Are Jackson Pollock's Paintings Art?

Belz... said:
In that case the word "art" is meaningless. I prefer narrower definitions.
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Too bad. Art doesn't fit into narrow definitions.

What I'm saying is that everyone is an artist, if they engage with art, whether through producing it or through "viewing" or experiencing it.

When engaging in art, you are an artist. It's up to you to define it, and no one else can naysay you.

I'll defend my understanding with a couple of quotes from working artists of the 20th Century, but I have to type them up, so I'll be back with those later, after I've had me breakfast.
 
luchog said:
This is flat nonsense, as it renders the word completely devoid of meaning. If anything is Art, then nothing is Art; since that leaves no meaningful way to differentiate Art from not-Art. It is just this sort of post-modernist drivel that drove me away from the art world. It's woo, just like "perceptual reality" is woo.

Art is a form of human communication. Specifically, Art is an attempt to communicate emotions and abstract concepts in a tangible medium. Nothing more nor less. The Visual or Plastic Arts are a method of attemptimg to communicate emotions and abstract concepts in a concrete and plastic medium. The Performing Arts are an attempt to communicate in a transitory auditory or visual medium. The Literary Arts are an attempt to communicate in a linguistic medium. Contrast with Propaganda, which is an attempt to communicate a specific message or value in the chosen medium (which doesn't mean that some Propaganda cannot also be good Art).

If it's not humans communicating with other humans, it's not Art. How effective that communication is makes the difference between good Art and bad Art.




That is so wrong as to be effectively gibberish.
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You've completely missed the point. Art only exists during the user's engagement with it. It is not in the object or whatever, it's an ephemeral experience in the mind of the user.

It's not postmodernist, I hate that arch insincere bs. This is the culmination of the journey of Modern Art from the Academy into the streets and mutation/evolution into Conceptual Art, which shifted the focus away from collectibles into the process of engaging with creativity: Art!

That is the definition, and it has nothing to do with good/bad, skilled/unskilled, nor even Art/Not -Art. Those are irrelevant to the necessity of engaging in creative thought.

After breakfast the two quotes I'll present will justify my pronouncements here.
 
Nature can provide pleasing randomness, texture and colour. Pollock surely is doing something similar by using personal creative techniques that no one before him has tried.
The viewer of the work will either find it pleasing or otherwise. An experienced artist is constantly seeing interesting composition and subject matter around him/her every day of their waking hours, and that can be represented in many ways through realism, impressionism and the abstract, including action painting. I think Pollock's work is valid for that reason. As for value in terms of cash, that is quite a different matter, as other forces kick in to determine outcome.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Jrrarglblarg said:
Any university or college art department will do. Fine art isn't made for the unwashed masses but for the knowledge observer.

As a non-musician I'm among the unwashed masses, and customarily deride modern (post ww2) jazz as "wrong notes in random order." My lack of appreciation for the form does not devalue the jazz for anyone else, and my lack of relevant life experience limits my personal understanding of both the craft and art behind noodly jazz that actually pisses me off.
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Very elitist of you. BTW, ever been to Purdue's art department?
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This reminds me of an argument I had back when I was in film school with someone whom I can't remember very well but who was probably majoring in a lot tougher subject than I was. Her argument was that her opinion on film and films, as an engineer, or whatever she was studying, was as valid as someone else's who had actually studied film history, cinematography, direction, scriptwriting, etc.

It's a characteristic of all kinds of art, I think, that most everyone thinks they can detect what's good or bad in it and why, without fully understanding what they are evaluating. It's not elitist at all to point out that they probably do not have the tools to do so adequately and fully.
 
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In a quote published in a book called The Art of Light and Space by Jan Butterfield (book published in 1993 by Abbeville Modern Art Movements, don't know the date of the quote) Robert Irwin described the process so-far of Modern Art"s evolution from Classical Art up to the '60s, by which time the divorce of Art from objects had enabled quite a few artists to develop various nonmaterial or experiential "fields" of endeavour, such as the artists of light and space, and Conceptual Artists.

We had a perfectly formed figurative art which worked not only philosophically and poetically, but in a larger religious sense. The Art of the last 150 years has gradually abandoned that art, essentially by examining "What do we mean by 'painting'?… 'reality'?… 'truth'?" and so on. Slowly, by degrees, we have dismantled the whole process. My view of modern art history is that it has been a process of doing the only thing it can do - which is to start with what it has and begin to examine the system and the structure itself and dismantle it. This step-by-step process threw out pieces and parts of that structure all the way down to the point where we are now left with being and circumstance and the setting of intention.
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...being and circumstance and the setting of intention.

