Greenberg’s ideas are still heavily discussed and prominently debated today and the extent to which they were discussed in the past has shaped entire movements notably Abstract Expressionism. He also accorded particular artists such as Jackson Pollock international acclaim. In this essay I present a descriptive history that explores some aspects of the complex character of Greenberg including a political dimension. I also contrast Greenberg to a small selection of other critics who had some relation to him. Initially I offer a brief academic theoretical perspective on aesthetic evaluation. After a historical orientation focusing on Greenberg, I briefly examine Harold Rosenberg who had opposing opinions on how art should be viewed and interpreted that have been extensively covered. I also introduce Rosalind Krauss as one of Greenberg’s students who interpreted his ideas in a very divergent manner. What I have concluded is that Greenberg’s theory is essential in the understanding of art criticism history, present and future.
LIFE magazine (1949) August 8
Theoretical Perspective
Mulkay & Chaplin (1982) provided evidence to show that the ‘meteoric’ success of Jackson Pollock was not due to a coherent aesthetic evaluation by the New York Art World. Pollock’s sudden artistic worth was brought about by the collective action of a promotional campaign on the part by an influential group of people closely associated with the artist. Mulkay & Chaplin (1982) offers a three-part general model of ‘Artistic Success’: (1) The model of aesthetic appraisal (2) The model of social influence and (3) The model of cultural persuasion:
(1) This relates to situations where there are aesthetic criteria generally available among the people who are actively concerned with the evaluation of new art products.
(2) This is largely the opposite: there are no well-established principles of artistic judgment—artistic success occurs without the creation of a new aesthetic; it occurs with little aesthetic agreement.
(3) This is in between. The originators of each new art movement have to create a new basis for aesthetic judgment that is appropriate to their unconventional products.
According to Baumann (2001) sociologists of culture rely on three main factors to explain the public acceptance of a cultural product such as art:
(1) The grounding of artistic worth in a legitimating ideology.
(2) The institutionalization of resources and practices of production and consumption by members within the art world.
(3) The changing opportunity space brought about by social change outside the art world.
We can map the Mulkay & Chaplin (1982) model of ‘Artistic Success’ onto this with aesthetic appraisal relating to legitimating ideology; social influence relating to consumption by members within the art world, and finally the changing opportunity space relating to the model of cultural persuasion. I will highlight aspects of these below.
The Cedar Tavern
Visionary or Villain: Greenberg’s political journey through art criticism.
Clement Greenberg is not only one of the leading figures in art criticism, and in the art world in general but furthermore he was a key Cold War personality (Battagalia, 2008, p.4). On moving to Greenwich Village, Greenberg made contact with a group who would become known as the New York Intellectuals: critics and writers mainly Jewish with Marxist (mostly Trotskyist) political views. However, the true nature and motivation of Greenberg’s political activity has remained obscured. In 1935, just before affiliation with the Intellectuals, he translated into English the Brown Network, a publication of ‘World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism’ that documented Nazi espionage activities outside Germany. Some say, to warn the American public about Nazi peril (Kaplan 1999). Others say, it’s a project of a Stalinist front, fear mongering (Lewis, 1998).
Years later, following the war, now, an associate editor at Commentary and art critic for the Nation, and later, Partisan Review (1937), magazines, with which the aforementioned intellectuals were to become associated with, informed by both the search for a new form of Marxism and efforts of unite the anti-Stalinist Left (Quigley, 1957). Greenberg was incensed by the pro-Stalinist Nation (1951), coverage of foreign affairs that mirrored that of Soviet propaganda, Greenberg wrote an open letter to the editor, Freda Kirchwaey, calling for her to explain herself but the letter was refused print. This created a massive divide in American Intellectuals with a number of the group members siding with Greenberg and resulting in the resignation of Reinhold Niebuhr, contributing editor of the Nation, (Lewis, 2008). Greenberg’s reaction to Nation, could be seen as an effort to extinguish any notion of his positive association with Stalinism—pre-emptively preventing his association with the wrong side of history (Jones, 2005), due to his previous associations and various covert CIA operations. Greenberg’s politics shifted, his focus now was to the promotion of Anti-Communion and Pro-Americanism.
