2.2 abex new1

Abstract Expressionism

Art 109A: Contemporary Art Westchester Community College Fall 2012 Dr. Melissa Hall

Abstract Expressionism Style of painDng that emerged in New York aJer World War II

Nina Leen, The Irascibles, 1950 LIFE Magazine

Abstract Expressionism Major arDsts include:

1.  Jackson Pollock 2.  Willem de Kooning 3.  Adolph GoVlieb 4.  Mark Rothko 5.  Barnet Newman

6.  Clifford SDll 7.  David Smith

Nina Leen, The Irascibles, 1950 LIFE Magazine

De Kooning

Pollock

Motherwell

GoVlieb SDll

Newman

Rothko

Abstract Expressionism PainDngs are abstract, and large in scale

But subject maVer and content remained paramount

Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, in the Metropolitan Museum

“There is no such thing as a good painDng about nothing. We assert that the subject is criDcal.” Mark Rothko + Adolph GoVlieb, 1943

Abstract Expressionism Two kinds of Abstract Expressionism

1.  AcDon PainDng or Gestural AbstracDon: painDngs that employ sweeping strokes that suggest the physical acDon or gesture that made them

2.  Color Field or ChromaDc AbstracDon: broad areas of atmospheric color

Jackson Pollock, No. 3, 1949: Tiger, 1949 Hirshhorn Museum

Mark Rothko, Green and Maroon, 1953 Phillips CollecDon

Psychological Trauma • Great Depression • Rise of Fascism and collapse of the Popular Front

• Holocaust • Hiroshima

The mushroom cloud over the bombing of Nagasaki, August 19, 1945 Wikimedia

Psychological Trauma

Jackson Pollock in front of a blank canvas

“We felt the moral crisis of a world in shambles, a world devastated by a great depression and a fierce World War, and it was impossible to paint the kind of painDng that we were doing – flowers, reclining nudes, and people playing the cello. At the same Dme we could not move into the situaDon of a pure world of unorganized shapes and forms, or color relaDons, a world of sensaDons. And I would say for some of us, this was our moral crisis in relaDon to what to paint.” BarneV Newman

Making Choices Abandoned the styles prevalent before the war

George L. K. Morris, Nau>cal Composi>on 1937-‐42 Whitney Museum

Ben Shahn, The Passion of Sacco and VanzeG, 1932-‐32 Whitney Museum

Making Choices Turned inward, seeking psychological or inner explanaDons for historical events

Jackson Pollock, War, 1947 Metropolitan Museum

Forma<ve Years (1940s) Archaic symbol and myth

Adolph GoVlieb, Oedipus, 1941

Mark Rothko, An>gone, c. 1941 NaDonal Gallery of Art

Forma<ve Years (1940s)

Adolph GoVlieb, Pictograph, 1942 Art Ins>tute of Chicago

“If we profess kinship to the art of primiDve man, it is because the feelings they [sic] expressed have a parDcular perDnence today. In Dmes of violence, personal predilecDons for the niceDes of color and form seem irrelevant. All primiDve expression reveals the constant awareness of powerful forces, the immediate presence of terror and fear, recogniDon of the brutality of the natural world as well as the eternal insecuriDes of life. That these feelings are being experienced by many people throughout the world today is an unfortunate fact and to us an art that glosses over and evades these feelings is superficial and meaningless. That is why we insist on subject maVer, a subject maVer that embraces these feelings and permits them to be expressed.” Adolph GoVlieb and Mark Rothko

Forma<ve Years (1940s) Jungian archetypes: archaic symbols that are shared by all cultures and expressed in myths, dreams, and fantasy

“ . . . they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.” Mark Rothko

Jackson Pollock, Male and Female, 1942 Philadelphia Museum of Art

“Without monsters and gods, art cannot enact our drama . . . .” Mark Rothko

FormaDve Years (1940s) Jungian theory proposes that the individual psyche is a reservoir for the collecDve unconscious

“The present painter is concerned not with his own feelings or with the mystery of his own personality but with the penetraDon into the world mystery. His imaginaDon is therefore aVempDng to dig into metaphysical secrets.” BarneV Newman, “The Plasmic Image”

“[In their work] the personal and social converge” Irving Sandler

The Turning Point

The mushroom cloud over the bombing of Nagasaki, August 19, 1945 Wikimedia

”We now know the terror to expect. Hiroshima showed it to us . . . .” BarneV Newman