That's where the user of the art enters into it.

Luchog seems to be narrowing down the definition of art to being all about communication, as if it were nothing but an elaborate telegraph service.

But it's not as linear as that. The artist has no way of controlling the response of the user of the art, and the artist only has a vague idea of what they are trying to "communicate", and is usually involved in exploring towards discovering for themselves whatever they may be "wanting" to "communicate".

It's not about communicating information as such. It's about sharing an experiential stimulus in the activity of engaging with Creativity. Passive consumption of Art is not where it's at!
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
I think the debate is partly obscured because Pollock was supposed to be "destroying the image" and whatnot. I've had many people tell me you need to see the complexity of the paint in person. I've had many people tell me the meaning is in the action of Pollock in painting it, not the paint. I've had many people tell me the real story is behind Pollock himself and how he came to paint the pieces. Pollock himself said he wanted the general public to treat the works like music to go into their unconscious and go "oh, that's nice".

And of course, when pushed about what they actually are experiencing I've gotten hogwash like this:



Linky.

I'd say "random" is an inaccurate word, because one of the few things we can determine is that he aimed for equal paint distribution. The kind of "pseudo-random" people draw if you ask them to draw "random" (dots evenly distributed vs. dots in clumps). The other obvious hints of intelligence are that the paint doesn't merge and mix into brown muck, the color choices themselves, and the drips themselves, on some works more than others.

However I will say I have never had any of these things transmit anything to me other than "this is paint".

If people are gleaning any meaning, it would be interesting to put them in a room and see if there is any consensus. That is, of course, if they can put the revelations into mere human tongue.
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I appreciate you pointing out that luchog's statement about randomness is complete nonsense. For example, anyone claiming that a work like "Convergence" (widely considered his most famous work) is random clearly doesn't know the definition of the word.

But I think your off the track in your comment about 'transmitting meaning'
Consensus certainly isn't necessary for great art. Take the most popular, successful songs and you'll find dozens of contrary interpretations of the lyrics. Knowing something about the artist's vision and goals is helpful, but even that isn't going to give some universal 'meaning'.
Also, read Cornsail's response. 'Meaning' isn't even necessary for something to be appreciated as aesthetic and artistic. Do you think the Mandelbrot Set is art? It's just a mapping of solutions to a mathematical statement. But some of the 'artistic' renditions of it are quite complex and beautiful, much like a JP painting. ;) Do they require any "transmission" other than the underlying quadratic polynomial?
 
In an earlier post I alluded to works of art being only historical artefacts. I stole that idea from this quote from Joseph Kosuth. It's a bit long, but covers a lot of ground, and it justifies the notion that art is whatever an artist says is art.

I've selected these portions from what he published in a book called Art after Philosophy [sic] in 1969.

The "value" of particular artists after Duchamp can be weighed according to how much they questioned the nature of art; which is another way of saying "what they added to the conception of art"… Artists question the nature of art by presenting new propositions as to art's nature. And to do this one cannot concern oneself with the handed-down "language" of traditional art, as this activity is based on the assumption that there is only one way of framing art propositions. But the very stuff of art is indeed greatly related to "creating" new propositions.

… the value of Cubism - for instance - is its idea in the realm of art, not the physical or visual qualities seen in a specific painting, or the particularisation of certain colours or shape. For these colours and shapes are the art's "language", not its meaning conceptually as art. To look upon a Cubist "masterwork" now as art is nonsensical, conceptually speaking, as far as art is concerned… The "value" now of an original Cubist painting is not unlike, in most respects, an original manuscript by Lord Byron, or The Spirit of St Louis as it is seen in the Smithsonian Institute… Actual works of art are little more than historical curiosities. As far as art is concerned van Gogh's paintings aren't worth any more than his palette is. They are both "collector's items".

Art "lives" through influencing other art, not by existing as the physical residue of an artist's ideas. The reason why different artists from the past are "brought alive" again is because some aspect of their work becomes "useable" by living artists…

… If we continue our analogy of the forms art takes as being art's language one can realise then that a work of art is a kind of proposition presented within the context of art as a comment on art…

Works of art are analytic propositions… A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist's intention, that is, he is saying that that particular work of art is art, which means, is a definition of art. Thus, that it is art is true a priori (which is what Judd means when he states that "if someone calls it art, it's art").
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luchog said:
The fact that pretty much anyone with a few pints of paint and a canvas can create something in about an hour that is indistinguishable, even by so-called experts, from a genuine Jackson Pollock without fingerprint analysis pretty much says it all for me.