Lee Krasner
Critical Career
Greenberg gained intellectual attention with his first major article, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch,’ which appeared in Partisan Review in 1939, and first introduced the German word kitsch—lowbrow art or culture—into English language. The article also established Greenberg’s core arguments and concern surrounding the autonomy of art: that the intrinsic nature of each medium would go to determine that medium’s direction and ultimately define the end result. For example, Paintings direction is towards flatness, Sculpture’s direction is towards one of volume. An art works aesthetic value is measured in formal qualities only—shape, line, colour—not influenced or determined by emotion or experience.
Whether this was to make art more accessible to the masses or to make it more desirable to the buyers, collectors and galleries is debatable. Greenberg affixed the term ‘Abstract Expressionism’, to the new school of painters which appeared after the artistic shift from Paris to New York. Mainly American, painters such as; Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock—the poster boy for this “high-brow” American art movement who Greenberg deemed, “the most powerful painter in America” (Greenberg, 1947). Greenberg promoted this medium specific work profusely, most notably, in his essay, American-Type Painting, 1955.
Greenberg’s Formalist approach would stay with him throughout his whole career. His dogmatic style, inflexibility and rejection of new technologies was to result in heavily documented criticisms of Greenbergian Modernism and the man himself —“Clembashing”. John Coplans—Artforum, and Donald Judd are among those who refused to ally themselves with the critics’ ideologies, and can even be seen to hasten the decline of his influence (Bracker, 1995). By the late 1950s much of the art Greenberg was interested in had become passé – popular opinion was becoming hostile towards Abstract Expressionism, on which he had built his whole career. Pop Art had exploded on the scene and this represented Greenberg’s dislike of the dominance of kitsch in American society. The atmosphere in the American was far cry away from the macho whiskey and fisticuffs values of Greenwich Village’s Eighth Street bars—it was dominated by homosexual painters replacing the high moral seriousness of modernists with camp. This relates to the changing opportunity space relating to the model of cultural persuasion as Greenberg loses out to other voices.
In reaction, Greenberg searched for a new school of artists who, abandoned notions of subject matter and connection to artists experience as attributing to the value of an artwork. At this time Pollock and de Kooning had returned to painting the figure. Greenberg turned his focus to artists such as; Frank Stella—who explored relationships between tightly ruled shapes/edges and, surface and literal shape as the subject. The new school of artist Greenberg set his sights on remained loyal to formalist principles and countered the gestural abstraction of the second-generation Abstract Expressionists. Another dominant trend in this group was the artists exploring tactile and optical aspects of large, fields of pure colour—Colour Field Painters, such as Helen Frankenthaler. Thus, Post-Painterly Abstraction was born—to the amusement of fellow critics especially Harold Rosenberg. This conforms to the model of social influence relating to consumption by members within the art world. However, Greenberg’s achievement using these ideas did put the modern New York artist on the map by presenting them as a school of their own and not just followers of European modernism.
What was to be his last significant essay, Art and Culture, in 1961, Greenberg laid the foundations for some and built up brick walls for others (Kleeblatt). Greenbergian theory still has much support in the intellectual art world, but often is interpreted in ways he wouldn’t approve of, as with Rosalind Krauss’ Post-Modernist ideologies. Another good example is Krauss’ cohort, Michael Fried—in his 1966 article; Shape as Form: Frank Stella’s New Paintings, and its counterpart, Art and Objecthood, faithfully applies Greenberg’s notions but combines this with his own variation and concern for the reader/viewer.
