Art Criticism Videos

Lavender Mist, Jackson Pollock, oil on canvas, oil, enamel and aluminum on canvas, 1950

I chose Greenberg on Pollock: An Interview by T.J. Clark. Pollock created his first drip painting in the summer of 1947. When he received the Guggenheim Award, he said he was making art that lies between the easel and murals. Greenberg believed Pollock expressed himself very well and never listen to the critics. What Pollock meant by easel art is the typical contained artwork; it stops at the edges of the canvas. Pollock would find his edges once he stretched the canvas. Greenberg said Pollock’s work wasn’t Dionysian work because there are all kinds of order and the only demand on art is good art. Greenberg said it is Apollonian art because it had an open, lyrical and achieved feeling. Pollock would reject some paintings because they were not pleasing to the eye. Sometimes he would fix them and others he left. Artists felt isolated in art and the world as a whole. They didn’t get the celebrity status as they wished for but Pollock wasn’t going to sell himself out either. He produced about one painting a year. In his last year of life he came to some conclusions, he wasn’t going to become an art school painter, he didn’t look at Impressionists enough, and he always wanted a romantic death, which he got.

The next video I watched was Greenberg on Art Criticism: An Interview by T.J. Clark. Greenberg was quoted as saying “writing about visual art is much tougher than writing about literature or music.” He would reread Tovay so he could refocus and be relevant to the piece and not add his opinion. He said his preferences do come out but he tries to hold them in. He accepts art when it is good. He believes that you don’t need art history just receptive to be a critical. After WWII, there was an art boom and abstract paintings were not private anymore but the public had the respect to enjoy the art even if they didn’t understand it. Greenberg believes art cannot be good unless the artist has a lot of world experience. In modern art, certain artists proved themselves but not the classification as a whole. He believes value of judgment comes first.

Pavilion of Algeria

The last video was The Colonial Encounter: Views of Non-Western Art and Culture. The Paris 1900 World Fair lasted 8 months and had 15 million visitors. The colonial exhibit showed nationalism but colonies of France did not get the same treatment. For each country represented they used famous monuments of that country. Dahome did not look like that; their structures were made out of thatch, straw, and mud. They showed them as barbarians with pictures of violence against each other so who said they wouldn’t treat outsiders that way. Now the Algerian exhibit consisted of two palaces. France colonized Algeria longer than Dahome. At their exhibit, you could dine and taste wines. They had a street market were you could buy artifacts or souvenirs. Arab women were depicted as promiscuous because of their belly dancing. Now African men and women were displayed in cages with animals with no clothes on. Europeans justified it because they believed it was being used as a scientific and artistic study. If you look at the women’s faces they didn’t want to be shown like that. Trocadero Museum was the heart of the colonial exhibit and emphasized racial differences. Today, former French colonies are independent but are still linked to the West by politics and economy. Exhibits within the museum had no cultural information on them so viewers look at it as art not cultural objects. The up side of it is as being displayed as art in Western collections, descendants can appreciate the original object.

All three videos relate to the art criticism project. Clement Greenberg was a famous critic in his day. I enjoyed knowing he still had difficulty separating his preferences from critiquing a work of art. Also, that he told Pollock not to listen to the critics but he was one. The Colonial Encounter video shows us how curators of exhibits can influence the public by the way they display it. The films were interesting. They do help a little more to understand how to critique our peers. I’ve been critiqued many times on my work but this seems different and more difficult.