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I know it’s early but it’s funny to note the difference between the comments here so far and what the discussion was like in 2020:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269430

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Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Jackson Pollock - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37876645 - Oct 2023 (2 comments)

Jacksonpollock.org (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269430 - Aug 2020 (151 comments)

Why was this comment erased?

> Here's a topic I don't see people engaging with: I could in principle make the same kinds of completely abstract paintings Pollock did, but if I do it, it won't be art because I'm not in the art world. I have no access to galleries, I have no patrons, and I generally don't move in those circles, so I have no ability to be taken seriously for doing it.

I don't know, but the commenter would be wrong. Art is art regardless of its credibility in "the art world," whatever that means. I suppose they meant they couldn't be as famous as Jackson Pollock for doing what he did, which seems to be confusing the value of art with the value of celebrity (the "ability to be taken seriously".)

What made Jackson Pollock's work art was the intent behind it. What made him and others like him famous was the CIA (as inevitably mentioned elsewhere in this thread.)

Interesting that people miss that so much of art is about the idea, not the execution. Most musicians can play a beatles song (ex. thousands of dead on cover bands), anyone can take a photo (ex. see shot on iPhone campaign), a lot of people can paint the mona lisa or other famous art (ex. see faked paintings).

It's that someone had the wild thought to do it in the first place.

A cynical take is that people are just so far away from the level that they see the execution as the difficult part. Like saying, I could type out the linux kernal.

No, my point is that even if I had the idea (abstract art) I wouldn't be taken seriously as an artist because my art would never make it into galleries. I'm not in the art world, so it doesn't matter what my ideas are.

In terms of distribution or fitting in, this is not unique to you or this moment in time. Art has always been this way, even worse back in the day of having to get a painting in the Salons in Paris where it was judged by a few people. It's actually more common for this to be the case, as a truly unique idea doesn't fit in the the critics opinion of "art" ex. painters who only get famous years after death.

There are not many things in life that you can just "be good at" and the world unlocks. Even as an athlete, something very meritocratic, you have to convince someone to hire you onto a team and if you don't do it the correct way (college -> NBA/NFL) no one will care because you're not in the right "circles"

wow. that’s awesome. i don’t understand why but i’m happy.

There is a question as to whether it used SWF back in the day. It is likely but also would Java Applets have still been an option then?

I remember. It was written in Flash

archive.org's cache of the 2003 version tried to download a swf file. so it was flash

[flagged]

It looks like people are more appreciate of everyone’s ability to express themselves adequately and garner influence to share

very onbrand with how this debate has gone so far!

I’m glad

Of topics like these my father, a lover of all things art and photography, would say: "It doesn't matter if it's bad, and it doesn't matter that anyone can do it; he was the one who did it first."

I don't agree with your dad. Whether something is good (a notoriously loaded question) and whether it's easy for anyone to do themselves matter a great deal. Being the first person to do something abhorrent would not be praiseworthy, nor would being the first to do something uninteresting. Pollock may well have been the first to do what he did, but it is still low effort slop that any three year old could trivially reproduce. Therefore he gets no points for being first, because he didn't do something worth doing to begin with.

This feels unnecessarily harsh - I can understand thinking Pollock shouldn't be as decorated or recognized, but "not worth doing to begin with" seems to cast a judgement on him having created something that feels mean-sprited. It's not as if Pollock was causing harm to others by making his pieces. I have plenty of friends who work out their stresses and needs to create by making things that will never be in a museum or sell for money. They may not even qualify for your approval as "art". Many are equally non-representational - just a mix of colors that struck their mood that day on a canvas. That doesn't mean they're not worth doing for them or maybe for those who care about them and received a piece of their work. I find some of them beautiful for reasons I can't explain.

The critique of if Pollock should be canonized as "a great artist" is and should be a different discussion. As far as I know, he wasn't out there trying to get his works in museums. Dismissing something he clearly cared about and had passion for as a complete waste of his life is insane to me. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, he was decidedly capable of other works that were more representational, but decided that he wanted to express himself in this way. This wasn't some hack with no other skills who got lucky.

Could you please follow the site guidelines when posting to HN? They include:

"Please don't sneer"

and

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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