Greenberg’s lack of charm
While Greenberg held influence, he was also apt at forming enemies There were various open scandals that concerned him, but none so public as the outing of Greenberg by art historian Rosalind Krauss for vandalising, by purposeful neglect, the work of sculpture David Smith (Kramer 1974). This coincided with the already declining reputation of Greenberg and bestowed great ignominy on the critic. Another aspect of his character was his temper—a trait that saw Greenberg dismissed from Commentary after 12 years. This was outlined in Rubenfelds 2004 biography, clement Greenberg: A Life, along with other such scandals that include Greenberg promoting particular artists with the understanding that he would receive artworks as gifts which he then sells once it gained in value.
Along with being, at times, an art promoter for hire, Greenberg was a compulsive womaniser and this is often inseparable from his promotion of female artists. Greenberg carried out many affairs—one prolonged with, Helen Frankenthaler, the aforementioned avatar for colour-field painting—and many other causal affairs. In this biography Rebenfelds suggests that the culture of the art school (especially Bennington) brought out the seducer in Greenberg due to the private weekly meetings between tutor and student. Today, seducer would be the wrong word and something like ‘predator’ would be more apt and I don’t think it was the ‘art school environment’ that was the trigger for Greenberg’s actions, rather it was misogynistic abuse of power. Following the end of his affair with Frankenthaler, Greenberg went through and intense period of 5 day a week psychoanalysis with a disciple of Harry Stack Sullivan, for six years. This therapy encouraged the patients to break off relationships with their friends and families and to shy away from monogamy; the patient would be criticised if they spent too much time with one person. It advocated compulsory free love. For a man that showed signs of disillusion of grandeur this type of therapy would seem to have only fuelled Greenberg ideas of higher culture and would ensure his further isolation from everyday human experience for from forming strong meaningful relationships.
Harold Rosenberg
During the 1950s Harold Rosenberg, took up rank as the most dominate art critic, offering the more popular definition of Abstract Expressionism than Greenberg. Rosenberg came to art criticism later despite working for the same magazines as Greenberg, (Nation and Commentary). Hanging out in the New York art scene, shaped his interest in subjective, mythical and existential ideas which he went on to highlight in his criticisms. Opposing Greenberg’s formalist approach Rosenberg had a strong focus on meaning, psychological state—anxiety, will and freedom—conceiving Painting to be an arena in which the artist acts upon, and engages with the canvas. This ultimately amounts to an expressive record of a struggle, the result, Rosenberg explained was that painters were now using the canvas to act. What was on the canvas was not a picture but an event. This supported Pollock’s widely publicised remark in 1951 “Painting is a state of being…every good painter paints what he is.” Which opposes Greenberg’s idea that painting could not be representational and was not influenced by anything other than the mediums and its limitations. Rosenberg’s crucial fact about this new school was how, the artist organised their emotional and intellectual resources as if they were in a living situation.
Rosenberg distinguished his critical view on Abstract Expressionists, most notably in his article, American Action Painting, published in Art News, 1952 in which he distances himself from Greenberg’s formalist approach. Here Rosenberg also promoted the work of Jackson Pollock, seeing greater value in Pollocks work than Greenberg after his shift away from drip paintings into his paintings concerning the figure. This sparked a long running rivalry between the critics and their disputes were exemplified through their writings; Greenberg’s article, How Art Writing Earns its Bad Name, deeming Rosenberg’s American Action Painters a misinterpretation. Rosenberg responded in 1963 with The Action Painting: A Decade of Distortion, to counter Greenberg’s academic formalism—stating that by ignoring the social, political and psychological states in which an art work is made and experienced, Greenberg’s view was distorted by desires of his own self gain.
Like Greenberg’s, Rosenberg’s concepts were also applied to forms of art that he would not have treated the same way. Alan Kaprow used Rosenberg’s theory as a basis to his notion that painting was a symbol rather than a power—it stood for experience rather than directly acting on it. Then he took the idea of artistic gesture from the canvas to the public space manifested in Kaprow’s Happenings—taking Rosenberg’s idea of creating an event rather than a picture very literally.