The neurosis which is our reality

Between 1946 and 1958, twenty-‐three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll, beginning with the OperaDon Crossroads series in July 1946

“The looming mushroom cloud became the defining image of the period . . . .This gave rise to what GoVlieb termed ‘the neurosis which is our reality.’” Irving Sandler

Turning Inward New York School arDsts abandoned mythic subjects, and opted for a more direct means of expressing their inner sense of anxiety

“The Abstract Expressionists did not illustrate the hot or cold wars. Instead, they internalized the poliDcal and social situaDon and asserted that their painDng was essenDally a subjecDve or inward-‐looking process. What they ended up expressing was the tragic mood as they felt it of the decade – an embodied mood.” Irving Sandler

Turning Inward

Rudy Burckhardt de Kooning New York City 1950 Image source: hVp://artcriDcal.com/2004/12/15/de-‐kooning-‐an-‐american-‐master-‐by-‐mark-‐stevens-‐annalyn-‐swan/

“Every so oJen, a painter has to destroy painDng. Cézanne did it, Picasso did it with Cubism. Then Pollock did it. He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new painDngs again.” Willem De Kooning, 1956

Jackson Pollock Born in Cody Wyoming

Studied with Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934 Spencer Museum of Art

Jackson Pollock Work in the 1930s influenced by Benton and the American visionary painter Albert Pinkham Ryder

Jackson Pollock, Going West, 1934-‐35 NaDonal Museum of American Art, Smithsonian InsDtuDon

Jackson Pollock Work in the 1940s influenced by Miró

Jackson Pollock, Moon Woman, 1942

Joan Miró, Woman and LiRle Girl in Front of the Sun, 1946 Hirshhorn Museum

Jackson Pollock And by Picasso

Jackson Pollock, Orange Head, 1938-‐1942

Jackson Pollock At 26 suffered a breakdown and went into Jungian therapy

Jackson Pollock, Drawing, 1939

Jackson Pollock Interest in Psychology aVracted him to the Surrealist technique of automaDsm

Jackson Pollock, Sheet of Studies, c. 1939-‐42 Museum of Modern Art

“My opinion is that new needs need new techniques . . . . It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture . . . . The modern arDst, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world -‐-‐ in other words -‐-‐ expressing the energy, the moDon, and other inner forces.” Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock Series of works in the 1940s combine automaDst technique with archaic myth and symbol

Jackson Pollock, Male and Female, 1942 Philadelphia Museum

Pablo Picasso, Painter and Model, 1928 Museum of Modern Art

Jackson Pollock, She-‐Wolf, 1943 Museum of Modern Art

Soundclip: hVp://www.moma.org/explore/mulDmedia/audios/3/70

Jackson Pollock, Pasiphaê, 1943 Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jackson Pollock, Guardians of the Secret, 1943 SanFrancisco Museum of Modern Art

“There have been innumerable aVempts to decode these early Pollock images in terms of specific reference and literal encoded meanings, but almost certainly the works were primarily intended to appear meaningful while not knowable” Kirk Varnedoe

Transi<on Commission for Peggy Guggenheim

Mural scale

Abstract rhythmic gestures replace totemic images

Jackson Pollock, Mural, 1943 University of Iowa Art Museum

Jackson Pollock, Mural, 1943 University of Iowa Art Museum “The modern arDst is . . . expressing his feelings

rather than illustraDng.” Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock, Gothic, 1944 Museum of Modern Art

Jackson Pollock, Eyes in the Heat, 1946 Guggenheim

All Over Style No posiDve/ negaDve space or focal point

Destroys illusion

Jackson Pollock, Shimmering Substance, 1946 Museum of Modern Art

“I try to stay away from any recognizable imagery. . . if it creeps in, I try to do away with it . . . To let the painDng come through. I don’t let the imagery carry the painDng . . . It’s extra cargo and unnecessary” Jackson Pollock


Jackson Pollock, Eyes in the Heat, 1946 Guggenheim

All Over Style


“In Shimmering Substance the commas of color in the center of the canvas are placed on a dazzling surface created by a grid of thick white strokes and form a luminous yellow circle, a center of energy that can be understood as a sun. The effect recorded by Pollock is one of bedazzlement, such as can be caused by staring too long at the sun . . . . The shredding of objects and forms by light is more complete and radical than anything accomplished by the Impressionists. ” Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art

