Visual Analysis Paper

Mabel Garcia Visual Analysis Paper

Michael Linares, Asi Las Cosas (This Being So), 2012, Paint Splatter Series Bass Art Museum (TC: Temporary Contemporary Exhibitions)

For my visual analysis paper I decided to visit the Bass Art Museum located in Miami Beach. I had visited this museum before because of their vast collection of Egyptian antiquities and Renaissance and Baroque exhibitions; I however, did not know about the Bass museum’s TC: Temporary Contemporary public art program which activates the urban landscapes with outdoor works of art, making it a very unique and unexpected way to exhibit contemporary art.

The landscape around this museum is filled with all kinds of contemporary art, from sculptures, murals, sound installations, video, and other interactive works. One of the mural paintings that caught my eye was placed facing north in one of the museum’s walls, and it resembled the Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock. A large part of our class was dedicated to Abstract Expressionism and specifically Jackson Pollock’s action painting, which is why I decided to make this piece by Michael Linares named Asi Las Cosas (This Being So), which he created for a series named Paint Splatter, the focus of my visual analysis paper.

When describing his series Paint Splatter, Linares explained them as “a series of ‘flat paintings’ that explore the accidental gestures and erratic behavior characteristic of the medium and the act of painting. The series aims to constraint the immediacy and out-of-control nature of the accident (splatter) with the intention of reflecting on the act of painting and painting itself as another medium among many, with no particularities or special characteristics beyond its materiality at the service of an idea.” (Linares, 2012) This resembles Abstract Expressionism’s interest in objectifying an intense conscious experience as it unfolds, rather than means of bringing forth unconscious material for association or using the unconscious thought process to modify imagery. An important predecessor of Abstract Expressionism was Surrealism, more specifically Automatism, a Surrealist technique for generating art that did not impose a style and was of free association rather than reliance on reason. The work of Jackson Pollock can be

considered definitive of this movement because of its spontaneity and improvisations, conveying the subjective experience itself. The Bass museum mural piece by Linares shares many of the characteristics of Jackson Pollock’s paintings mainly because of their drip technique and grand scale. Because they evoke a sense of movement, by looking at the Linares piece and those by Jackson Pollock, the viewer can imagine the artist working, splattering the canvas with paint.

Although Jackson Pollock’s work was more complex and elaborate, this mural painting at the Bass museum seems to share Pollock’s belief that unconscious art provided essential knowledge and creative powers for an artist.

Known for his unorthodox techniques and materials used in his pieces, Jackson Pollock was an influential figure in the development of the Abstract Expressionist movement. A true Abstract Expressionist, Pollock wanted to express his feelings in the canvas rather than illustrate them, and to him technique was just a means of arriving at a statement. I think of Jackson Pollock as a muralist painter because of the heroic size of his works, most of them are of a grand and epic scale, he also studied under master Mexican muralist David Siquieros. The size of his pieces also drove Pollock to approach a different process of painting, by placing a raw canvas on the floor, enabling him to walk around the composition, this became known as action painting; most of it also took place in an outside environment. In his piece This Being So, at the Bass Art Museum, Linares was probably influenced by the size of Pollock’s work in its monumental scale and placement outside of museum grounds as part of the Temporary Contemporary program.

What was most innovative about Jackson Pollock was his action painting style and famous drip technique which earned him the nickname “Jack the dripper”.

Photograph of Pollock in his studio using his “drip” technique Influenced by Existentialism, a moral commitment to search for oneself, and Jazz music’s improvisational compositions and tempos, Pollock eliminated all symbols and signs in a search for universal mythic images in his own subconscious which allowed him to paint without any rational control and therefore open to inspiration from his own inner impulses and feelings.

When talking about his paintings, Pollock stated "When I'm in my 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” (Cathedral, 2002). Pollock’s completely novel technique consisted in what he called “drips”; using hardened brushes, sticks, and household enamel paints, Pollock squirted, splashed, and dripped his paint onto the canvas rolled out on the floor. This technique of split-second decisions created a unique, spontaneous, and unrepeatable event or performance. Pollock also reduced the titles of his pieces to numbers in order to minimize the

viewer’s attempt of identifying any representational elements in his paintings. We can take into example his No. 14 in Gray piece; here his action painting is clearly defined with the use of splatters and drips that seem unintentional but are actually representative of the message he is trying to convey. The Bass museum piece by Michael Linares is indebted to Pollock’s drip technique and improvisational splatters of paint as well as its color scheme with the use of black, white and grays. It is clearly evident that this mural piece was subject to the same techniques and process that a canvas being worked by Pollock would, although the piece seems to have a more controlled “drip” effect, the artist’s splatters take a life of their own when reaching the canvas.

Pollock, No. 14 in Gray

Linares, This Being So

One of the Jackson Pollock paintings discussed in class was his Cathedral from 1947, a bit more complex and elaborate because of its impasto brushwork and surface texture which Pollock filled with embedded nails, tacks, glass, even cigarette burns. But still, like the rest of his work, its non-narrative aesthetic forces the viewer to surrender intellectual control. I believe Linares’s This Being So has somewhat the same effect on the spectator, notably it’s more simple

demeanor might not share the complexity of Pollock’s Cathedral, but it evokes on the viewer a dream-like effect, characteristic of Abstract Expressionism and Pollock’s work.

Pollock, Cathedral, 1947 In conclusion, even though they are over fifty years apart, the Bass museum piece by Michael Linares, This Being So, has been directly influenced by the movement of Abstract Expressionism and the work of one of its most influential members, Jackson Pollock. This piece is in technique, style, and execution what we should expect from an Abstract Expressionist artist.

It’s minimal presentation on a monumental scale, and dripping application of the paint suggests the action taken by the artist while working on the piece, and his own expression of the act of painting itself. We can then conclude that Jackson Pollock’s influence on contemporary art continues to be redefined even today, not only on the Linares piece, but in other artist’s technique and procedural thinking, as William de Kooning said about Pollock, “He busted our idea of a picture all to hell” (Fineberg, 86).

References: (Linares, 2012)- Website: www.bassmuseum.org (Cathedral, 2002)- Article: Contemporary Art & Design by Dallas Museum of Art/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Fineberg, Jonathan: Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being (Second Edition)