Reframing abstract expressionism : subjectivity and painting in the 1940s

Title
  1. Reframing abstract expressionism : subjectivity and painting in the 1940s / Michael Leja.
Published by
  1. New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [1993], ©1993.
Author
  1. Leja, Michael, 1951-

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Details

Description
  1. viii, 392 pages : illustrations; 27 cm
Summary
  1. In the wake of World War II, the paintings of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, and other New York School artists participated in a culture-wide initiative to reimagine the self. At a time when widely held beliefs about human nature and the human condition were coming to seem to many commentators increasingly outdated and inadequate, Abstract Expressionism gave compelling visual form to a new subjectivity - a new experience and idea of self. In this original and wide-ranging study, Michael Leja argues that the interest of these artists in tapping "primitive" and "unconscious" components of self aligns them with many contemporary essayists, Hollywood filmmakers, journalists, and popular philosophers who were turning, like the artists, to psychology, anthropology, and philosophy in the effort to reformulate individual identity. Taking Pollock's paintings and their reception as a case study, Leja shows that critics located in Pollock's abstract forms a web of metaphors - including spatial entrapment, conflicted production, energy flow, gendered opposition, and unconsciousness - that situated the paintings in mainstream cultural discourses on the individual's sense of self and identity. In this interpretative frame, the cultural and ideological character of the art is illuminated. According to Leja, Abstract Expressionism effectively enacted and represented the new, conflicted, layered subjectivity, a feature that helps to account for the support and interest it garnered from cultural and political institutions alike.
  2. In the wake of World War II, the paintings of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, and other New York School artists participated in a culture-wide initiative to reimagine the self. At a time when widely held beliefs about human nature and the human condition were coming to seem to many commentators increasingly outdated and inadequate, Abstract Expressionism gave compelling visual form to a new subjectivity - a new experience and idea of self.
  3. In this original and wide-ranging study, Michael Leja argues that the interest of these artists in tapping "primitive" and "unconscious" components of self aligns them with many contemporary essayists, Hollywood filmmakers, journalists, and popular philosophers who were turning, like the artists, to psychology, anthropology, and philosophy in the effort to reformulate individual identity. Taking Pollock's paintings and their reception as a case study, Leja shows that critics located in Pollock's abstract forms a web of metaphors - including spatial entrapment, conflicted production, energy flow, gendered opposition, and unconsciousness - that situated the paintings in mainstream cultural discourses on the individual's sense of self and identity. In this interpretative frame, the cultural and ideological character of the art is illuminated.
  4. According to Leja, Abstract Expressionism effectively enacted and represented the new, conflicted, layered subjectivity, a feature that helps to account for the support and interest it garnered from cultural and political institutions alike.
Subject
  1. Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956
  2. Abstract expressionism
  3. Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956 > Criticism and interpretation
  4. New York (N.Y.)
  5. Paintings > Abstract style
  6. Abstract expressionisme
  7. 1900 - 1999
  8. Subjectivité > Dans l'art
  9. Subjectivity in art
  10. Painting, American > 20th century
  11. Abstract expressionism > United States
  12. Expressionnisme abstrait > États-Unis
  13. Pollock, Jackson, (1912-1956) > Critique et interprétation
  14. United States
  15. Criticism, interpretation, etc
  16. Peinture > États-Unis > 20e siècle
Genre/Form
  1. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Contents
  1. Introduction : Framing abstract expressionism -- The formation of an avant-garde in New York -- The mythmakers & the primitive : Gottlieb, Newman, Rothko & Still -- Jackson Pollock & the unconscious -- Narcissus in chaos : subjectivity, ideology, modern man & woman -- Pollock & metaphor Epilogue.
Owning institution
  1. Columbia University Libraries
Bibliography (note)
  1. Includes bibliographical references (pages 370-388) and index.