Clement Greenberg
[Jackson] Pollock (2000) film review
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker - 19 Aug 09
[Jackson] Pollock (2000) film review A review by John A. Walker (2009), the author of Art & Artists on screen. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the Western world’s art capital and paintings by the American abstract expressionists received national and international...
Presence (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 15 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg, the first writer to analyse presence, claimed it was not an artistic quality, merely the consequence of the size and non-art look of minimal objects. See also Installation Art, Minimal Art, Objecthood. References and further reading > Michael Fried. “Art and objecthood”. In...
Post-painterly Abstraction / New Abstraction (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 15 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg, held in Los Angeles in 1964. The term “painterly abstraction” was an alternative for “abstract expressionism” and so Greenberg’s show was intended to define an aspect of American art in the wake of that movement. The artists concerned included Paul Feeley, Sam Francis, Helen...
Painterly Painting (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 15 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg used the term “painterly abstraction” as a synonym for abstract expressionism. Other artists who foregrounded the materials and techniques of painting— e.g. Jules Olitski, the new informalists— were also considered painterly. See also New Informalists. References and further...
Objecthood (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 14 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg to accuse them of cultivating a “non-artlook”. See also Formalism & Formalist Criticism, Minimal Art, Modernist Painting, Presence. Reference and further reading > Michael Fried. “Art and Objecthood”. In Minimal art: A critical anthology. G. Battcock (Ed.). (Studio Vista,...
Naive Art (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 13 Jun 92
Naive Art (1992) (Also Innocent Art, Peintres Naïfs, Primitive Art.) Excerpt fr. John A. Walker’s Glossary of Art, Architecture & Design since 1945, 3rd. ed. Naive Art A taste for exotic and “primitive” cultures was a key characteristic of modernism. This taste encompassed the work of talented...
Modernist painting (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 12 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg, the leading formalist art critic during the period 1943 to ’65, and outlined in a famous essay first published in Arts Yearbook (4) 1960. Greenberg defined the essence of modernism in painting as “the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticise the...
Modernism (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 12 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg, on the other hand, claimed that Modernism was characterized by “inclusiveness, openness and indeterminateness”. He added: “Modernism defines itself in the long run not as a “movement”, much less a programme, but rather a kind of bias or tropism: towards aesthetic value as such and...
Kitsch (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 10 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg, in a famous essay contrasting avant garde art and Kitsch, remarked that if the former represented the forefront of art, then the latter represented the rearguard. Kitsch, then, is generally viewed as the antithesis of avant garde art and plain, functional modern design. (Most...
Fundamental Painting (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 06 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg identified as the essence of modernism but in its emphasis on process and the literal, physical character of its materials, it also incorporated certain notions derived from minimalism. Arguably, the attempts to reduce painting to an essence, to define it in terms of means...
Formalism & Formalist Criticism (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 06 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg and British linguistic philosophy. Greenberg, the leading Formalist critic, promoted theories of media purity and autonomy. His followers— writers like Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss, Sidney Tillim and others— were mostly associated with Artforum magazine. They rejected lyrical...
Bay Area Figuration (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 02 Jun 92
...Clement Greenberg called this kind of work “homeless representation”. See also Abstract Expressionism, West Coast School. References and further readings > Paul Mills. Contemporary Bay Area Figurative painting. (Oakland, California, Oakland Art Museum, 1957). > Paul Mills. “Bay Area...
Action Painting / Gestural Painting (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 30 May 92
...Clement Greenberg who proposed a different account of the movement. See also Abstract Expressionism, Automatic Art, Drip Painting, Process Art, Tachisme. References and further readings > Harold Rosenberg. “The American Action Painters”. In The tradition of the new. (Thames & Hudson,...
Abstract Expressionism (1992)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker (glossary) - 30 May 92
...Clement Greenberg was the critic who, following Patrick Heron, forwarded the term “American-type painting” in a 1955 Partisan Review article.) The movement’s name suggested it was a synthesis of two earlier idioms— abstraction (Hans Hofmann’s work derived ultimately from Cubism) and expressionism—...
John Latham: Books for burning (1987)
→ café libraryJohn A. Walker - 01 Nov 87
John Latham: Books for burning (1987) John A Walker interviewed John Latham on the occasion of a 1987 exhibition at the Lisson Gallery, London. John A. Walker: You began to use books to construct reliefs in 1958. What prompted this unusual choice of material? John Latham: I’d discovered a...
