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The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture
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The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture

A special issue of Arts (ISSN 2076-0752). This special issue belongs to the section "Visual Arts".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (21 November 2022) | Viewed by 16983

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Gregory Gilbert

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Art and Art History, Knox College, Galesburg, IL 61401, USA
Interests: abstract expressionism; Robert Motherwell; World War II and popular media; modernist collage; pragmatist philosophy and its relation to American visual culture and poetry

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Beginning with Clement Greenberg’s 1939 essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” abstract expressionist art was traditionally viewed as a purist movement that was antithetical to the populist imagery and subject matter associated with the burgeoning mass visual culture of the 1940s and 1950s. However, revisionist scholarship on abstract expressionism has increasingly revealed its complex relationship with a variety of commercial media, including glossy picture magazines, wartime news reports, propaganda posters, comics and popular movies, particularly film noir.

We seek articles that engage with new topical and theoretical approaches for considering the mass cultural context of abstract expressionism. All aspects and varieties of painting, sculpture, drawing and collage can be addressed, and we especially welcome topics that expand the field of abstract expressionist studies with regard to issues of globalism, race and gender. Articles can examine both the intentional and subliminal responses of artists to the media spectacle associated with World War II, which included censored war imagery, newsreels, military propaganda and patriotic home front advertising. We also wish to address the social experiences and psychic trauma related to the war years that continued to pervade postwar visual culture. In addition, a compelling topic is the shifting symbiotic relationship between popular media and abstract expressionist art, which was appropriated for mainstream consumption in advertising, fashion magazines and film design.

To propose an article for publication, please send a title and a short abstract to the Editor, Gregory Gilbert, at ggilbert@knox.edu, with a copy to arts@mdpi.com by 1 May 2022. Full manuscripts of up to max 15,000 words in length should be submitted by 21 November 2022.

Dr. Gregory Gilbert
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • abstract expressionism
  • World War II
  • mass culture
  • media censorship
  • propaganda
  • advertising
  • film

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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12 pages, 247 KiB  
Editorial
The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture—An Historiographic Overview
by Gregory Gilbert
Arts 2023, 12(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12020064 - 24 Mar 2023
Viewed by 2107
Abstract
Of the major modernist movements in the 20th century, Abstract Expressionism long retained its canonical status as a radical avant-garde detached from a broader mass culture [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