As for balance, there's nothing there to balance. They're effectively random. Just layers of splattered paint. There are no forms, no interplay of light and shade, nothing but just splatters of paint. They look like random plaint splatter, because they are random paint splatter.

I think to a great extent the popularity of his splatter work is the epitome of pretension. Critics and aficionados displaying how much more knowledgeable, sensitive, or whatever than the hoi polloi. Only those with superior taste and discernment can appreciate the true genius... etc. etc. Spent too much time around people like that, and art like that, when I was still active in the scene. Too many hours spent in galleries reading artists' "vision statements" that were clearly the work of far more though and effort and imagination than anything they stuck up on the wall.
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I know very little about Pollock, or about classical disciplines in art, come to that. My appreciation of his splatter or drip paintings is in the raw experience of them. I like them! And I like the idea of them, the concept of making paintings in that technique.

If others such as Gawdzilla don't like them, fine, whatever floats your boat.

But I find it odd that he and you are so insulting in your insistence that my tastes make me pretentious or a dupe. I'm not paying to see them! Nor am I going into galleries and creating a checklist of what's good or bad etc. I go in with an open mind expecting a moment of delight or surprise. Sometimes I walk around a corner and get that flash. Sometimes I get a slow burn of pleasure as I look into the art piece for a little while, and start to "see". (Or hear or feel or what have you). Sometimes I leave unimpressed, sometimes I leave in a peaceful bliss.

I see no need to be judgemental. I'm looking for my own enlightenment in my own time and space. I don't care what value others may place on it all. I'm free!

:p
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
I think the debate is partly obscured because Pollock was supposed to be "destroying the image" and whatnot. I've had many people tell me you need to see the complexity of the paint in person. I've had many people tell me the meaning is in the action of Pollock in painting it, not the paint. I've had many people tell me the real story is behind Pollock himself and how he came to paint the pieces. Pollock himself said he wanted the general public to treat the works like music to go into their unconscious and go "oh, that's nice".

And of course, when pushed about what they actually are experiencing I've gotten hogwash like this:



Linky.

I'd say "random" is an inaccurate word, because one of the few things we can determine is that he aimed for equal paint distribution. The kind of "pseudo-random" people draw if you ask them to draw "random" (dots evenly distributed vs. dots in clumps). The other obvious hints of intelligence are that the paint doesn't merge and mix into brown muck, the color choices themselves, and the drips themselves, on some works more than others.

However I will say I have never had any of these things transmit anything to me other than "this is paint".

If people are gleaning any meaning, it would be interesting to put them in a room and see if there is any consensus. That is, of course, if they can put the revelations into mere human tongue.
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Which is not possible, because then you have flights of fantasy such as you dismissed as hogwash above, and correctly so, because trying to express the feeling you have in conceptual terms will always lead to ramified conceits that construct an architecture of concepts leading further and further away from the actual experience.

As with music, you immerse yourself and stop thinking if you can. If you're only there to feel superior, or to rate the value, you can't hear the music!
 
cornsail said:
A third option would be that some people simply find them aesthetically pleasing. No meaning is necessary. I'm not a fan or anything, but I like the look of some of Pollock's paintings. I'd rather look at a Pollock than a Rembrant or a Manet.
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Exactly. ;)




ETA But I like to look at the others too… maybe depends on mood. In fact, I prefer to see Rembrandt and Manet in the flesh, whereas my initial exposure to Pollock was on the covers of Penguin Modern Classics in the early 70s, and I responded to them just as if they were life size and present. For me, it's not necessary (but still interesting and revelatory) to see them in the flesh… whereas Rothko in person is like the difference between mono and surround sound… and I felt profoundly touched with some sort of experience one can only term "spiritual", which as a materialist atheist I use in the poetic sense of inarticulate sense of wonder and unconceptual visceral response… just as with the vibrations of music affecting your bodymind.

I'll shut up now. :p
 
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I was playing some Pink Floyd earlier. My wife's verdict: this is not music.

I told her that I know some people who have similar reactions to art.
 
angrysoba said:
Oh, what a snob! ;)
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Imagine you're sitting around listening to a brand new Pink Floyd album "somewhere in Georgia", November, 1969, and tripping like a big dog with some friends. "Several Species" come up and everybody just loses it. The upshot was a large and serious battle over the difference between a Celt and a Pict. Luckily nobody had their **** together will enough to do any damage, and all the firearms were safely locked away before we started partying.

And, in reference to the work itself:

"It's not actually anything, it's a bit of concrete poetry. Those were sounds that I made, the voice and the hand slapping were all human generated - no musical instruments."

—Roger Waters , University of Regina Carillon Interview, October 1970
 
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