| Clement Greenberg |
Article Index for Clement |
Website Links For Clement |
Information AboutClement Greenberg |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT CLEMENT GREENBERG | |
| 1909 births | |
| greenberg, clement | |
| 1994 deaths | |
| american art critics | |
| art critics | |
| art collectors | |
| abstract expressionism | |
|
KITSCH Greenberg was a graduate of Syracuse University who first made his name as an art critic with his essay '' Avant-Garde And Kitsch '', published in 1939. In this article Greenberg claimed that Avant-garde and Modernist art was a means to resist the 'dumbing down' of culture caused by Consumerism . In “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” Greenberg draws an unflinching line between high art (defined by its “superior consciousness of history”) and low art (imitation without understanding). The latter is merely a watered-down version of the former, a result of a capitalist system that took money away from the “cultivated” class, from which avant-garde art drew its inspiration and power. The consequences of this were dire. For Greenberg, “Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations {Link without Title} Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times.” The masses, whose very distinction as a mass entity gives them larger influence than the elite, dictate the meanings, style, and functions of art, which are informed by the insensibility that kitsch provides (as opposed to the sensibility that avant-garde art provides). Furthermore, Greenberg accuses Socialist governments of promoting kitsch to align themselves with the masses’ tastes, rather than the heavy intellectualism of avant-garde art. For Greenberg, bad taste is not merely an individual decision but a societal epidemic and a political conspiracy. Greenberg appropriated the German word ' Kitsch ' to describe this consumerism, though its Connotation s have since changed. Modern art, like philosophy, explored the conditions under which we experience and understand the world. It does not simply provide information about it — in the manner of an illustratively accurate depiction of the world. "Avant Garde and Kitsch" was also a politically motivated essay in part a response to the destruction and repression of Modernist Art in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and its replacement with state ordained styles of " Aryan " art and ' Socialist Realism '. REJECTION OF POP ART Greenberg believed Modernism provided a ''critical'' commentary on experience. It was constantly changing to adapt to kitsch culture, which was itself always developing. In the years after World War II , Greenberg came to believe that the best avant-garde artists were emerging in America rather than Europe. Particularly, he championed Jackson Pollock as the greatest painter of his generation, commemorating the artist's "all-over" gestural canvases for their emotional intensity. In the 1955 essay "American Type Painting" Greenberg promoted the work of Abstract Expressionists, among them Pollock, Willem De Kooning , Hans Hofmann , Barnett Newman , and Clyfford Still , as the next stage in Modernist art, arguing that Modernist art was moving towards greater emphasis on the 'flatness' of the picture plane. Stressing this flatness separated Modernist art from the Old Masters, who considered flatness an obtrusive hurdle in painting, and introduced a method of self-criticism that transported abstract painting from decorative 'wallpaper patterns' to high art. Greenberg's view that after the war the United States had become the guardian of 'advanced art' was taken up in some quarters as a reason for using Abstract Expressionism as the basis for Cultural Propaganda exercises. Though later “Clembashers” would accuse Greenberg of contrariness and rigidity, the conclusion to his essay “Abstract and Representational” is remarkably sensible, acknowledging that perception of a work of art changes throughout decades, and eventually centuries. He muses about “future connoisseurs” whom he hopes “will continue to praise the old masters” and “find much more common ground between the old masters and contemporary abstract art than most of us are able to do.” Nevertheless, Greenberg’s occupation as an art critic gained him access to countless exhibitions and retrospectives that led him to claim in, “Abstract and Representational” that, “In my experience- which includes Velasquez and Corot as well as Mondrian and Pollock- tells me nonetheless that the best art of our day tends, increasingly, to be abstract.” These views led Greenberg to reject Pop Art in the 1960s , which was influenced by kitsch culture. Through the 1960s and 1970s , Greenberg remained an influential figure on a younger generation of critics including Michael Fried and Rosalind E. Krauss . Greenberg's antagonism to ' Postmodernist ' theories and socially engaged movements in art caused a backlash amongst both artists and art historians which came to be known as "Clembashing." Whether or not one thinks Greenberg was correct is irrelevant; when most art survey classes discuss art of the 1950s, the artists Greenberg praised and promoted are presented as the most important works of the era. More importantly, Greenberg places quality at the forefront of his writings: “What counts first and last in art is whether it is good or bad. Everything else is secondary.” POST-PAINTERLY ABSTRACTION See Also: Post-painterly Abstraction Eventually Greenberg believed that Abstract Expressionism had been "reduced to a set of mannerisms" and looked toward a new set of artists who abandoned such elements as subject matter, connection with the artist, and definite brush strokes. Greenberg believed this process attained a level of purity that would reveal the truthfulness of the Canvas , which would further celebrate the two-dimensional aspects of the space (flatness). Greenberg coined this idea Post-Painterly Abstraction to distinguish it from Abstract Expressionism, or Painterly Abstraction, as Greenberg preferred to call it. Post-Painterly Abstraction reacted against gestural abstraction and branched into two sects, the Hard-Edged Painters such as Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella who explored relationships within shapes and edges, and Color-Field Painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis , who poured diluted paint onto the unprimed canvas to explore aspects of pure, fluid color. |
|
|