February 19, 2005
Jackson Pollock+ cold war
Many years ago the Marxist critique of modern art rejected Jackson Pollock for his splurgy, random knot of lines that threaded their way across the canvas and over the edges.
Jackson Pollock, IA, 1948
I recall reading the art criticism of Serge Guilbaut's, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art, and turned it into a weapon of the Cold War.
True, the CIA did realize the potential of abstract expressionism to be used as a tool in the cultural Cold War as an embodiment of western freedom contrasted sharply against grey Stalinist conformity. The CIA worked with the Museum of Modern Art to promote the abstract expressionists, funding touring exhibitions in Europe, as an expression of liberty.
However,Guilbaut's, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art, crudely reduced abstract expressionism to a tool of U.S. foreign policy. This reduces abstract expressionism to its Cold War context.
Is the above work by Pollock an example of abstract expressionism created from the necessity of bearing witness to the experience of the terrible moment of history through which they lived? Is it impulse The impulse is to take a stand for individual personality and freedom in an age of tyranny and conformity?