Rebel With a Brush!
“I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.” — Jackson Pollok
In the 1950s, art critic Harold Rosenberg, described the archetypal “action painter” as an artist who transformed his canvas into a modern-day arena wherein an epic struggle between man and material might unfold.
Nearly half a century later, the contemporary response to the rhetorical excesses that helped establish action painting as an “heroic” art form and a monumental impact on the history of American art has now transcended naturally into another modern-day arena: the one of fashion designers and their continuous creations.
Jackson Pollock, bearded shock trooper of modern painting, who spread his canvases on the floor, dribbled paint, sand and broken glass on them, smeared and scratched them, named them with numbers…, died at the wheel of his convertible in a side road crack-up near East Hampton, N.Y.–Time Magazine August 20, 1956.
Process was paramount. With grand, heroically scaled gestures, Pollok created an art of confrontation and catharsis. A derisive reviewer who nicknamed Pollock “Jack the Dripper” had inadvertently grasped the crux of his pioneering contribution. To achieve the complex and subtle structural interlace that characterizes his mature work, Pollock had indeed dripped, poured, and spattered his pigments across the vast expanse of raw canvas. The painting is the result of both split-second decision.
No wonder fashion designers like Hedi Slimane borrowed Pollok’s drip artworks for Dior Homme in the late 90s, Helmut Lang started a trend for paint-splattered denim, sending enthusiastic imitators to their garages, though do-it yourself was never quite the same! Each physical “performance” was a unique, spontaneous, and unrepeatable event, but the final product was always subject to artistic will.
This season Stefano Pilati of Yves Saint Laurent re-freshened the action-painting look with pants, shorts and even shoes smudged with practically every color of the Pantone Color Chart. New York Designer Adam Kimmel focused not only in the Abstract Expressionism but in the artist overall pants.
“When I am in a painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.”
Maybe this is a fashion statement on its own, maybe it’s about being in the forefront of existential masculinity like Kimmel said.
Maybe like the other American icons, James Dean and Marylin Monroe, he has been remembered not just because of his artistic accomplishments, but also by the myth surrounding his tortured life and premature death.
Who knows. But on Madison Avenue, the Spring collection is out in stores and I feel the need to be my own rebel too!
Joelle’s Tips:
Sources:
The New York Times Style Magazine ” Jack The Dripper” by Armand Limnander /
The National Gallery of Art
4th and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.
Be a rebel with a brush too try it !: Jackson Pollok Org
