Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 02:07:20 -0400
From: ostrow-AT-is2.nyu.edu (Ostrow/Kaneda)
Subject: Re: archaic & quaint.


>At 13:42 15/02/97 -0400, you wrote:
>> Who from Fluxus actually was in Cage's composition class at the New
>>School.  What year was it?
>>
>>
>>Also does anyone know what influence Pollocks use of figuration ijn his
>>last paintings had on the return to figuration-- that resulted in the
>>emergence of Pop Art?
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>       If you look for an abstract expressionist who has influenced the
>return to figuration, Pollock isn't the good one(you talk about teh"black
>paintings"?).         Phillip Guston, a great abstract painter has done the
>last part on his work with figuration (in a style close to comics).
>        De Kooning didn't stop the figuration in all his work. About pop art
>and figurative just remind Rauschenberg with "Erase De Kooning".
>        But could we talk of a return to figuration in the late 50's, lot of
>artist never gave up figuration. Is pop art figurative, maybe just as
>ready-mades are?

The point and the inquirey concerns the fact that Pollock's last paintings
I think from 54 have figuration in them.  These are sometimes refered to as
either the black paintings or the Duco paintings in that they were done in
black enamel ( something Frank Stella picks up on.) I know that there was
at the time (in the 50's) a lot of discussion as to which was superior
abstraction (which includeds figural elements) or pure abstract art.   Many
people (even those who supported AbEx) felt that doing away with figuration
and illussionistic space constituted a loss ( see Leo Stienberg's essay
Other Criteria.)  While deKooning  (as well as Kline) have significant
effect on the as yet to be Pop artists primarily for the presence of  the
imprint of newspaper or in Kline's case the use of phone book pages for his
drawings, I have not come across any reference to the effect that Pollock
shift  had on these artists  except iconographically -- some of
Lichtenstien's images  such as the composition notebook or the ball of twin
directly reference Pollock as does Warhol's painting of the dance step
diagram.  Guston does not fit this schema  because he comes to figuration
very late.





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