There is no required textbook; readings will be scanned and distributed electronically, or will be available through JSTOR

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1 Prof. Kent Minturn Jackson Pollock and the New York School New York University, Fall 2017 CORE-UA 720 Class#: Session: 1 Section: 001 T-TH 12:30-1:45 Course Description: Jackson Pollock and the New York School will examine the life, artistic career and legacy of Jackson Pollock (one the most important though least understood American painters) against the broader background of 20th-century American art, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Postmodernism, and the rise of new media. Concomitantly, this course will introduce students to the existing critical literature on Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock, and his legacy. We will begin by revisiting the Armory Show of 1913, an important exhibition that introduced modern art to American audiences. After this we will look at Pollock s humble American Scene paintings of the 1930s and discuss his relationship with his mentor, the popular but controversial Regionalist painter, Thomas Hart Benton. Then we will move on to consider the relationship between Pollock and the émigré French Surrealists (notably André Breton, Max Ernst, André Masson) who arrived in New York in Pollock s fascination with the Surrealists automatist experiments eventually led to the his famous drip technique. From here we will examine how Pollock s move beyond the easel inspired second-generation postwar American artists, including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, Eve Hesse and Andy Warhol. And finally, we will consider Pollock s afterlife in photography, film and new media. Teaching Assistants: Adam Dunlavy (adamfdunlavy@gmail.com) Jennifer Buonocore (jennifer.g.buonocore@nyu.edu) Course Requirements: Class and weekly discussion sections attendance (see schedule below) Assigned readings 5 page midterm paper, 5-7 page final paper, In-class final exam Texts: There is no required textbook; readings will be scanned and distributed electronically, or will be available through JSTOR Syllabus: Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017 Introduction: What is/was Abstract Expressionism? Clement Greenberg, Avant-Garde and Kitsch (1939), ( Recommended: Irving Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting (New York: Praeger, 1970). Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017 Introduction (continued): What is/was Abstract Expressionism? Serge Guilbault, The New Adventures of the Avant-Garde in America, October 15 (Winter 1980). (JSTOR)

2 Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017 (No Class) Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017 American Predecessors Abraham A. Davidson, The Armory Show and Early Modernism in America, in 20 th Century American Art, ed. Christos M. Joachimides (Munich: Prestel, 1993): (PDF) Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017 American Predecessors (Continued) Stephen Polcari, Jackson Pollock and T.H. Benton (1979) (PDF) Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017 Pollock and the Mexican Muralists Ellen Landau, Reinventing Muralism: Pollock, Mexican Art, and the Origins of Action Painting, Chapt. 3 of Mexico and American Modernism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013): (PDF) Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017 European Predecessors (Picasso) J. Weinberg, Pollock and Picasso: The Rivalry and the Escape, Arts 61:19 (1987). (PDF) Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017 European Predecessors, Dispersal of the European Avant-Garde (Surrealism) Rubin, Surrealism in Exile and After, in Dada, Surrealism and Their Heritage (Abrams, 1977). (PDF) Tuesday, October 3, 2017 Robert Motherwell, de Kooning, Franz Kline David Sylvester, The Birth of Woman I, in The Burlington Magazine (April 1995): (JSTOR) Thursday, October 5, 2017 Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman Yve-Alain Bois, On Two Paintings by Barnett Newman, October 108 (Spring 2004): (JSTOR) Tuesday, October 10, 2017 Clyfford Still Kent Minturn, Clyfford Still, Paul Cézanne, and Posterity available as a link on Professor Minturn s IFA/NYU faculty webpage *** First paper due in class, hard copy Thursday, October 12, 2017 The Pollock Persona Claude Cernuschi, Jackson Pollock: Psychoanalytic Drawings (excerpts) (Duke U Press) (PDF) J. Schildkraut, et. al., Mind and Mood in Modern Art, II Am Journal of Psychiatry (April 1994). (PDF) Tuesday, October 17, 2017 The Pollock Persona (continued) Jeffrey Potter, To a Violent Grave (I will read excerpts from this in class) Michael Leja, Jackson Pollock: Representing the Unconscious, Art History (December 1990). (PDF)