13 pages, 223 KiB  
Article
Hans Namuth’s Photographs and Film Studies of Jackson Pollock: Transforming American Postwar Avant-Garde Labor into Popular Consumer Spectacle
by Joseph Mohan
Arts 2024, 13(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010005 - 25 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1386
Abstract
Abstract Expressionism is often regarded as the first purely American art movement and the first to gain mass cultural recognition. Prior to the 1940s, the consideration and appreciation of abstract art belonged to a certain intellectual elite, but the intimidating complexity of Abstract [...] Read more.
Abstract Expressionism is often regarded as the first purely American art movement and the first to gain mass cultural recognition. Prior to the 1940s, the consideration and appreciation of abstract art belonged to a certain intellectual elite, but the intimidating complexity of Abstract Expressionism, the daring allure of its artists, and the particularities of mid-century American culture converged to transform the avant-garde into consumer spectacle. This shift represented, and was symptomatic of, a larger societal rearrangement: information and commodity superseded industrialized labor as the core of American culture. Jackson Pollock, America’s first avant-garde superstar, stood at the center of this shift, at once representing both active creative labor and the commodification of the idea of that labor. Hans Namuth’s photographs and films of Pollock placed him and his art firmly in the realm of consumable popular spectacle, underlying further connections to Hollywood film and prominent print media. This article examines how Pollock became a paradigmatic figure in the avant-garde’s proliferation into mass culture and asserts that mass culture did not simply subsume the avant-garde. Rather, the two realms engaged in a mutual construction that pushed the avant-garde across numerous social boundaries. The artistic, critical, and popular receptions that grew out of this convergence erased distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)
21 pages, 26926 KiB  
Article
More than a Man, Less than a Painter: David Smith in the Popular Press, 1938–1966
by Paula Wisotzki
Arts 2023, 12(4), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12040153 - 12 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1408
Abstract
Media coverage was vital in establishing the popular reputation of the Abstract Expressionists. Reporting regularly relied on photographic portraits to present these artists as modernist innovators who were an extension of (or even a replacement for) the work of art. Jackson Pollock came [...] Read more.
Media coverage was vital in establishing the popular reputation of the Abstract Expressionists. Reporting regularly relied on photographic portraits to present these artists as modernist innovators who were an extension of (or even a replacement for) the work of art. Jackson Pollock came to epitomize the Abstract Expressionist artist, with “action” photographs capturing his radical painting method. Pollock’s contemporary, American sculptor David Smith, similarly transformed his medium—in his case by embracing industrial methods to make three-dimensional objects. However, given the constraints inherent in the process of welding he employed, how could Smith’s image be reconstituted as a celebration of artistic individuality so crucial to modernism? The very method Smith embraced to push the boundaries of art kept him from representing the genius creator who channeled the forces of nature to produce culture. By tracing photographs documenting his career published in local and regional newspapers, popular magazines from Popular Science to Life, and mass art magazines from Magazine of Art to Arts, this paper demonstrates that images of Smith at work as an anonymous industrial worker enveloped in protective gear were regularly balanced with images of contemplation—the traditional image of the artist as mediating intelligence. Yet, over the years of his career, the problem of representing Smith was addressed somewhat differently. Early on, there was a tendency to show Smith applying his novel art-making techniques to the production of more traditional objects. During World War II, when Smith was employed as a commercial welder, Smith the artist legitimized reporting on Smith the worker. Finally, in the post-war world—as Smith benefited from the burst of publicity surrounding the triumph of Abstract Expressionism—his rigorous manipulation of metal was celebrated as masculine display, effectively shifting attention away from common industrial labor to heroic individual struggle. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)
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33 pages, 12098 KiB  
Article
Self-Betrayal or Self-Deception? The Case of Jackson Pollock
by Elizabeth L. Langhorne
Arts 2023, 12(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12020054 - 13 Mar 2023
Viewed by 3788
Abstract
Clement Greenberg interpreted the rise of authentic modern art as a rejection of kitsch and “half-baked” religiosity and celebrated Jackson Pollock as representing what he called for. However, his presentation of Pollock as a leading modernist fails to do justice to his lifelong [...] Read more.
Clement Greenberg interpreted the rise of authentic modern art as a rejection of kitsch and “half-baked” religiosity and celebrated Jackson Pollock as representing what he called for. However, his presentation of Pollock as a leading modernist fails to do justice to his lifelong spiritual quest and to his desire to reach a broad public, which led him to open his art and person to the popular media of photography and film. Following Greenberg, Donald Kuspit would have us understand Pollock’s embrace of and by the public as a self-betrayal, transforming his great abstractions into decorative kitsch. Kuspit’s understanding of Pollock’s “true self”, however, cannot convince. His embrace of the public did lead Pollock to doubt his artistic enterprise: his dream of art as alchemy. But, the great abstractions testify to the power of that dream to create great art, challenging us to reconsider the relationship between authentic art and mass culture, of modernism, spirituality, and the public. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)
