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Pollocks, Bollocks

One: No. 31, 1950
Jackson Pollock, 1950
MoMA, NYC

A piece from Sunday’s New York Times announced a break in the ongoing controversy over 32 disputed Jackson Pollock paintings. The paintings were reportedly found in a storage unit in 2002 by Alex Matter, the son of Pollock’s friend, Herbert Matter. The putative Pollocks looked like Pollocks to experts (including Case Western art professor Ellen Landau), but a team of conservation scientists from Harvard University Art Museums concluded a week ago that they were probably not authentic. The analysis (conducted pro bono at Matter’s request) found pigments in three of the paintings which were not patented or available in the US until after Pollock’s death (the paintings were dated 1946-49; Pollock died in 1956). But is this really the verdict of “Science”?

Pollock authentication has been a hot topic for a few years. Richard Taylor, a physics professor at the University of Oregon, published a 2006 Nature study on six of the disputed Pollocks. He objected that they lacked a fractal geometry he had previously identified in 14 verifiable Pollocks. Taylor also said that the high variability in pattern between the paintings suggested they had been done by several different artists.

But Katherine Jones-Smith, a physics grad at Case, released her own Nature paper in November, in which she showed that her own intentionally rudimentary scribbles of stars were “fractal” enough to meet Taylor’s definition of a Pollock (Taylor disputes this). She also questioned the mathematical validity of applying fractal analysis to the paintings because of the relatively narrow size range between the individual paint drops and the entire painting.

Untitled 5
Katherine Jones-Smith

Amusingly, Jones-Smith says she originally didn’t think anyone would still care about her critique of Taylor’s work, because his original fractal study was several years old. But there’s a great financial incentive to prove these paintings are Pollocks. An undisputed Pollock recently sold for $140 million.

Of course, any study can be nitpicked. A major problem is sample size: Taylor looked at only 6 of the disputed Pollocks, while the Harvard study examined only 3. The Harvard study noted that all of the disputed paintings had been significantly restored, and while they believe that would not have adulterated the composition of paint in the original layers of the piece, it does provide an opening for Alex Matter and his advocates. Further, the paintings were labeled “experimental” (in what appears to be Herbert Matter’s authentic handwriting). If Pollock was playing around and experimenting with technique, is it fair to expect his paintings to closely resemble his known work? Could he have obtained unusual paints with which to experiment (perhaps, as Matter has suggested, from Europe)? What sort of assumptions can we make about the behavior of an artist in executing his or her work?

Next on the Pollock rollercoaster: the 15 minutes of fame Teri Horton experienced last year, when she bought a $5 painting in a thrift store in California. She thought it might be a Pollock. After appearing on Letterman to describe her experience, she starred in a documentary entitled “Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?” The film details her efforts to authenticate her painting, down to a possibly million-dollar fingerprint on its back.

(L-R) Teri Horton’s disputed Pollock (66 3/4″ x 47 5/8″); David Geffen’s $140 million Jackson Pollock No. 5 (48″ X 96″).

I admit, I’m not a huge Pollock fan. What I’ve been enjoying most about this controversy is the way everyone is spinning it as some type of art vs. science showdown. Here are some examples just from Sunday’s NYT:

Alex Matter (Pollock/Matters press release):

“The authentication of works of art is still more art than science. Scientific analysis can attempt to eliminate a work of art as genuine, but it can’t determine if it is indeed the work of any given artist. That has been, and remains, the job of the scholar.”

I like how this statement recognizes falsifiability as the central characteristic of scientific investigation. But dude, aren’t scientists scholars too? Also, I think the word “art” sneakily shifts definition within the first sentence. . .

Naryan Khandakar of the Harvard team:

“I think it’s very much dismissing information because it’s inconvenient for their arguments,” he said, adding that such an approach to scholarly debate is “a little like Stephen Colbert’s concept of truthiness, where you’re almost there but you don’t have the whole thing.”

“Inconvenient” and a shout-out to Colbert? Snap! Who’s in touch with the zeitgeist? But though you have dazzled me, I’m not sure what you mean. (I’m almost there, but I don’t have the whole thing.)

