On Abstract Expressionism – Paul Yoward
Ludwig Wittgenstein has been quoted as saying: “The best thing to say about art is nothing”. Exactly, what is there to say of the image? Even in poetry, a construct of words, the eloquence is often in the distance between the words, the defining essence is almost the white space leaving room for thought. As these words do have an echo with sense, even if not resonantly because they do not fulfil the human need for the story; the interpreter for us on a journey, they seem somehow unfriendly: peripheralising our marginalia as insignificant: what might be our life’s work. Just in the same way as, the critic of the abstract expression age, Clem Greenberg’s central tenant was that painting is about paint, misses the ‘transubstantiation’ of substance into emotion.
Maybe, where representation is not found we might be on less than solid ground to narrate and this is why the life of the artist is eulogised: the inchoate of Pollock in life, reflects that in the canvas but picture this: that focus is ridiculous - what sits to breakfast is not the artist, the artist is the work - all the rest is immaterial - we discover the genius in and of the world - it is the thought not the thinker that the thought happened to arise in, there are no geniuses. That we swim through a cultural sea is so much cliché but if you take it literally we might get somewhere. What we see is like one searching with an image - what that image is, is framed by the collective consciousness, which mostly consists of the popular arts; the culture of yeast - the art of collectively getting unconscious - the art of piss. I digress, but I insist permit that I press on the point is, it is not the life of the artist - the tittle-tattle of that other press - it is the art of the life. The unfortunate in this is that this tends to mean a jackal descends after death and what was mere mess, worthless stains now is priceless, a commodity to speculate upon, that which will impress the neighbours. Money obscures worth it does not measure it, in the case of art - a painting is always worth what it is worth it does not like some stock increase, decrease or escalate beyond reason to the price of an opera house. No, money does not help us here it is merely the speculation of some old rich men trying to bite off a piece of the vitality of the life of the artist - get a piece of Monet, a slice of Hirst...
However, never trust anyone who says they do not understand the abstract in art, that their kid could do it - this is an insult to a child who would not pay the Getty fortunes to go back and with the knowledge of an adult, paint with fresh eyes, the child’s newly minted faculty?
If we want to classify art we might get somewhere by dividing artists by this question: who do they please? There are those who court an audience, who seek to fulfil the brief of others. These are thought of as being successful in their lifetime if they do indeed achieve what they set out to do. We can think of them producing a kind of ‘extrovert’ art fulfilling the needs of others: a dialogue.
Others know only what they have to do in their art to fulfil an impulse within themselves - a dramatic monologue. These tend to be either very successful in getting an audience, if they chime with the ‘spirit-of-the-age’ or have almost no audience at all. For these ‘introverts’ a kind of perceived
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