POLLOCK

In honor of Jackson Pollock and his birthday, Google changed its homepage today. Some would say Pollock was an artistic genius. Others consider him a mere paint splatterer. I personally never understood why some of the abstract expressionists and avant garde artists got the acclaim they did. Seemingly, someone splatters and drips paint on a canvas and becomes an art icon overnight because he or she was the "first person to do it." Okay, maybe there's more to it than splatterings, but how much more? Ellsworth Kelly was the first to paint a canvas blue. And just for that, he became a celebrated artist. Does that mean that if I'm the first to wipe a booger on a canvas, I can be a successful artist too? Maybe I'm missing something, but sometimes it seems there's more of an emphasis on originality than substance. And not just in the art world.

Comments

carollai said…
i think it's in the eye of the beholder. to pollock, his work wasn't paint splattering. abstract art is very conceptual. i find it hard to understand as an outsider but inside the mind of the artist, it all makes sense. when i was younger, i never liked abstract art cuz i just thought it was silly stuff but nowadays, i realize, art is art.... whether it makes sense to one or looks pretty to another-- it doesn't matter because it's really an expression of the artist.

:)
CALVIN LAI said…
my wife is smart. :)
daveed said…
I don't know enough about Pollock or other abstract artists to understand whatever creative impulses, desires, fears, etc. they mined to produce their art. I just know most of it leaves me cold.

But when I see something like Leighton's "Flaming June", I immediately and intuitively feel the art.

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