Paul Jackson Pollock

Having had the opportunity to research Pollock rather extensively, I find him more legitimate than I otherwise would have. My first impression of him and his more famous work in the style of abstract expressionism was in line with a quote mentioned in the presentation; that it was “a joke in bad taste” (from a Reynold’s News headline in 1959). When my untrained eye saw the interwoven swirling colors on the canvas, I thought a five-year-old could create something just as good. I would still like to raise the question; “Even though no one can correctly reproduce a Pollock, should his work still qualify as great art?” I am under the impression that his tumultuous life greatly contributed to his incredible fame; even the film presented in class revealed that there were many Pollock imitators that were much less well-known. I did not begin to “approve” of Pollock as an artist deserving of any kind of recognition until I saw his earlier work; specifically, “Going West” from 1934. The figures represented in the piece are recognizable from real life, and are painted in a way that bends reality, demonstrating that talent was required to create this work. In my humble opinion, since Pollock had first “proved” himself as possessing actual talent before creating his later, much better-known work, he had the right to make anything he wanted and call it “art.”
Danto seems to be the most applicable theorist to Pollock’s art, because of his comment that art is not art until someone says that it is. I am referring to his later work when I say this. If I saw a bunch of squiggles on a canvas, no matter how “controlled” they were, I would never call it art. However, our society works in such a way that if an influential person in a field (or someone who is simply good at promoting their work) says that something is art, or “genius,” on numerous enough occasions, the lemmings will follow, and follow we did, spending $140,000,000 on Number 5 as we went.

Image: http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/artist4.shtm

On Nietzsche's and Tolstoy's ability to compose a theory

After reading both Nietzsche and Tolstoy, I have come to the conclusion that the “collapse of principium individuationis” (p.164) and the infection of art could be argued to be either one and the same or completely different, where the flaws in each one of these elements are exposed. Bean counter that I am, I have chosen to nitpick details and argue that these concepts are completely different.
When Nietzsche discusses the principle of individuation in Ross’s anthology, he uses the words of Schopenhauer in Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, speaking of the “man wrapped in the veil of maya” (p. 164). He references a section (I, p. 416) that states that “in the midst of a world of torments the individual human being sits quietly, supported by and trusting in the principium individuationis…” I interpret this section as referring to the one absolute truth that Nietzsche searches for in all of his early writings; the person in the storm mentioned before this quote believes in the social psychology concept of a just world, and in this just world, he or she will be protected because he or she is somehow deserving of this, most often because of a belief in him or herself as a “good person;” and bad things do not happen to good people, right? Of course not (pardon my sarcasm).
Sparknotes tells me that this belief (in P. I.) includes boundaries between men (more specifically between the order of Apollonian and Dionysian realms), which is where this concept begins travelling in the complete opposite direction of Tolstoy’s “infection” of emotion through the medium of art. Tolstoy even goes so far as to say that art that does not accomplish this does not qualify as art. However, we discussed in class the many circumstances in which this cannot happen; how are we as viewers of art to know what the artist truly meant to communicate when he or she created the work? What if he or she, like Warhol, was probably lying when questioned about the meaning of the art? This limits true art to a few pieces where the meaning is either very clear, or when the viewer, by chance alone, happens to feel the same emotion or gather the same idea that the artist experienced while creating the piece. Since it is not an all-encompassing theory, and actually only works for a select few situations, it loses most of its credibility in my eyes. The principle of individuation actually makes sense, making it an acceptable theory. One solid argument and essentially, one non-argument, cannot be discussing the same thing.

"Faking It": From Sacramento, California to the big, sophisticated city of Pullman

The last discussion in the “Faking It” video was very interesting to me. One of the art critics said that the “faker’s” art did not speak to him because there was an explanation concerning the creator’s background accompanying it. I have gathered the impression from our discussions and readings in this course that art does not need any explanation; like the female mentor in the film said, the viewer will project their own meaning, or speculations onto the piece of art before them. I felt like the presenter did not need to add the background story of our “faker’s” experience when he was younger; the painting could speak for itself. I’m not sure how much the man who made that comment deserves to be a part of the “art world” himself if he does not understand or accept that concept.

The episode of the program we saw today was very neat and contrived. The main character was from a working-class type of upbringing, with not much education, and even had a slightly different accent than the art experts, who spent their time in upscale London and had no doubt spent many years educating themselves, both generally and in the world of art. He has been and will continue to be trained by experts; he has even been given a new look, to make the transformation even more real to him. His greatest weakness seems to be his small vocabulary, since he dropped out of school at the age of 16. I am confident that he can be taught some jargon to use while discussing his art, but other aspects of the higher-class culture will be difficult for him. He has been to a few art exhibits, but there are many others that he does not know exist. If he is asked about one of those, he is in trouble, because an up-and-coming artist certainly has done his or her homework about everything that is present in the art world, as well as other artists’ work.

Despite our hero’s disadvantages, I predict that two out of the final three will accept him as an artist. There are a few reasons for this. First, since this is a TV show, the odds are that successes will be shown. Viewers expect happy endings, and if networks fail to deliver, they will stop watching, and the shows of that network will eventually be cancelled. My second reason is that the world of art has become so broad, that it seems that “anything goes.” Anything, except, say, the “middle-class values” that Thomas Kinkade and his fans represent will be acknowledged in this supposedly liberal (all-accepting?) environment. Since so many different techniques and levels of skill and attractiveness are present in “legitimate” art, it will be extremely difficult for the judges to tell who is real and who is not. If I am correct, any average Joe could be taken from their neighborhood and trained to be an “artist.” You might ask; is this a good thing?