Friday, September 07, 2007

Is it just the name... or does it matter that paintings are ...GOOD?

If the two dozen small paintings discovered by Alex Matter five years ago in his deceased parents' storage locker are not by Jackson Pollock, then I'd like to congratulate whoever did make them. Now on view for the first time in a fascinating, much anticipated exhibition called "Pollock Matters" at Boston College's McMullen Museum of Art, they are beautiful little pictures… And what if the paintings are never proven to be Pollocks - or proven indisputably not to be Pollocks - will they then become worthless? The best of them are still lovely to look at - or so it seems to me. What matters most in today's market-driven art world, the artist or the art? The object or the brand? – Boston Globe 9/2/2007

How often are artists (and collectors, gallerists, curators, critics...) found fighting for overall personal name recognition as opposed to battling for significance in an individual piece? The process is all that matters, the singular work created during that illuminated moment of lucidity that transfers a person from human to god, from painter to artist. Enlightenment is fleeting. It’s as fickle about leaving as arriving, and it can only be found in the flash of the creative process… not saddled to drudgery of an imperfect life. – DN

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