All Over Style


“Things disintegrate not only on the surface, but also in their very essence, owing to a deeply searing quality of the light. What Pollock depicts is a source of energy that is not merely powerful but also destrucDve. What is shown, in short, is not the sun but its equivalent, the atomic bomb, transformed into myth.” Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art

Jackson Pollock 1947 Pollock discovered his “drip technique”

Hans Namuth, Jackson Pollock, 1950

The Drip Pain<ngs

Influenced by experimental techniques of Mexican muralist David Siquieros

New York Studio of Mexican Muralist David Siquieros

Jackson Pollock Also influenced by Indian sand painters and Jazz

“Sand pain>ngs, as created by Navajo Indians, were not made to be an "art object," but rather were made as part of an elaborate healing ritual or ceremony. The ar>st, or in the Navajo context, the medicine man, would use naturally colored grains of sand, and pour them by hand to create these elaborate "pain>ngs." Once completed, the person that needed healing was asked to sit on top of the sand pain>ng, which was supposed to act as a portal so that the healing spirits could come through the pain>ng and heal the pa>ent. Once the healing ceremony was over, then the pain>ng was believed to have removed the illness from the pa>ent, and therefore had the illness contained within it, so at that point the pain>ng was destroyed.” hVp://www.artsology.com/navajo_sand_painDng.php

The Drip Pain<ngs

Drip painDng enabled a more immediate, spontaneous approach


“In the dripped and poured canvases Pollock eliminated all symbols and signs; only the gesture itself remained as a mythic metaphor.” Fineberg, p. 93

The Drip Pain<ngs

Un-‐premeditated = direct expression of unconscious

“The thing that interests me is that todays painters do not have to go to a subject maVer outside themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.” Jackson Pollock


The Drip Pain<ngs


“When Pollock told Hofmann in 1942 “I am nature,” he meant that to him the central subject maVer of painDng derived from this direct, introspecDve exploraDon instead of from the external world.” Fineberg, p. 93

“I am nature.” Jackson Pollock

The Drip Pain<ngs Enamel paints and unconvenDonal tools = rejecDon of “aestheDc refinement”

“I conDnue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, paleVe, brushes, etc. I prefer sDcks, trowels, knives, and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass, and other foreign maVer added.” Jackson Pollock

The Drip Pain<ngs

“The coarse look of their painDng was a defiant denial of Madison Avenue slickness; the paint-‐smeared dungarees versus the gray flannel suit; the look of the grimy studio against BeVer Homes and Gardens.” Irving Sandler

The Drip Pain<ngs In 1951 Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg filmed Pollock working

Jackson Pollock 51, 1951 (excerpt) Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg (directors) Morton Feldman (composer) hVp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrVE-‐WQBcYQ

“My painDng does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painDng, I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painDng, since I can walk around it, work from all four sides and literally be in the painDng. This is akin to the method of the Indian sand painters in the West.” Jackson Pollock

Ac<on Pain<ng Harold Rosenberg christened this new approach to painDng “AcDon PainDng”


Ac<on Pain<ng

“At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter aJer another as an arena in which to act—rather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-‐design, analyze or "express" an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.” Harold Rosenberg, “The American AcDon Painters”


Ac<on Pain<ng

“The painter no longer approached his easel with an image in his mind; he went up to it with material in his hand to do something to that other piece of material in front of him. The image would be the result of this encounter.” Harold Rosenberg, “The American AcDon Painters”

Jackson Pollock in front of a blank canvas

Ac<on Pain<ng


“In a word, man must create his own essence; it is in throwing himself into the world, in suffering it, in struggling with it, that – liVle by liVle – he defines himself.” Jean Paul Sartre

Ac<on Pain<ng The acDon painter invents a new form of expression, like the prehistoric painters who leJ their first marks on cave walls

Jackson Pollock, Number 1A, 1948 Museum of Modern Art

Ac<on Pain<ng

“Universal” themes  Chaos  ExistenDal struggle of good vs evil

Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, 1950 Metropolitan Museum

Ac<on Pain<ng


“The present painter can be said to work with chaos . . . . In trying to go beyond the visible and the known world he is working with forms that are unknown even to him.” BarneV Newman, “The Plasmic Image” (1943-‐1945)

Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950 MOMA

Student Responses

“[It seems to] represent disharmony. I had the feeling there was discontent in his life, or in the world at that Dme”

“The forms are furious, organic and inorganic, curved and ruler straight. It is an angry piece”


