Art Criticism, Scholarly Interpretation, and Curatorial Intent: A Reassessment of the 1998 Jackson Pollock Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art

In 1998, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective exhibition of artworks by Jackson Pollock. Curators Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel worked in an art historical context that had been significantly shaped by the early critical writings by Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. The curators’ stated intention for the exhibition installation was to provide “a fresh chance for new generations of artists to come to terms with a legendary figure” and to enable “the broader public to reassess a quintessentially American artist in light of three decades of new scholarship,” without “ hewing to any particular critical dogma.” Despite this curatorial intention, this thesis examines the ways in which the retrospective inscribed Greenberg’s and Rosenberg’s theories, while disregarding subsequent scholarship that did not explicitly inscribe or align with the mid-century criticism in its account of Jackson Pollock.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Alvarez, Andrea

Contributors dc:contributor

• Margaret Lindauer

• Museums
• Art History
• Abstract Expressionism
• Jackson Pollock
• Museum of Modern Art
• Arts and Humanities

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/439

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1438