Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s [Paperback]

Prof. Michael Leja (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 1997

In the wake of World War II, the paintings of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, and other New York School artists participated in a culture-wide initiative to reimagine the self. At a time when widely held beliefs about human nature and the human condition were coming to seem to many commentators increasingly outdated and inadequate, Abstract Expressionism gave compelling visual form to a new subjectivity-a new experience and idea of self. In this original and wide-ranging study, Michael Leja argues that the interest of these artists in tapping "primitive" and unconscious components of self aligns them with many contemporary essayists, Hollywood filmmakers, journalists, and popular philosophers who were turning, like the artists, to psychology, anthropology, and philosophy in the effort to reformulate individual identity. Taking Pollock's paintings and their reception as a case study, Leja shows that critics located in Pollock's abstract forms a web of metaphors-including spatial entrapment, conflicted production, energy flow, gendered opposition, and unconsciousness-that situated the paintings in mainstream cultural discourses on the individual's sense of self and identity. In this interpretative frame, the cultural and ideological character of the art is illuminated. According to Leja, Abstract Expressionism effectively enacted and represented the new, conflicted, layered subjectivity, a feature that helps to account for the support and interest it garnered from cultural and political institutions alike.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (February 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300070829
• ISBN-13: 978-0300070828
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Abstract Expressionism

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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lejas study, August 17, 2009

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Paweå Boåtryk (Poland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s (Paperback)

.It is very interesting & solid study about New York School of Art& Jackson Pollock.I wiil write more when I finish reading the book that makes me pleasure.It is increasing my knolewdge essential to understand better such problems like unconscious in abstract expressionism.The book shows cultural context of the movement.