Analysis of Clement Greenberg's "the Situation at the Moment"

Throughout each of the excerpted reviews written by Clement Greenberg, an art critic who published extensively during the 1940's, there is a prevailing obsession with the necessity for unique "American art." Greenberg laments the "crisis" surrounding American art, its deplorable state and disappointment regarding what he perceives a continued dependence on Parisian technique and styles. Greenberg latches on to Pollock as the consummate realization of his fantasy of the "American Artist," but fails to grasp the true nature of the art he reviews.

Throughout each of the excerpted reviews written by Clement Greenberg, an art critic who published extensively during the 1940's, there is a prevailing obsession with the necessity for unique "American art." Greenberg laments the "crisis" surrounding American art, its deplorable state and disappointment regarding what he perceives a continued dependence on Parisian technique and styles. In his article, "The Situation at the Moment," published in 1948, Greenberg ominously proclaims that "to define the exact status of contemporary American art... demands a certain amount of mercilessness and pessimism... There is no use deceiving ourselves with hope."

Despite his seemingly hopeless attitude regarding contemporary art, Greenberg maintains his faith in the new and developing American art. He believes that it is, in the very least, progressing. "As dark as the situation still is for us, American painting in its most advanced aspects- that is, American abstract painting- has in the last several years shown here and there a capacity for fresh content that does not seem to be matched either in France or Great Britain." As such, Greenberg feels compelled to uncover the prototypical American artist who will bring Western painting into the forefront of art's evolution and surpass all others in the field.

Greenberg chooses to bestow this honor upon Jackson Pollock, a revolutionary painter from New York, who enters the spotlight in the early 40's with exhibitions in both the Betty Parsons and Peggy Guggenheim Galleries. Greenberg recognizes that Pollock's style and technique are in every way vibrant, new and exciting. The sheer magnitude of Pollock's paintings (often 9 x 18 feet) exude the concepts of modernity and industry, along with the blacks, greys and whites that usually dominate his paintings. The technique and paintings Pollock is most famous for are his characteristic drip paintings. He places the canvas on the floor or the wall and proceeds, in a calculated manner, to whip paint from his brushes onto the canvas as he approaches from all directions. This creates a volatile and active surface that, according to Pollock in an interview with William Wright in 1950, expresses "the energy, the motion, and other inner forces... The modern artist is... expressing his feelings rather than illustrating."

Since Pollock's art is so obviously radical and Greenberg is overcome with his fierce loyalty to the concept of the American artist, he latches on to Pollock as the consummate realization of his fantasy. In his eagerness to find "the One," however, Greenberg neglects to delve beyond the surface of Pollock's paintings. It is ironic that a critic so devoted to the concept of an American artist would choose a painter who feels that "the idea of an isolated American painting... seems absurd to me, just as the idea of creating a purely American mathematics or physics would seem absurd... the basic problems of contemporary painting are independent of any one country."

Greenberg's essays consistently begin with a lamentation for the dire state of American art, whereupon he either derides an artist as sadly underdeveloped or lauds the newest of Jackson Pollock's exhibited works as his best yet. For the most part, Greenberg does not explain the works themselves. If anything, Greenberg mentions a change in color or technique and then stops short of explaining why or how this change has any effect on the audience's experience of the art.

At times, Greenberg's essays reflect momentary understanding of the general artistic movement, but he refrains from describing Pollock's individual paintings in a manner that conveys an accurate appreciation of the content. It seems that, in Greenberg's eyes, none of Pollock's independent works hold value. According to Greenberg, the style Pollock has developed is the true art. This propensity toward style as value is exhibited in a review published in 1948, where Greenberg explains that "the quality of two other pictures, Sea Change and Full Fathom Five... still remains to be decided. It is indeed a mark of Pollock's powerful originality that he should present problems in judgement that must await the digestion of each new phase of his development before they can be solved."

Pollock concludes his 1950 interview with William Wright with the following assertion, "technique is just a means of arriving at a statement." Greenberg's main problem when reviewing Pollock's works is that he equates technique with statement, rather than delving into the actual paintings to derive meaning. Although it seems for a moment that Greenberg understands Pollock's claim when he writes, "Pollock has gone beyond the stage where he needs to make his poetry explicit in ideographs. What he invents instead has perhaps, in its very abstractness and absence of assignable definition, a more reverberating meaning," Greenberg disappoints the reader when he fails to even speculate on what that meaning might be.

In order to convince the reader that he does understand Pollock's art, Greenberg utilizes general statements and descriptions, but fails to apply them in a direct manner. As such, he describes Pollock's work in the same way that a telephone psychic tells the future. He makes overarching statements that can be understood on many levels and are based on known information. For example, in his "Review of Exhibitions of the American Abstract Artists, Jacques Lipchitz, and Jackson Pollock," Greenberg says "It is possible to accuse the painter Jackson Pollock, too, of bad taste; but it would be wrong, for what is thought to be Pollock's bad taste is in reality simply his willingness to be ugly in terms of contemporary taste. In the course of time this ugliness will become a new standard of beauty."
The terms "ugly," "bad taste," and "standard of beauty" can be applied to so many aspects of the art and may be understood in so many ways that each reader can understand this statement differently and still find it holds truth. If Greenberg were to qualify what he means when using these terms by applying them to specific cases or paintings, it would lend authority to his opinion.

When asked about his method of painting, Pollock replied that "new needs new techniques...the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms... Each age finds its own technique." The interviewer then proceeds to ask Pollock if this would require the "layman and the critic...to develop their ability to interpret the new techniques." Pollock recognizes the need for active participation on the part of the modern audience. Unfortunately, however, it seems that this most important aspect of art appreciation is an insurmountable obstacle for Clement Greenberg. He either does not feel the need to actively pursue a deeper understanding of Pollock's paintings or is incapable of connecting to the work on a more profound level. Although he does not recognize this shortcoming within his own artistic criticism, Greenberg is ironically introspective when he writes that "as before, [Pollock's] new work offers a puzzle to all those not sincerely in touch with contemporary painting." Perhaps the unconscious, an integral part of Abstract Expressionist painting, is allowing the reader a glimpse into the turmoil within the art critic as well as the artist.

Works Cited:
Greenberg, Clement, "The Situation at the Moment," 1948.
Pollock, Jackson, "Interview with William Wright," 1950.
Pollock, Jackson, "Answers to a Questionnaire," 1944.
Greenberg, Clement, "Review of Exhibitions of Worden Day, Carl Holty and Jackson Pollock," 1948.
Greenberg, Clement, "Review of Exhibitions of Jean Dubuffet and Jackson Pollock, 1947.
Greenberg, Clement, "Review of Exhibitions of the American Abstract Artists, Jaques Lipchitz, and Jackson Pollock," 1946.

MG