ArtFebruary 1999 Five painters by Mario Naves Reviews of Common Man, Mythic Vision: The Paintings of Ben Shahn at the Jewish Museum in New York & recent exhibitions of Jacob Lawrence, Lester Johnson, Brice Marden & Nell Blaine The retrospective of paintings by Jackson Pollock at the Museum of Modern Art was organized as an effort to define a figure whose place in twentieth-century art has long been formidable. In its scale and presentation, the MOMA show milks both Pollock the artist (ambitious, tumultuous, and flawed) and Pollock the myth (heroic, hard-drinking, and radical) to impressive, if not altogether convincing, effect. Reviews of the exhibition itself have been, on the whole, laudatory, yet the new consensus on Pollock’s “mastery” is less certain. Put another way: man and myth aren’t as inextricably linked as they once may have been. Even defenders of the status quo admit that Pollock was, at best, an erratic painter. Do I recall correctly one critic stating that Pollock painted only three or four good pictures? Out of a hundred or so at MOMA? Art isn’t a matter of bean counting, but ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 17 February 1999, on page 49 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/fivepainters-naves-2923
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by Mario Naves On "Maurizio Cattelan: All" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Musuem, New York. by Karen Wilkin On “Rembrandt and Degas: Two Young Artists” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. On "New Formations: Czech Avant-Garde Art & Modern Glass from the Roy and Mary Cullen Collection” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. On “Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn, Ceramic Work 5000 B.C.–A.D. 2010” at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London & “The Flamboyant Mr. Chinnery: An English Artist in India and China” at Asia House, London.
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