3 Thursday, October 19, 2017 Pollock in the Limelight Clement Greenberg, Art in The Nation (February, 19, 1949) (PDF) Parker Tyler, Jackson Pollock, the Infinite Labyrinth, ( ) (PDF) Harold Rosenberg, American Action Painters, ArtNews (December 1952). (PDF) In-class screening of the 10-minute film, Pollock Painting (dir. Hans Namuth, 1951) Tuesday, October 24, 2017 In Pollock s Shadow: Abstract Expressionism and Gender Anne M. Wagner, Lee Krasner as L.K., Representations (Winter 1989). (JSTOR) Recommended: Joan Marter, Women of Abstract Expressionism (2016) Thursday, October 26, 2017 Abstract Expressionism and the International Context Greenberg, Review of the Exhibitions of Jackson Pollock and Jean Dubuffet (1947) (PDF) Kent Minturn, Greenberg Misreading Dubuffet, (PDF) Recommended: Jeremy Lewinson, Jackson Pollock and the Americanization of Europe, in Pepe Karmel, ed., Jackson Pollock: New Approaches (MOMA 1999): Tuesday, November 7, 2017 NO READING In-class screening of the film, Pollock (dir., Ed Harris, 2000) Thursday, November 9, 2017 NO READING Lecture on the making of the film, Pollock (2000) Tuesday, November 14, 2017 Dismantling the Canon: Black Mountain College, John Cage, Neo-Avant-Garde, Robert Motherwell, Preface to Dada and Surrealist Poets Anthology (June 1951). (PDF) Mary Emma Harris, Black Mountain College: European Modernism, the Experimental Spirit and the American Avant-Garde, in 20 th Century American Art, ed. Christos M. Joachimides (Munich: Prestel, 1993). (PDF) Caroline A. Jones, John Cage and the Abstract Expressionist Persona, Critical Inquiry 19 (Summer 1993) (JSTOR) Thursday, November 16, 2017 Artistic Reinterpretations of Pollock Michael Fried, Three American Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella, (1965). (PDF) Allan Kaprow, Pollock s Legacy (1958) (PDF) Tuesday, November 21, 2017 (No Class Thanksgiving Break) Thursday, Novemeber 23, 2017 (No Class Thanksgiving Break) Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Pollock and Formlessness Rosalind Krauss, Chapter 6 of The Optical Unconscious (MIT Press, 1993) (PDF) Thursday, November 30, 2017 Pollock s Works on Paper Dr. Jennifer Field, Guest Lecture

4 Tuesday, December 5, 2017 Pollock s Digital Afterlives Kent Minturn, Digitally-Enhanced Evidence: MoMA s Reconfiguration of Namuth s Pollock, Visual Resources 17 (2001). (PDF) Jackson Pollock and Fractals, Thursday, December 7, 2017 Who is Jackson Pollock? Excerpts from the documentaty film, and discussion of the controversy surrounding the Pollock Matters exhibition at Boston College (2007) Tuesday, December 12, 2017 (No Class) Thursday, December 14, 2017 (Last Class, Final Exam) (***Final papers due in class also, hard copy) The comprehensive in-class final exam will be worth 100 pts total and will consist of: Ten slide ID questions (worth 10 pts. total) Three short answer questions (worth 10 pts. each) One longer essay question (worth 60 pts. total) First Writing Assignment Directions: Visit the Whitney Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Modern Art, select a work of art by an artist OTHER THAN POLLOCK who we have encountered in the first half of the semester, and write a 5 page formal analysis of this work. The goal of a formal analysis is to construct an argument about a work of art based on your observations of its formal (i.e., physical, material, compositional) qualities. So, before you start writing your paper, you should go to the museum, stand in front of the work and take notes. First, jot down your initial impressions -- e.g., the way the work of art makes you feel, what you like or don t like about it, why you were drawn to it, etc. Then, slow down (spend at least 30 minutes doing this), and look closely at the work of art with the following questions in mind: At what, exactly, are you looking? What materials were used to make this work? What formal choices did the artist make in the process of creating this work? How is this work of art composed? How do the various components of the work relate to the whole? Have you seen this subject, or a similar one, in other works we looked at in class? Think about symmetry and asymmetry, the grouping of figures, shapes or forms (remember, even representations of single figures, shapes or forms are composed carefully). What is the role of naturalism, or mimesis, vs. abstraction or expressionism? Consider the artist s use of (or rejection of) perspective, line, detail, ornamentation, color, light and shadow. Scale is often important as well. You will use these careful observations to write your paper. However, keep in mind that your paper should be more than a simple list of observations -- you need to use them to develop a cogent discussion, and ultimately, to draw some conclusions concerning the effect the artist was trying to suggest or achieve for the observer. Begin your paper by identifying and describing the work of art. Try to use the vocabulary terms and concepts we have developed in class when describing the work. Do not write in first person. Instead, use the observer, or the viewer, or the neutral one. Titles of works of art, like titles of books, are italicized. Do not include everything that you have observed; instead, focus on the qualities that support the major point you are trying to make about the work. Always give specific examples that can be supported by the visual evidence when constructing your argument. This is not a research paper. The purpose of this assignment is to get you to look closely at a specific work art. You should not spend your time summarizing general issues about Abstract Expressionism. You may,

