Word: abstractions
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Pollock-De Kooning breakthrough soon found a following, and a label: abstract expressionism. Like most labels, this one has proved inadequate. It is used loosely to suggest merely the expression of strong feeling without any reference to objective reality. Young idealists in search of an ideal, and middle-aged casuists in search of a cause, alike sprang to the defense of abstract expressionism almost before it began to be attacked. And it was attacked, inevitably, for to believers in the classical concepts of beauty and truth to nature, it was an insult. This gave the advance guard a stimulating sense...
Martyrs, Inc. The persecution complex that darkens, like a private rain cloud, the brows of most abstract expressionists can only be called subjective. On an objective level, the leaders of the movement have done quite well. The painters are sur rounded by adoring disciples. Their works have been showed and admired in a dozen American cities and also in London, Paris and Venice. The works of the eight painters on these pages hang in excellent Manhattan galleries, and more than 100 of them have been bought by museums at four-figure prices...
...Abstract expressionism does not mean Easy Street to the artist, but neither does it mean martyrdom, unless the martyrdom is of the sort that Painter Mark Rothko bemoans. Rothko for a while was one of a group who carried privacy to the extreme of refusing to let their paintings be seen; ' even now he considers it "a risky act" to send a painting "out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent who would extend their affliction universally...
...advance guard is advancing in a number of different directions at once, and swiftly outrunning the abstract-expressionist formula. The variety of the paintings shown here-from De Kooning's gustiness to Guston's coolness-is in itself a strong indication of the movement's vitality. And even the uncaring observer will somehow prefer one picture lo another, which proves that they do project certain qualities-whether ugly or beautiful. None is a mere nothing...
Robert Motherwell's Western Air is cubism smashed flat and with a couple of sky-holes poked through it. It demonstrates how abstract expressionism can make violent use of yesterday's art furniture. Arshile Gorky's Garden in Sochi uses Miro-like amoeba shapes to express an infant memory...