Jackson Pollock: New Approaches

Presenting nine critical essays by leading scholars--among them T.J. Clark, Robert Storr, James Coddington, Rosalind Krauss, and Kirk Varnedoe--this collection offers dramatically different ways of understanding Jackson Pollock's art and influence. Revealing not just the richness of Pollock's work, but also the vitality and diversity of contemporary criticisms, these texts discuss the crisis of easel painting, Pollock's relationship with his wife, artist Helen Frankenthaler, the Americanization of Europe, and the place of chaos in Pollock's work. Based on a symposium held in 1999 during The Museum of Modern Art, New York's retrospective exhibition of Pollock's oeuvre, this volume is a companion to Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles, and Reviews, a collection of older texts by or about the artist.

Jackson Pollock is widely considered the most challenging and influential American artist of the 20th century. In his revolutionary paintings of the late 1940s, he dripped paint into complex webs of interlacing lines, rhythmically punctuated by pools of color. With their allover composition, apparent abstraction, and spontaneous but controlled paint handling, these powerful works announced the emergence of Abstract Expressionism.