic's darling" might very well have been coined for him; he saw what people responded to, and he cranked it out, and this contributed to his 'torturedness.' He was at a dead end towards the end of his life, and he knew it. Given the shameful state of most of his more brilliant contemporaries, I shudder to think of what Jim Morrison might've gone on to do. Jim Morrison in the '80's? Terrifying. Ditto Pollock. Unlike Rothko or Newman--who I don't particularly care for--Pollock didn't have much sense of how to refine his central gimmick, how to explore the relationships at work. It was too unwieldy. He knew it. He knew that he was getting to be a performing monkey for the leisure class. This is one of the reasons he self-destructed.
Like I said, there are a number of his paintings that I think are as beautiful as any other, that show real grace and delicacy. But he made so many goddamn paintings, man...that technique is not something you can get a real handle on, for better and worse. There were alot more misses than hits. Was he the greatest artist of the 20th century or something like that? No, I don't think so (I'm not one to say who the owner of that title might be). What he had was great press, in the form of Clement Greenberg, whose ideas were, really, bizarrely misguided, if still interesting and well-stated. His tastes moved on after Pollock, who really was not flat or dull enough to please Greenberg. Pollock had his moment in the sun, and he deserved it more than most. But he was a one-trick pony in the long run.
As fer having a problem with drunks and rowdies who happen to be great artist, my God, tinear, I don't even know how to tell you how wrong you are! Fucked-up genius types are my stock in trade!;-) Come over some time if you're in the neighborhood (St. Louis), and I'll take you on a tour of my libraries, both literary and musical. Chock full o' drunk-and-rowdy greatnesses. What I don't like is people who make enough interesting work to qualify as really significant, and then burn up dramatically before they can see their critical fortunes fade, thereby assuring themselves outsized legend status. And that's the class I'd put Pollock and Morrison in. They are remembered by the people who think they were great artists as being exclusively great artists, because they didn't have the chance to prove how few tricks they had in their respective bags. They both made some great stuff, but they didn't have more coming, and they knew it, I think. Lester Bangs called Morrison a "Bozo prince," with a fair amount of admiration behind that title. I think it can be easily extended to Pollock as well. Any further disagreements we'll have to settle over some good port and loud music.
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Follow Ups
- I have seen *alot* of Pollocks "in the flesh" - rhizomatic 13:31:52 10/22/03 (1)
- Port and loud music? How can one - tinear 07:40:22 10/25/03 (0)
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