Art in “Who the Fuck Is Jackson Pollock?” Documentary Essay

Introduction

In the twentieth century, there was an increased interest in the artworks by renowned artists, especially in painting. Simultaneously, the works of renowned artists increasingly became a property of the art elites, a group of individuals who decide the worthiness of a piece of artwork based on their knowledge and recognition of the owner and the museums that display the artworks.

Analysis

The documentary film “Who the fuck is Jackson Pollock?” provides a good example of this phenomenon, where elites seem to doubt the worthiness of a painting that an elderly owner (Tori Horton) believe to have been one of the works by the renowned painter Jackson Pollock. Despite the forensic evidence attached to the work, the elites fail to approve it just because the painter (Pollock himself) did not provide his signature. In addition, he did not submit it to one of the prestigious museums in the US. Nevertheless, a number of aspects provide evidence that the artistic style used in the work is most likely associated with Jackson Pollock, which proves that artworks do not belong to the elites who visit the prestigious museums and dictate the price of each piece.

First, the appearance of the piece, which was bought for only $5 by Teri Horton, provides firsthand information that the work belongs to the abstract expressionism style, a popular 20^th-century artistic style in painting. The artwork provides evidence that the artist used spontaneous, subconscious, and automatic creation in developing the work, with little evidence of a pre-thought figure coming out of the work.

In fact, these aspects provide some evidence that the artist must have been influenced by surrealism, a predecessor of the 20^th-century abstract realism style. For example, the technical aspects of doing spontaneous and automatic creation of doodle marks on a large canvas with no pre-thought figure coming out originated from surrealism. Secondly, Horton’s painting is large, which provides evidence that it was part of the “dripping” style of painting developed by laying a canvas on the floor. Abstract expressionism, a 20^th-century artistic style, has these features, which are borrowed from the surrealistic style.

Thirdly, the emotional intensity portrayed by Horton’s painting provides some artistic evidence that an individual with firsthand experience in abstract expressionism developed it. For instance, it has some aspects of self-denial created by the mixture of colors, which shows that the artist was using his free hand to move along and across the canvas without trying to develop the figure of a real object.

In addition, the forensic evidence provided by Peter Paul Biro and the confirmation by Thomas Hoving prove the claims by Horton that the work was Pollock’s, despite its low price.

Although using an analysis of the artistic style as evidence to prove that the work belongs to Pollock is substantial, it has a number of pros and cons. First, it is as to identify the style of an individual by comparing one piece with others because there is often some aspect of uniqueness, even though there are many imposters. Secondly, Pollock’s pieces were evidently the work of a genius, which was always hard to copy. However, the artist’s failure to provide his signature in the canvas and the fact that he did not offer it to one of the leading art museums make it difficult to use the evidence from analyzing the artistic style.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is evident that modern arts elites tend to value the work of renowned artists based on their knowledge of the work. However, it is worth noting that this is not right because they fail to carry out an in-depth analysis of the artistic style and forensic details to prove otherwise. In this discussion, there is adequate evidence to show that Horton’s painting must have been one of the pieces that Pollock developed in the 20^th century.