The Jewish Museum previewed its newest exhibition, Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning, and Postwar American Art, 1940-1976 on Tuesday, the first U.S. showcase of Abstract Expressionism in 20 years.
The exhibition, which begins May 4, spotlights the works of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, with smaller focus on painters like Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Arshile Gorky.
Also displayed are the writings of Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, two influential art critics of the post-war era.
The exhibition aims to give fresh perspective to Abstract Expressionism by providing the audience with works of the painters and the critics, and the historical background necessary to put the movement in cultural context.
“Different art critics and writers have interpreted the art in many different ways,” said Norman Kleeblatt, head curator of Action/Abstraction. “They shape the way we still think about the art.”
Kleeblatt alludes to Greenberg and Rosenberg, who were notorious for their clashing beliefs. Their philosophy on art is summed up in the exhibition’s sly title.
Rosenberg endorsed action, or the physical way of making art, as exemplified by Pollock’s “drip” technique – the method used to make his iconic splattered paint pieces. Greenberg believed in the abstraction of the piece, or the overall look, feel, and design of the work.
Kleeblatt hopes the showcase gives the audience a launching point of comparison between the different ways Rosenberg and Greenberg viewed the art, mixed with the painters’ ideas behind the works, and the audience’s own opinion.
“It’s terrific!” exclaimed one woman who hadn’t yet seen the paintings.
“I don’t know exactly what [the artist] wants to say,” said Eva Sas, a freelance journalist from Hungary who admitted to not having very much knowledge on Abstract Expressionism. “I’ve read a few things about Pollock, that’s it.”
But that didn’t prevent her from enjoying the exhibition.
“It’s a mixture of reality, imagination, and feelings,” she said.
Abstract Expression began in the late 1940’s as one of the many movements that sprang from the New York art scene. It gained acceptance after WWII and helped propel the United States, particularly New York City, into the avant-garde spotlight, taking the attention away from Paris.
“Here you have [the United States] coming off WWII and struggling,” said Maurice Berger, curator of the exhibition’s three “context rooms” designed to help place the movement in social perspective. “This is really the only period in American art that was on the same trajectory – it too was struggling.”
Berger said that this parallel is what makes the art important.
“Over the years, art critics have begun to focus on the relation between art in the cultural and social contexts,” he explained.
His “context rooms” display newspaper clips, magazine articles, and gallery pamphlets organized in neat little rows against the wall. TVs play snips of documentaries featuring interviews with art critics of the time, Greenberg and Rosenberg included. Berger wants the audience to rethink Abstract Expressionism by providing historic framework.
Art movements like Abstract Expressionism were new ways of reflecting upon a world of radical social change – McCarthyism, the looming Cold War, civil rights, and feminist movements. The exhibition includes what Berger calls “blind spot” artists like Lee Krasner, Pollock’s wife, and Norman Lewis, one of the few African American Abstract Expressionist artists. The rise of minority artists was one social outcome of the art movement.
“Many of the important artists were immigrants or children of immigrants,” said Kleeblatt.
De Kooning emigrated from the Netherlands, while a large number of Jewish artists and critics, like Rothko, Philip Guston, and Michael Goldberg, became a force in the art world.
“Synagogues were some of the first institutions to commission abstract artists,” said Berger, citing this as one of the reasons the Jewish Museum hosted the exhibition.
“I’m glad [the curators] are tying it into being Jewish,” said Alex Schatzberg, an NYU sophomore who plans on attending the exhibition when it opens to the public. “It’s not something I normally think as being Jewish.”
Perhaps the exhibition’s biggest link to Jewish culture comes from Greenberg and Rosenberg, who helped make Abstract Expressionism mainstream. Kleeblatt believes the two critics are still influencing art admirers today.
But for some viewers, it’s about the look of the piece and not its critical analysis.
Liz Bowen, a student at Fordham and one of the few young people at the exhibition, said that, while she knows about the art movements and the ideas behind them, it’s her personal interaction with them that’s important.
“A lot of [the art’s] neat because it’s like looking into a space you’ve never seen before. It swallows you up,” she said.
Her personal favorite wasn’t exhibition headliners Pollock or de Kooning.
“I really liked the inclusion of Barnett Newman because his stuff is a lot more minimal compared to Jackson Pollock. It’s a completely different rendering of the same principals,” she said.
Overall, she was excited for the collection. “This seems like a really rare thing… to see [the art] put together in one place. It’s cool to see them all teamed up.”
Others, like Molly Zimmelman, an art student at the New School, can’t wait for the exhibition to start.
“You go to the MoMa or the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] and you see the same stuff so I’m excited for some new art,” she said. “And Pollock happens to be really interesting.”
The Jewish Museum’s Action/Abstraction exhibition runs May 4 to September 21 and features Pollock’s famous “Convergence” and de Kooning’s masterpiece “Gotham News” as well as other Abstract Expressionist works. The exhibition will travel to St. Louis and Buffalo later this year.
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