Art Theory

How Jackson Pollock became so overrated



Vox

There’s an overlooked reason for Pollock’s fame. Even if you love him, you might not know the name of the man who made him famous.

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Jackson Pollock is one of the 20th century’s most famous artists. But do you know the critic who made his reputation?

Clement Greenberg is a well-known name in the art world, but not necessarily to art fans. However, he earned a reputation as one of the most influential art critics in the 20th century, whose legacy included the canonization of Jackson Pollock.

Abstract expressionist art needed vocal champions to support challenging, unique work, and Greenberg was the most powerful and vocal in his defense of the art and, in particular, Jackson Pollock. Greenberg went from tie salesman to intellectual in less than a decade, thanks to strongly worded arguments for a new artform. Jackson Pollock was one of his favorite artists, and the two spent time together socially as they simultaneously climbed in the art world.

Is Clement Greenberg the reason that Jackson Pollock is so famous? He’s definitely a part of it — and understanding the role of Greenberg and critics like him can be a useful tool to understanding art in the 20th century.

Overrated is a series that takes a look at the things we all know — the books, the trends, and the ideas that have become iconic — and answers the question: “Why is this so famous”?

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42 thoughts on “How Jackson Pollock became so overrated
  1. What the filmmaker would like you to believe is music is, in fact, extremely irritating noise. I really wanted to view the video, but the repetitive noise drove me away. It adds nothing to the video, and subtracts a great deal. It's like a dentist's drill.

  2. Lets be real if Pollock was not white his art would not sell. Not only that his artwork would be extremely critiqued for the trash it is. Pollock's fame is a product of his privilege. Without his whiteness he is nothing.

  3. True story: My parents met at The Art Students League of New York. One of their good friends was a surreal abstractionist, Jerry Kamrowski. He went to the Guggenheim Foundation and got a scholarship to do pure abstractionism, which was considered passé already by the young artists. My parents were semi abstractionists. Kamrrowski continued his surrealism. Then he got letter to bring in his work. So he stretched a large number of canvasses, popped up bags of popping corn, bought a few jugs of wine and invited his friends at the League over. After they were done, he sorted them into piles from worst to best and dated them Sept, Oct, Nov….then took them down to the Guggenheim and got his scholarship re-newer. They could not tell that a dozen different people, including Spiro the sculptor, had made the paintings.

  4. They always called Polliock as the cowboy artist. All because of a picture oof him as a kid in a cowboy hat. His youngerr later laughted and said Jackson has never been on a horse in his life. The famouse story of him urinating in Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace was a reimaginged story from Thomas Hart Benton. After WW2 the global power shift from Europe to the US was a major factor in promoting American artist as the global vision.

  5. That's why critics hate artists who have a mass fanbase because these superstars get credibility from the masses and not crowned by the critics to run their political agendas on the public.

  6. This is a great video! It reveals the biases of the past that have helped some while overlooking, possibly, other greater talents in so many industries, not just the arts. It is still happening today.

  7. I wonder how many people in this thread make money painting and selling art. That’s all that really matters.

  8. His art (and he) is famous because it fit the narrative of the age and subsequently helped to define it. Right person, right place + luck.
    I also think he was a talented and passionate artist wether you like his art or not.

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