of course but was it ever different? abstract expressionism grew out of other movements, there are artists we think are good and artist we don't think are good. i do think you might be romanticizing, or pollock for example might have been romanticizing.
i also want to mention that for many of the conceptualists i've known, or performance artists, or what-have-you, art has been just as much of a challenge and obsession and investigation, just as difficult, if not more so since so often new media were and are also brought into play
- alan On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Joel Weishaus wrote:
Like Michael McClure, "the mystique of abstract expressionism fascinated me." It still does. This came before Andy Warhol introduced mass production into art, when the artist still agonized over a painting or sculpture like Giacometti over the perception of distance. To these artists, art was a life-force. It is true, of course, that they dreamed of fame and fortune, but they took it as a dream, and, having nothing to lose, they painted what they felt, not what the market requested. That was in the beginning. Although many of the abstract expressionists were active politically, little of this seeped into their actual work. I'm wondering whether direct political practice in the arts is what in later generations watered so much of it down into clichés. Most of it is not on the level of Goya, after all. It's not even the mythic fabric of Beuys' life. -Joel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Sondheim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 9:10 PM Subject: Re: Rebus 01--became what it beheld I think re: the art of the 70s - there were people like Tony Rickaby and Smithson of course who worked publicly; it was also an era of public sculpture. I'm not sure the dividing lines are this clear at all - look at Buren, Beuys' coyote piece, etc. There was a lot of political/conceptual art in the 70s as well; it's just not that well-known now as the canon- makers are busy rewriting history/working through 'genre.' - Alan ( URLs/DVDs/CDroms/books/etc. see http://www.asondheim.org/advert.txt - revised 7/05 )
( URLs/DVDs/CDroms/books/etc. see http://www.asondheim.org/advert.txt - revised 7/05 )