Rosalind Krauss
While at the beginning of her career Rosalind Krauss did undeniably accept Greenberg’s belief in the objectivity of an art critic – judgements should be initiative and free from conscious applications of standards or criteria and that art is autonomous (Greenberg 1967). In 1972, Artforum published Krauss’ essay, ‘A View of Modernism’. Although Krauss a defence ending in critique on the restrictive nature of Greenberg methods. Krauss became confident in her perception that art was the need of the artist ‘to say something’ (Bracker, 1995).
Recognising that if there were to be developments in art theory, revaluation of the past is necessary to understanding the present and the future. Krauss re-tooled art criticism and broke up the hegemony of Greenbergian Modernism, instead focusing attention away from quality and on to the notion of the social experience of art (Krauss, 1972, p.48). Krauss also understood that arts critical value rests in the method, not in the judgement of art criticism—the importance of the artists journey, not solely in the destination of the artwork. Krauss openly criticised Greenberg’s methods of critical practice but exemplified her understanding of the need to consider traditional modernism but that the formalist methods and principles of Greenberg could be applied to pluralist works, artworks that Greenberg didn’t like or considered kitsch and so, would not critique (Costello, 2007, p.217). This understanding of the history of art criticism and willingness to move with the times would contribute to the development of Krauss’ signature critical practice that uses an autobiographical perspective to challenge the objectivity associated with literacy, historical and art criticism (Vesser, 1989).
Krauss began her own publication October in 1971, Greenbergian influence was still strong. Greenberg’s essay, Art and Culture, 1961, had provided a formal layout model for Krauss’ essay Originality of the Avant Garde and Other Modernist Myths, 1981. Both critics structured their articles in a similar manner, track a positivist reading of art history; first referring to early influences and then to discuss most current/relevant materials towards the conclusion (Carrier, 1987, p.43). Although Krauss used Greenberg’s formula of structure, most evident in ‘Towards Postmodernism’, she also, inspired by Lucy Lippard, includes images of works she is theorising and even diagrams to illustrate complex arguments- this method can be seen as a tool to increase accessibility of ideas and arguments whereas Greenberg would never dream of assisting his readers with comprehending his arguments. Krauss on the other hand recognised the need to provide additional support material to her claims.
Krauss’ interdisciplinary practice methods would become the hallmark of Post-Modernism criticism. Her experience, similarly to Greenberg, writing for art publications has entwined her in some events that have questioned the critics moral stance—while writing form Artforum the magazine published the now iconic Lynda Benglis self-portrait (1974) this image supposedly was the trigger to cause the resignation of several of the magazine’s editors and contributors including Krauss. The image, to accompany an article on Benglis work, was originally rejected editorial space by John Coplans, editor at the time, but by some arrangement with Benglis galley allowed space for the image to be bought as advertising. Krauss’ had an extreme reaction to the publication of the and publicly disassociated herself with the magazine. This could be seen as an attempt by Krauss to prevent any question her contribution to art criticism be associated with commerce. Krauss vehemently spoke to excise art commerce from the critical forum in defence of autonomy and response to the taint of cash (Carrier, 2002).
Conclusion
I conclude that while virtually all of the methods and ideas brought forth by Greenberg have been turned upside down the Greenbergian theory is historically important in its own right and now exists as a piece of a much larger theoretical basis on which we can formulate new methodologies and continue the development of art and art criticism while recognising its place in history.
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Online resources
Partisan Review: http://hgar-srv3.bu.edu/web/guest/collections/partisan-review/contents/search?query=path:283892
Interview with Clement Greenberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb9jLE-3vsQ
Greenberg, Clement (1940) ‘Towards a Newer Laocoön’-http://west.slcschools.org/academics/visual-arts/documents/laocoon.pdf
Towards a Newer Laocoon—Maria Elena Buszek- http://www.mariabuszek.com/ucd/ContemporaryArt/Readings/GrnbrgLaocoon.pdf
New Minds Eye 