Subverting the dominant installation, wrap-up

I think we all understand why MoMA's Jackson Pollock gallery is so central to the museum's story of post-war art and why Pollock got a gallery to himself: Pollock was Kirk Varnedoe's hero artist (in much the same way that Picasso was Bill Rubin's hero artist).

The last project of Varnedoe's life, his Mellon Lectures, was devoted to convincing us that American abstraction stemmed from Pollock, that Jack was the Abraham of American post-war creation. I've expressed my quibbles with Varnedoe's thesis here before: He (nearly) completely forgets that there were artists outside New York or that women make art too. He presents Pollock as the first with the most and the greatest, and at least two of those three just aren't historically accurate. As for the third, that's certainly a matter of taste. For me: Pollock spreads you around the field, Still plunges you into the void. Advantage Still.

To be clear: Nowhere in these posts (full links below) have I suggested that MoMA create a chronological post-war hanging to reveal this, nor have I suggested that it this was solely an architecture-generated problem: As I said last week, a curator (or three) chose to give Pollock a room to himself and to have other artists literally follow him. The Pollock gallery and its placement are a lovely de facto memorial to Kirk Varnedoe, but in so creating MoMA gives us a deadening installation that slights Still, Newman, Kelly, Diebenkorn, and others. (To be fair, MoMA doesn't have a pre-1966 Diebenkorn. No Berkeley, no Albuquerque, no Urbana. Donors may contact the museum at (212) 708-...)

So am I advocating that MoMA create a 1950 gallery? Nah. Blog posts do not equal museum installations. But I do hope that art lovers and art historians are having as much fun thinking about this parlor game as I have. My operating mini-thesis has been: The more you ponder American post-war painting, the richer and more varied it looks (even if it doesn't quite look that way at MoMA). And the more you consider American post-war painting to be rich and varied and not merely post-Pollock-ian, the more artists and histories you let into the room.

Oh -- the painting (or rather the mediocre JPEG) at the top of this post is by John McLaughlin. It's from 1950.

The series of posts: Jackson Pollock and Ellsworth Kelly. Franz Kline and Philip Guston. Richard Diebenkorn and Mark Rothko. Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. Clyfford Still.