background information for IB Juniors action painting unit

1. ACTION PAINTING

2. • In AbstractExpressionism an artist no longer
started with an image in mind rather he began with
his media with intent of interacting with the surface.
The resulting image was the result of this act.

3. • Many
times the only thing these artists had in
common was the movement of the artist’s body
• Abstractionallowed artists to explore psychology
and subjective states of mind and they were free to
experiment without the need for the public’s
understanding or approval.

4. Jackson Pollack

5. Helen Frankenthaler

6. Wols

7. Kazuo Shiraga

8. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND POLITICS
• modernism brought about artist’s independence from political
manipulation
• howeversome critics said that its inaccessibility meant that it
had no meaningful social purpose
• how could this art push boundaries and evoke social change if
it was not understood?

9. • ofcourse any piece of art is a direct reflection of
established philosophies, belief systems, and
ideological loyalties
• canart or an artist ever be truly independent of its
time and place?

10. • critics
have said that American Abstract
Expressionism and American foreign policy during
the Cold War went well together since an artist
achieving freedom and individuality was essentially a
nationalistic act, honoring a country that tolerated
freedom and individuality

11. • Abstract Expressionist paintings were portrayed as
free from the actual economic and political life in
the Cold War and a symbol of a free, creative
cultural practice, characteristic of a free America
standing up against the threat of the Soviet Union.
• questions exist as to whether this was intentional
or even if the artists were aware of what their art
was portrayed as

12. • differences
in critics opinions reinforce the view
that these works of art do not intentionally
embody political or idealogical content
• like
any object that we study, they are open to the
interpretation of those observing it

13. SOURCES
• Harold Rosenberg, “The American Action Painters” from
Tradition of the New, originally in Art News 51.8, Dec. 1952 p.22
• “ActionPainting: Perspectives from Two Sides of the Atlantic”
Review by: Gail Levin Art Journal, Vol. 67, No. 4 (winter 2008),
pp.119-121 Published by: College Art Association
• DavidCraven, Abstract Expressionism as Cultural Critique:
Dissent During the McCarthy Period. 232 pp., illus., bibl,
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999