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21 pages, 6144 KiB  
Article
Cowboys: Abstract Expressionism, Hollywood Westerns, and American Progress
by Justin Kedl
Arts 2023, 12(1), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12010033 - 14 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1909
Abstract
Abstract Expressionism has been influenced heavily by the popular theory of America’s undying, progressive spirit, originally conceived by Frederick Jackson Turner and given its most potent form in Western films. Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” was embodied in stories of John Wayne and other cowboy [...] Read more.
Abstract Expressionism has been influenced heavily by the popular theory of America’s undying, progressive spirit, originally conceived by Frederick Jackson Turner and given its most potent form in Western films. Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” was embodied in stories of John Wayne and other cowboy heroes taming the supposed edges of civilization. The mythic West as constructed by Turner and these films cemented American identity as one of exploration and innovation, with the notable condition of Indigenous Americans ceding their sovereignty. While Abstract Expressionism was commonly connected to the mythic West through the origin stories of Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still, the critical understanding of this movement as the height of painterly achievement built on Native American precedents evinces a deeper connection to Turner’s popular Frontier theory. As critics like Clement Greenberg cast flatness as the last frontier of painting, and as artists like Pollock and Barnett Newman claimed Native American ritual practices as a part of their aesthetic lineage, Abstract Expressionism proved as effective as Hollywood Westerns in corroborating and perpetuating the idea of America’s frontier spirit. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)
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32 pages, 16665 KiB  
Article
The Semiotics of Willem de Kooning’s Easter Monday
by Claude Cernuschi
Arts 2023, 12(1), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12010031 - 13 Feb 2023
Viewed by 2054
Abstract
Critics have frequently employed strict binary schemes to explain Abstract Expressionism’s singular contributions to art history: the victory of abstraction over figuration, avant-garde over kitsch, pure art over anecdotal illustration, action over premeditation, or escapist detachment over direct political engagement. Taking Willem de [...] Read more.
Critics have frequently employed strict binary schemes to explain Abstract Expressionism’s singular contributions to art history: the victory of abstraction over figuration, avant-garde over kitsch, pure art over anecdotal illustration, action over premeditation, or escapist detachment over direct political engagement. Taking Willem de Kooning’s Easter Monday as a case study, this paper will question the efficacy of such dyadic explanations to encapsulate the diversity of New York School practice. Easter Monday includes both figural and abstract elements, some that parade the work’s impulsive and spontaneous character and others that were created by a photo-mechanical process. Some celebrate the artist’s personal and idiosyncratic touch, others the impersonality of popular forms of advertising. In contradistinction, the semiotic terminology of C.S. Pierce reveals not only multiple points of intersection with de Kooning’s work; it also effectively identifies and differentiates the plurality of elements the artist conjoined in a single visual field, some of which qualify as iconic, indexical, symbolic, or even as hybrid combinations of the above. These more elastic descriptors, it will be argued, are well-suited to address de Kooning’s variegated surfaces: they can address his accommodation of diverse techniques, as well as the multiple ways the artist constructed meaning and responded to popular culture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)
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16 pages, 333 KiB  
Article
Olga Albizu’s Lyrical Abstraction and the Borders of the Canvas
by Raquel Flecha Vega
Arts 2023, 12(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12010020 - 20 Jan 2023
Viewed by 2178
Abstract
The abstractionist paintings of Puerto Rican artist Olga Albizu (1924–2005) gained prominence in the late 1950s when her work debuted in galleries across the Americas and entered the commercial music industry with RCA and Verve records. However, existing scholarship has failed to capture [...] Read more.
The abstractionist paintings of Puerto Rican artist Olga Albizu (1924–2005) gained prominence in the late 1950s when her work debuted in galleries across the Americas and entered the commercial music industry with RCA and Verve records. However, existing scholarship has failed to capture the complex relationship between Albizu’s anti-commercial abstractionist aesthetic and its mass reproduction as cover art for vinyl records during the Cold War era. Returning to the canvas to explore the iconographic, formal, and aesthetic qualities of Albizu’s work within its sociohistorical post-World War II context, this study reveals Albizu’s devotion to formal borders, vivid color juxtapositions, and compositional tensions. I argue that Albizu’s practice constitutes an ongoing concern with a Modernist dialectic and ideals about subjective transformation in a postmodern world of mass culture, a message she conveyed through the material and experiential borders of the canvas. As an avowed formalist and Modernist existing between the postcolonial and postmodern worlds of San Juan and New York City, her work merits formal scrutiny. This paper will add to the diverse histories of Abstract Expressionism and mid-century Modernisms across the Americas while shedding light on an important post-war historical moment and artistic impulse that held on to anti-commercial values in an all-encompassing consumerist world. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture)
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