5 however, bring in specific, relevant passages from the readings on our syllabus, or from the the wall labels in the museum. Also you may compare the work to other works we have seen in class, but spend the majority of the paper analyzing the work you have selected in the museum. Some formal terms that might come in handy: monochromatic dominated by a single color polychromatic contains many colors primary colors red, blue, yellow secondary colors orange, green, purple complementary colors colors opposite each other on the color wheel hue a term that is synonymous with color saturation the intensity and/or density of a color tone referes to the amount of black and white used, and all the gradations of gray in-between readymade a mass-produced element the artist chose to include, but one he or she did not create collage (from the French collé = glue ) a work onto which elements have been glued Second Writing Assignment Directions: Building on the skills that you developed composing your first paper, write a 5-7 page paper analyzing a work of art BY JACKSON POLLOCK (from any period in his career), currently on display in a New York City museum, while simultaneously engaging with an argument put forth by one of the authors we have read for this class (or an author we didn t read but whose work is listed as a recommended reading on the syllabus). As you analyze the work by Pollock, consider these questions: Do you agree or disagree with the author s argument? How does the author s methodological approach help us better understand Pollock and the work you have selected to write about? Or perhaps it doesn t. If this is the case, explain what the author overlooked or failed to consider. Books on Reserve at Bobst Ellen Landau, Jackson Pollock (Abrams, 2010) Jeffrey Potter, To A Violent Grave (1985) Pepe Karmel, ed., Jackson Pollock: Interviews, Articles and Reviews (MOMA, 1999) Pepe Karmel, ed., Jackson Pollock: New Approaches (MOMA, 1999) Kirk Varnedoe, Pollock (MOMA exhibition catalog, 1999) Gail Levin, Lee Krasner, William Morrow Paperbacks; (March 13, 2012) Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art (1984) Ellen Landau, Mexico and Modernism (2013) Irving Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting (1970) Joan Marter, Abstract Expressionism: The International Context (2003). David Anfam, Abstract Expressionism (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993). Katie Segal, Abstract Expressionism (Phaidon, 2013) Ellen Landau, Reading Abstract Expressionism: Context and Critique (2005) Ellen Landau and Claude Cernuschi, Pollock Matters (Boston College, 2007) Francis Frascina, Pollock and After 2 nd Edition (2000). Steven Naifeh and Gregory Smith, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga (1998) Joan Marter, Women of Abstract Expressionism (2016) Michael Leja, Reframing Abstract Expressionism (Yale, 1994) Helen Harrison, Such Desperate Joy (2000)

6 CLASS AND DISCUSSION SECTIONS SCHEDULE ***Weekly discussions sections will begin on Friday, Sept. 15

DRAFT THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

**DRAFT THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE** *Readings may be dropped, added, rearranged; class presentations of readings portion of requirements may change* Graduate Seminar: Rauschenberg / Twombly /