BEACHCOMBER 5 sisos were Pollockian dances lue Poles is the fabulous “last” painting Bae you see if you devour the Jackson Pollock exhibition (just finished at the London Tate), in the “right order”. Which we did, my companion and I, at least first time round. Blue Poles is fabulous: like fireworks that don’t disappear: layer upon layer of chaos-that-isn’t-chaos; splashes that become swirls that become webs that become the ties that bind - that bind the story one begins to create as soon as one looks at it. A story with an emotional content that is discovered as fast as it is created - called out as much as read in.
My companion says that the “blue poles” are “imposing order upon chaos”. I disagree. I don’t believe there ever was chaos here. Or ever will be so long as human beings appraise it.
This is what they say about Pollock (in the catalogue): “In his revolutionary paintings of the late 1940s, he dripped or poured paint into complex webs of interlacing lines, rhythmically punctuated by pools of colour. With their allover composition, seemingly total abstraction, and gestural but remarkably controlled handling of paint, these powerful works announced the emergence of Abstract Expressionism.” I believe them. What’s more, there’s something very visceral about that abstraction. I didn’t expect to feel so strongly through a collection of paintings. I say “through” deliberately, and not “about” — for the feelings were not “about the images”. They were — just feelings.
I’m certain that an exhibition of someone else’s art has never before called forth from me such strong feeling, and I’m not sure one ever will again. Perhaps this has something to do with “cutting out the middle-person” - that “middle person”, in this case, being the identifiable image.
Identifiable images distract. They make you think: about what the artist wanted; intended. Some of the Pollocks are like that - especially the early stuff. You stand before some paintings thinking, « whatever was going through his head to make him produce that?”. But the best ones are those that don’t call to mind Jackson Pollock, artist, at all. Like Blue Poles. It travels out towards you. It is like the depths of space calling you inwards.
Two dimensions become three.
Encountering it is a religious experience.
What is religion for? @ Star tracks nough high art. Back to telly. I've discovered an extra delight to add to my Saturday night viewing. Yes. I'm one of those for whom a “treat” means staying in on a Saturday night to watch Gladiators, Blind Date, Casualty, and now — Stars in their Eyes. It fascinates me. Ordinary people, and they really are very, very, ordinary, compete with one another to be the best imitators of stars.
I've seen a young woman (too young to remember her, surely) “be” Toyah (who many readers may, in turn, be too old to know); I’ve seen a very very straight man from the north “be” very very gay night club singer and one-time Communard Jimmy Sommerville. I've seen Paul McCartney, Barry White, Barry Manilow; I've experienced spookily accurately reproduced lead singers of the Corrs, the Lightning Seeds and Shakespeare’s Sister.
The studio audience votes for the winner, which is always the “young” contestant, even if they’re not the “best” (this gives the parents of the contestants a chance to be “over the moon”: so it seems that the studio audiences like to reward the parents of imitative genius as well as the performers themselves).
What's going on here? Ordinary people, living ordinary lives, spend extraordinary amounts of time practising to perform perfectly as somebody else. They can all sing. Most of them can really sing. They don’t lack talent - technically speaking.
Yet...yet...yet...the way that talent is expressed is utterly enthusiastic but also utterly uncompelling. This isn’t even the Rory Bremner league of imitation, for there is no interpretation or satire; only copying.
In addition, there are remarkably formulaic ways of performing that imitation, and formulaic ways of celebrating victory and defeat when it’s all over. Here is layer upon layer of copy and imitation @ Question time he early Pollocks are imitative of other y be artists. Especially Picasso. Other influences beyond the art world are obvious too - like Freuei and Jung. Pollock is, in one sense, inimitable, but plenty of would-be artists have tried. Wherein lies genius and originality? It’s obvious when you see it; even more obvious, perhaps, when it’s lacking. But what exactly is it?
Is there such a thing as “religious genius”? And can everyone attain it? I've encountered plenty of Stars in their Eyes forms of religiosity: rituals performed to technical perfection which move you not one jot; belief systems parroted with little understanding and even less emotional engagement, which make no difference at all to people’s lived reality. I've encountered much less “Pollockian” religious originality, and creativity. It’s hard to identify the boundary between a “religion of mere imitation” and a “religion of genius”. The latter will include, of necessity, an element of imitation and incorporation of tradition, but must somehow go beyond it. “Imposing order upon chaos” is perhaps what religious convention and tradition are for. What religion is for has to be, for me, something to do with the creative imagination. What is that something?