Video Review

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

Key Concepts:

• Knew Pollock would be a great artist.
• summer of 1947; saw his 1st Pollock splatter painting.
• Statement of Purpose: Intended to paint large movable pictures which functioned between toe easel & murals.
• Believed the easel to be a dying form, & that the tendency of modern art was leading towards the wall from.
• Pictures intended to be a half-way state, Pollock's intent was to point out the future of the art world without arriving there completely.
• Spatter technique intended to "break the plane," saved elbow/wrist from strain, unique & technical.
• Paintings Apollonian, not Dionysian.
• Sold approximately 1 picture a year, lived off of advances. 
• Was an outsider in the art world.

Relate to Art criticism Project:

Definitely showed how the person criticizing an artist/their works can make a judgement as an outsider on someone else's works, yet still have a firm grasp of their techniques/meanings.

Opinion:

Found the information pertinent to how I will be criticizing another person's work.

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

Key Concepts:

• Pollack: Modernist master, 1 of the most important painters of the 20th century.
• Key figure, brings to light issues, work raises "burning problems."
• Clark: Avant-Garde art; emphasis on historical aspects.
• Fried: leader in Modernist movement; aesthetic/positive qualities; renewal.
• Both agree about Pollock's status as artist.
• Dispersal of energy, quality of deployment of line/energy.
• Optical = energy of picture.
• Every inch different from every other.
• Extraordinary differentiation from point to point.
• Drive of Modernist painting: wanting to intensify surfaces/maximize presence.
• Gives a picture of conditions under which a certain difficulty can be aesthetic.
• Agree on need for historical account of Pollack's radical abstraction, but also that its historical significance cannot be separated from its pictorial quality.

Relate To Art Criticism Project:

The video definitely relates to the Art Criticism project because it shows how 2 very different views of 1 artist can both be accurate in their own way, & how despite these differences there is also similarities, & ways that of viewing an artist/art, can be agreed upon.

Opinion:

Interesting, informative, show how to critique a piece without being judgmental, or disagreeable with another person's opinions.