Focus On: Jackson Pollock

In honor of a pretty nifty documentary I just saw, Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? (2006), I bring you the IUAM's (Indiana University Art Museum's) own Pollock, Number 11 (1949).
(image courtesy of Flickr. Number 11 is not this murky in person, but I had trouble finding a better image, so this will have to do.)

Admittedly, I never thought much about Pollock or liked his works--that is, until I saw them for the first time in person. It is the textures that make them really interesting, at least for me. The way he layers paint is fascinating, with the thickness of some lines countered by thin streams of paint. In this work, the dominate colors are a mustard yellow, sky blue, navy, a tiny bit of red, and white. It's an intricate maze, a tangled ball of yarn, a birds nest.

Most times I've been in front of a Pollock, there has usually been someone behind me saying "my five year old could do that," or "how is this even art?" which are opinions often encountered with modern or contemporary art (and one of the many reasons why I started putting in headphones in museums.) There is a formula/saying to use on these people:
Modern Art = I Could Do That + Yeah, But You Didn't.

I defy anyone to paint like Pollock. And "paint" is kind of a loose term here...he flicked and dripped and splattered, carefully. It's much more than painting. Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? played at the IU Cinema over the weekend and I went with some friends and it made me happy. (Sidenote: they just redid the Cinema, in the same building as the Auditorium. Free movies almost every night, with Benton murals on the walls. It's a win all around.) Before the documentary was another shorter documentary, 10 minutes long, about Jackson Pollock at his Long Island studio in 1950. It was when he was experimenting with painting on glass, so the camera was underneath and you watched him work from below, which was super cool. The main feature was about a retired truck driver who bought a potential Pollock at a thrift store for $5 dollars for her friend. They both thought it was ugly. Someone told them it might be a Pollock (her response was, "who the [bleep] is Jackson Pollock?" hence the title.) She started contacting art dealer-business people, who were hideous to her. The worst was a man from the Met who was every single stereotype of NYC elitist-Met curator snob-art snob ever. The interviewers asked him about the woman's "Pollock" (and by now the entire audience loved her because she smoked and swore and was sure she was right) and he said something like, "who is she? Nobody. I'm the expert here." After that, every time he was on screen, people booed.

The jury is still out on whether it is a Pollock or not--stylistically it is iffy, but they did find one of his fingerprints on the back. If you are interested in the art business, Pollock, forensics and art, or...truckers, it's worth a watch. So, Pollock. I'm usually pretty glad to see him.