Luis Alberto Casarrubias Beirana A01211140

LMC 7
th
semester

10 ideas on Pollock (2000)

1. Pollock was from the school of Thomas Benton Carl
Gustave Jung made me get over Benton
Abstract expressionists were influenced by psychoanalysis. Many of
them believe they could evoke subconscious emotions through the use
of shapes and colors.

2. I dont let the image carry the painting, if it creeps in I try to
do away with it.
Through the rejection of the subject and the imagery Pollock believed he
could send messages to the viewer without showing a figurative
representation of reality.

3. Picasso is not worth shit
Pollock was constantly compared with cubism and surrealist automatism.
He disliked this comparison because he considered that cubists and
surrealists still used figurative imagery and that their means of
expressing didnt come mostly from sources that are within the artist
(subconscious).

4. Pollock spends hours contemplating, hours or months
before it tackles it again, Im just painting.
Action painting is a technique in which paint is spontaneously dribbled,
splashed or smeared. We observe how Pollock doesnt act on the
canvas unless his subconscious is ready. This is the reason why when
the physical act began he couldnt stop until he actually felt he needed to
stop. How do you know when youre finished making love?

5. Modern artists cannot express this age (airplane, atom bomb,
radio), in the old forms of the renaissance or any other culture.
There is an intrinsic way of viewing aesthetics or even sending a
message in each specific time in culture. The classical ways of portraying
art where not enough to describe the psychological chaos in which
people lived during the modernization or the war times.

6. I paint on the floor. Liquid flowing paint. The brushes are
used like sticks, they dont touch the canvas
There is a rupture in the way artistic tools are used. The finished painting
is only a part of the art; it is the physical manifestation. The process
was equally important to be analyzed and it gives value to the final work.
If the process is not considered then the physical manifestation might be
under perceived or viewed lightly.

7. Flowers: You dont tear your hair out over what it means
Equally, abstract expressionism shouldnt be over analyzed. It is
important to evaluate your first impression of the painting, for it contains
the reaction that your subconscious felt during your first experience of
encounter.

8. Itll be worth a 100,000 dollars someday
There is a constant polemic that discusses how much is art worth. In this
case, how much does a man artistic subconscious expression is worth?
He, indeed, was one of the pioneers of action painting, which gives him
value, but does it necessarily have to translate into a society that over
commercializes over new ideals in art?

9. You had a 10 year run
There is a rush in peoples attention into art forms. The over
commercialization mixed with the velocity of ideas being shared all over
the world, creates a panorama in which art is too one of the victims of the
crisis of overproduction. Overproduction may cause that a society
doesnt necessarily takes time to perceive its own reality at a realistic
time.

10. Abstract expressionism and other contemporary art forms
have been reproduced over and over until our present times.
What does this means? Does it means that were not critically creating
new art forms that do not depend on reproduction of past ones? Or it
means that all of these contemporary art forms still have a significant role
to play even in the 21
st
century?