Abstract, but not divorced

....The problem of Motherwell

Robert Motherwell was not only a prolific artist until his death two decades ago, but also gained recognition as a writer and teacher on Abstract Expressionism. In his early writing he advocated a significant role for art and artists as allies and even leaders in the struggle for revolutionary social change. And while some of these observations were insightful, under the weight of events, Motherwell came to repudiate the optimism he once held about the bond between art and social life.

One painting from the series he entitled “Elegy to the Spanish Republic” (1965-67) is included in the AGO exhibition. A classic Motherwell image, featuring his trademark large black ovals pushing dark yellow shapes at the edges and imparting feelings of a dark strength and tenderness, it is among his most moving works. As the title indicates, and notwithstanding a growing skepticism, he continued until the end of his life to feel great sympathy for potentially emancipatory struggles such as the Spanish Revolution.

Extolling the combative spirit of the movement he helped to develop, Motherwell once declared that, “Abstract Expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.” Although he continued to champion abstraction in art, in his own way he acknowledged that it could represent a retreat in the face of social reaction and political disappointment. “Until there is a radical revolution in the values of modern society, we may look for highly formal art to continue,” he commented, tellingly.

Furthermore, although the artist continued to assert that art could only be truly understood and develop on the basis of an internationalist outlook, he did grow increasingly conservative politically. Under the influence of the Cold War, and his own relatively privileged position, Motherwell came to view the prospect of socialism as incompatible with the supposed freedom of the artist. He justified his abandonment of explicitly left-wing views by claiming that “The middle-class is decaying, and as a conscious entity the working-class does not exist.”

What hope he saw then lay in the activity of the individual, the artist. Defending the trend toward increasing abstraction in art, Motherwell argued that, “now artists especially value personal liberty because they do not find positive liberties in the concrete character of the modern state.”

In short, the artist fell back on rather banal, anti-communist conceptions, so popular in the academic and artistic worlds in Cold War America, counterposing all too easily and self-servingly artistic and social aspirations. He argued, for example, that “Criticism moves in a false direction, as does art, when it aspires to be a social science,” as though any conscientious critic or artist would propose such a thing. Moreover, he asserted that art could not be rationally understood: “[M]ake no mistake, abstract art is a form of mysticism.” Not a very helpful conclusion to reach.

An art of lost hopes

Initially, the leading artists of the New York School—nearly all of whom had been involved in left-wing politics (Communist Party, the Trotskyist movement, anarchism) in the late 1930s—did not view their effort as a largely personal struggle or merely an exploration of new forms, but on the contrary as a liberating means by which they might be united with broader social struggles and currents. The most penetrating saw their work as socially vital, drawing on the influence of the surrealists with whom many of them, including Motherwell, had studied and worked throughout the 1930s and into the war period.

The idea of abstract imagery as somehow divorced from social reality and the concrete actuality of life gave rise to such notions as ‘pure’ form and color advanced by some of Motherwell’s contemporaries, but which he opposed. On the contrary, he argued that, “Any red (for example) is rooted in blood, glass, wine, hunters’ caps, and a thousand other concrete phenomena.”

The artists’ unfavorable historical situation and the conditions of official hostility toward creativity and protest within which they worked in the US in the late 1940s and early 1950s help explain why they came to see formal innovation as their greatest contribution. Interestingly, Motherwell himself had warned in 1946, “the most common error among the whole-hearted abstractionists nowadays is to mistake the medium for an end in itself instead of a means.” However, even the best of intentions, as in his case, were defeated by the circumstances of the time.

Working through the repressive McCarthyite period, the New York School artists were not only frustrated in their aim of making their work socially relevant, but saw it subverted and employed for reactionary political ends. As one of the panels in the AGO show explains, “It was in the midst of this atmosphere of hyper-patriotism that Abstract Expressionism was promoted as a symbol of American cultural freedom, in contrast to the state repression of Soviet Russia.”

Unquestionably, the artists of this school brought to bear great talent and conviction to their work. They believed deeply and even heroically in the importance of art, but the problems they confronted, originating outside the artistic sphere, lend to their work an air of melancholy, if not tragedy. Indeed, one gains a stronger sense from the exhibition and a consideration of their objective situation why so many of the artists of this school came to a sad end through drugs or alcohol, or in some cases suicide.

On balance, one can argue that Abstract Expressionism represents the culmination of a certain line of development or tendency in modern art. However, modern art itself cannot be honestly discussed outside an appreciation of the tumultuous character of the 20th century, during which so many artistic schools “follow[ed] each other without reaching a complete development.” (Trotsky)

Despite the seriousness and imagination of the finest New York School representatives, the art of the trend speaks to something of an impasse, ultimately irresolvable within the limits that the artists understood themselves to be working.

It may be tempting to speculate as to whether the art of this school will live on in the future as a living force or primarily a historical curiosity, but the question may be an academic one. It doesn’t seem likely that it is simply the prevailing cultural stagnation that directs us toward its beauty and depth of commitment.

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