Module 15 Video Review

 Greenberg on Pollock: An Interview by T. J. Clark

Jackson Pollock: Michael Fried and T. J. Clark in Conversation

 

1. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.

Greenberg on Pollock:  An Interview by T.J. Clark

During the interview Greenberg talks about how Pollock’s best work just happened.  He gave some insight on why Pollock painted in that style and how he drew better after 10 years of painting abstract than before.  He believed his paintings had no beginning, middle, and end.  The artists of the 50’s thought Pollock was a freak and his paintings were not real paintings.  Pollock was an outsider and had a romantic notion of an early death.

Jackson Pollock: Michael Fried and T.J. Clark in Conversation

Both agreed on statements about Pollock but they disagree on their reasons for their statements.  Clark believed he played a historical role in modern art; Whereas Fried stressed the independence of the aesthetics of Pollock’s works.  The 60’s allowed people to look at Pollock in a more productive way.  His works were looked at as optical art; because it contained a certain evenness and dispersal of energy, an alloverness kind of quality in its deployment of line and color.  Greenberg tried to cast Pollock as the great predecessor for Louis, Noland, and Krankenthaler.  They describe modernism as painting confronted with some kind of disjunction or collision between what I want to call its resources and its conditions.  They use much different vocabulary to describe things due to their views.    

2. Do the videos relate to the creation of your Art Criticism project? If yes, explain how. If no, explain why not.

I did not get to turn in my Art Criticism project due to my son being hospitalized; I wish I would have turned it in before I took him even though I was putting finishing touches on it.  But I believe they do relate to the project especially the video Jackson Pollock: Michael Fried and T.J. Clark in Conversation.  The reason I believe this video does is because it shows that people can agree that someone is a great artist but have very different reasons for their thinking.  I think this is a very important point with art, everyone has their own views and ideas about art. 

3. What is your opinion of the films? Do they add depth to understanding of art criticism?

I think the videos were very good.  I liked that Greenberg gives an inside view of Pollock’s work and life.  I think it gives more understanding and appreciation to his work.  The other video added to my understanding to hear them explain their different views on his work, even though they both believe he was a great artist.  It is interesting to see each explain their reasons for coming to that conclusion.  It also adds depth to hear the vocabulary that we have learned about art being used in relation to explaining artwork.