“The movement seems to express frustraDon. The use of bland colors such as brown and white gives it the feeling of frustrated energy”

Summary Direct, immediate, spontaneous, unpremeditated method of expression


Summary

Expression of “collecDve” unconscious – the personal and the social converge


Summary

Universal language rather than symbols

Jackson Pollock, Male and Female, 1942

Adolphe GoVlieb, Augury, 1945 Guggenheim Museum

Summary

Mural scale = “public” meaning

Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry, 1932-‐3 Detroit InsDtute of AJs

Summary

UnconvenDonal materials = rejecDon of “aestheDc” refinement, and “slick” consumerism

Summary

PainDng as an “adventure” into the unknown

ExistenDalist act of “self-‐creaDon”

Willem de Kooning (1904-‐1997) Dutch immigrant

Academic training

Willem de Kooning, S>ll Life, 1921

Willem de Kooning (1904-‐1997)

Willem de Kooning, Man, 1939 Private CollecDon

Alberto Giacome{ Man Poin>ng, 1947 Museum of Modern Art

Francis Bacon, Self Portrait, 1958 Hirshorn

Willem de Kooning (1904-‐1997)

Willem de Kooning, Man, 1939 Private CollecDon

“It’s really absurd to make . . . a human image, with paint, today, when you think about it . . . But then all of a sudden, it was even more absurd not to do it.” Willem de Kooning

“Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure” Willem de Kooning

J. A. D. Ingres, Madame de Senonnes, 1814 Museé des Beaux Arts, Nantes

Willem De Kooning, Seated Woman, 1940 Philadelphia Museum of Art

Willem De Kooning, Seated Woman, 1940 Philadelphia Museum of Art

Willem De Kooning, Seated Woman, 1944 Metropolitan Museum

Willem De Kooning, Queen of Hearts, 1946 Hirshorn

Willem De Kooning, Pink Angels, 1945

“Today, some people think that the light of the atom bomb will change the concept of painDng once and for all. The eyes that actually saw the light melted out of sheer ecstasy. For one instant, everybody was the same color. It made angels out of everybody. A truly ChrisDan light, painful but forgiving.” Willem de Kooning

Pablo Picasso, Charnel House, 1945 Museum of Modern Art

Willem De Kooning, Excava>on, 1950 Art InsDtute of Chicago


“According to de Kooning, his point of departure was an image of women working in a rice field from BiRer Rice, a 1949 Italian Neorealist film. The mobile structure of hooked, calligraphic lines defines anatomical parts—bird and fish shapes, human noses, eyes, teeth, necks, and jaws—revealing the parDcular tension between abstracDon and figuraDon that is inherent in de Kooning’s work.” Art InsDtute of Chicago


The LiberaDon of Belsen ConcentraDon Camp April 1945: A BriDsh Army bulldozer pushes bodies into a mass grave at Belsen. -‐ 19 April 1945 Imperial War Museum

Willem de Kooning, Gotham News, 1955 Albright Knox Art Gallery

The working technique used to create Gotham News has been labeled "acDon" or "gesture" painDng, referring to the fact that the arDst’s movements and creaDon process are clearly evident in the final result. De Kooning used a number of different sized brushes—some strokes are very wide and others are quite thin. The paint is applied in a variety of ways as well, from very thin passages to thick areas of paint squeezed directly from the tubes . . . The role of accident was important as well, as seen in the unintended newsprint and the way in which the paint was allowed to run in a number of areas. Albright Knox Art Gallery

The Women 1950s returned to the figure in a series of monumentally scaled women

Hans Namuth, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, 1953

Willem De Kooning Woman I, 1950-‐52

Museum of Modern Art

Audio clip: Museum of Modern Art

Willem De Kooning, Woman V, 1952-‐53 NaDonal Gallery of Australia

Willem De Kooning, Woman and Bicycle, 1952–53 Whitney Museum

The Women The figure is raw and besDal, much like Dubuffet’s contemporaneous Corps des Dames

Willem De Kooning Woman I, 1950-‐52 Museum of Modern Art

Jean Dubuffet, Triumph and Glory, 1950

“De Kooning’s Eves, Clytemnaestras, Whores of Babylon, call them what you will, have a universality, an apocalypDc presence that is rare in art of any Dme or any country.” Andrew Ritchie, catalog entry for De Kooning ExhibiDon, Venice Bienniale, 1954

2.2 abex new1

Education

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