Helen Landau:

“I can’t construct an alternate scenario that makes any sense. Science might not be wrong, but the research behind it might not be a 100 percent correct. And so more research needs to be done.”

Science might not be wrong, but the research might not be right. Huh? Science is, by definition, never 100% certain. And what exactly is the difference between science and research here? I’m confused. More research always needs to be done.

I suspect that these experts would make a lot more sense if they weren’t being edited for mainstream media.

Here’s one more:

“It is impossible to make a forgery of Jackson Pollock’s work. He had an almost preternatural control over those skeins of paint.”

That’s Time Magazine’s art critic, Robert Hughes. In 1982. If the Harvard team is right, Hughes was wrong.

Go here to forge your very own Pollock! (I don’t know if it’s even slightly fractal).

1 comment February 7th, 2007 cicada

Gregory Colbert: ashes and snow codex

from ashes and snow, 2002
Gregory Colbert

Photographer Gregory Colbert’s striking images of animals interacting with people have appeared in various venues since 2002; up next is a Tokyo exhibition, starting in March 2007. Colbert’s work is not collaged or altered, which makes these graceful convergences of human and animal form more remarkable than they may first appear.

It’s interesting that such simple and elegant photos are surrounded with a cocoon of hype. Colbert has published a series of attractive books and exhibition catalogs, but they’re pricey, apparently because he elected to have them handbound in imported papers. Fair enough; expensive art books aren’t new. But his exhibition spaces are also over the top, featuring faux-temple architecture and towering reproductions of his photos. When ashes and snow visited New York in 2005, the Times reviewer called it “spectacularly vacuous.” Ouch! Apparently the use of eco-friendly materials to construct the venue wasn’t enough to redeem it.

Luckily, you can see Colbert’s photos in a less baroque setting, as virtual books at the Codex ashes and snow website. The web presentation keeps things simple, framing the photos as if they were pages in vintage travel journals. This slows the viewer down - you can only flip the virtual pages so fast - and renders the photos eerily filmlike, as closely related frames dissolve into one another. The Codex moves a little too slowly (reminding me of the sad days of dialup) but if you have half an hour to spend browsing, it’s beautiful work.

On the other hand, there is still that pervasive travelogue aesthetic, which prompted the Times to comment,

Mr. Colbert’s sepia-toned images prove once again that while colonialism may be dead or dying, its tropes are ever with us. In these pictures, beautiful non-Western women and children interact with exotic animals in faraway places and at revered ancient sites. . . Many of these images are striking for their simplicity, serenity and how-did-they-do-that? drama. Who doesn’t love majestic animals, or ”nature’s masterpieces,” as Mr. Colbert calls them? But you would barely think twice about these photographs if you saw them framed under glass in a Chelsea art gallery. They’re too derivative.

They take us back to nature along the familiar routes of fashion photography, spare-no-expense ad campaigns and National Geographic cultural tourism. They evoke Richard Avedon’s 1955 fashion classic ”Dovima With Elephants,” Irving Penn’s images of stoic Peruvian peasants, images of the young Dalai Lama and bus stop posters for expensive spas. They hark back to the 19th century, when early photographers traipsed the globe to record the alien glories of empire for the folks back home, and the early 20th, when Isadora Duncan was photographed dancing among Greek ruins.

There’s little I can add to that. The concerns about colonialism are valid. In the Codex, I was struck by the pages which contain no photos, only woodblock prints of apparently Asian characters. To me, these pages are unintelligible; no translation is given, even though the website is clearly intended for English-speaking viewers. The text is presumably expressing something, and I’d rather appreciate those insights than the decorative but inarticulate symbols. I’m interested in the cultures whose artifacts and human representatives are depicted in the photos, but I wonder sometimes if those cultures’ perspective is coming through at all, or if they’re simply window-dressing.

On the other hand, even if Colbert’s work is not stunningly original, it is lovely, and (I believe) respectful. It may romanticize the exotic, but at least it publicizes it; millions of people saw Colbert’s shows in New York and Santa Monica. Accessible depictions of nature like these can make people think seriously about our place in the network of life. I just hope that awareness lasts long enough to prompt visitors to do something about conservation.

5 comments February 3rd, 2007 cicada