Here I was, working hard to appreciate a show full of canvasses from a tiny, exclusive group of New Yorkers. I was there because, as a supporter of the arts and a lover of London's museums, I thought I should be. I knew that Abstract Expressionism was considered one of the United States' greatest contributions to the history of art. But the rooms of acknowledged masterpieces left me unimpressed. This little circle of urban bohemians seemed completely engrossed in themselves, and completely unconcerned about the preferences and desires of their audience.
There was an audio guide with commentary from worthy intellectuals spinning lots of erudite interpretations in a faintly condescending tone that implied that if I didn't "get" this stuff, I was either uneducated, a country bumpkin or a cultural philistine. (I am none of those.) An example: "Clyfford Still wanted his viewers to have a direct experience with the work, without being encumbered by illustration or storytelling." Guess what, Miss Establishment, I LIKE being told a story! In fact, it's one of the primary things I look to art to do. And by stripping it out, you've destroyed the art that I love.
Kick these bums out! Let's go back to the good old days! MAKE ART GREAT AGAIN! I won't push the politics any further, but you get the point.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy elements of this show. There are beautiful things here. Many succeed in the stated objective of the movement: they got me to feel emotion (that's the expression part) without resorting to the depiction of recognisable figures (that's the abstract). The audio guide helped me to understand the skill and craftsmanship behind the canvasses. No, Jackson Pollock did NOT just fling paint around. There's an exquisite method to his madness. There were even several things in this show I'd happily live with, most notably Lee Krasner's Untitled 1948 (above) and De Kooning's cheerful blocks of blue, yellow and green in Villa Borghese. Although the problem with most of these canvasses is that, unless you live in a massive home with vast stretches of stark walls, they're impractical. This is art meant for vast white galleries, not homes.
As wandered through the show I became increasingly perplexed as to where the line was between great art, graphic design and interior decoration. Jackson Pollack's mural (above), commissioned for Peggy Guggenheim's entrance hall in 1948, is a vast and beautiful thing with beguiling colours that seem to dance across the canvas. Rothko's big, fuzzy squares of floating colour do indeed bring on the "serene sense of calm and balance" described on the audio guide. I actually found the abstract sculpture, inserted into the middle of most galleries almost as an afterthought, to be my favourite part of the show and wished the guide would have spent more time on them. Barnett Newman's tall bronze poles with their irregular surfaces made a dramatic statement, for example, in front of his tall canvases with blocks of colour.
They all worked for me as design. They triggered fond memories of the bright plastic modernism of my youth (seen in a very different context earlier this year at Las Vegas' Neon Museum), and reminded me just how good the Mad Men producers were at set dressing. If someone hired me to create a striking public space in a modern hotel lobby, or to do a memorable lobby in a corporate office, this would be "go to" stuff. Striking scene setting, but memorable on its own as art? I am still skeptical. Intellectually, I probably would have been much happier with this show at the Victoria and Albert, where they would have explored the wider design movement.
Not everything struck a pleasant chord. The problem with abstraction is that, if it doesn't provoke emotion, it can be spectacularly boring. I walked past a lot of stuff that I just couldn't summon enough interest in for thoughtful contemplation. Frustrating in a show that costs a whopping £17 to enter. And not all of those expressive emotions are pleasant. With the exception of the aforementioned Villa Borghese and one other, similar canvas, De Kooning's paintings are like angry, paranoid mental disorders trapped in a frame. There's the kernel of a frightening Doctor Who episode here. There was plenty more rage at the establishment throughout. And then there's just the preposterous. I am never going to see Ad Reinhardt's all black paintings as anything but the beginning of the triumph of marketing spin over skill in the world of art.
For me, the real value of going to this show was a personal one. My mother was at Washington University studying art ... specialising in graphic design ... from 1958 to 1962. Abstract Expressionism would have been the dominant trend at that time. This show injected me inside my mother's university experience. I suddenly understood her earlier work, all the stuff that had never made sense to me. I understood why she ... passionate about watercolour, landscapes and the classics ... really didn't care much for art school. And why she was never really happy as an artist until she rejected what she learned and went back to watercolouring the peaceful, figurative scenes she loved. So even though I'm never going to get hugely excited about the abstract expressionists, it was worth going to the show just to get that additional insight into my mother's world.
Kick these bums out! Let's go back to the good old days! MAKE ART GREAT AGAIN! I won't push the politics any further, but you get the point.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy elements of this show. There are beautiful things here. Many succeed in the stated objective of the movement: they got me to feel emotion (that's the expression part) without resorting to the depiction of recognisable figures (that's the abstract). The audio guide helped me to understand the skill and craftsmanship behind the canvasses. No, Jackson Pollock did NOT just fling paint around. There's an exquisite method to his madness. There were even several things in this show I'd happily live with, most notably Lee Krasner's Untitled 1948 (above) and De Kooning's cheerful blocks of blue, yellow and green in Villa Borghese. Although the problem with most of these canvasses is that, unless you live in a massive home with vast stretches of stark walls, they're impractical. This is art meant for vast white galleries, not homes.
As wandered through the show I became increasingly perplexed as to where the line was between great art, graphic design and interior decoration. Jackson Pollack's mural (above), commissioned for Peggy Guggenheim's entrance hall in 1948, is a vast and beautiful thing with beguiling colours that seem to dance across the canvas. Rothko's big, fuzzy squares of floating colour do indeed bring on the "serene sense of calm and balance" described on the audio guide. I actually found the abstract sculpture, inserted into the middle of most galleries almost as an afterthought, to be my favourite part of the show and wished the guide would have spent more time on them. Barnett Newman's tall bronze poles with their irregular surfaces made a dramatic statement, for example, in front of his tall canvases with blocks of colour.
They all worked for me as design. They triggered fond memories of the bright plastic modernism of my youth (seen in a very different context earlier this year at Las Vegas' Neon Museum), and reminded me just how good the Mad Men producers were at set dressing. If someone hired me to create a striking public space in a modern hotel lobby, or to do a memorable lobby in a corporate office, this would be "go to" stuff. Striking scene setting, but memorable on its own as art? I am still skeptical. Intellectually, I probably would have been much happier with this show at the Victoria and Albert, where they would have explored the wider design movement.
Not everything struck a pleasant chord. The problem with abstraction is that, if it doesn't provoke emotion, it can be spectacularly boring. I walked past a lot of stuff that I just couldn't summon enough interest in for thoughtful contemplation. Frustrating in a show that costs a whopping £17 to enter. And not all of those expressive emotions are pleasant. With the exception of the aforementioned Villa Borghese and one other, similar canvas, De Kooning's paintings are like angry, paranoid mental disorders trapped in a frame. There's the kernel of a frightening Doctor Who episode here. There was plenty more rage at the establishment throughout. And then there's just the preposterous. I am never going to see Ad Reinhardt's all black paintings as anything but the beginning of the triumph of marketing spin over skill in the world of art.
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