Against Interpretation

photo: Lynn Gilbert

You may take Against Interpretation, the title of Susan Sontag's famous volume of essays more seriously after visiting the Krasner Pollock exhibition at The Met. In short Sontag was redefining art (at least a certain kind art). The artwork is not a representation of reality, but a reality in an of itself. In other words in the case of "Autumn Rhythm:30, 1950," it's not the abstraction of a seasonal day, but rather paint on canvas that's the theme. One reason why much abstraction is two-dimensional lies in its relinquishing of perspective and volume. "A new form will always seem more or less an absence of form at all, since it is unconsciously judged by reference to consecrated forms" said Robbe-Grillet. On the other hand not all of abstraction is necessarily aleatory or ineffable. In fact most 50s abstraction whether de Kooning, Klein or Rothko hardly conforms to  the Lautreamont's famous definition of surrealism being "as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table." In his essay, The American Action Painters (1952), Harold Rosenberg famously described the work of Pollock and others abstractionists as creating "an area in which to act," "an event."  McLuhan said it even more succinctly  "the medium is the message (1964)."