And as they say, money β and fashion β do funny things to people, and the more the money the funnier. This self-serving commercial market phenomenon β involving dealers, auction houses, museums and collectors β applies to many other artists, usually dead but sometimes still alive. The late Cy Twombly is another prime example. And this seeds initial interest. But Untitled is bigger β and scarier! On the other hand if Untitled is worth that much maybe Mr Appel et al are cheap? But abstraction was alive and well in Europe at the same time, but these works sell for a tiny fraction of the priciest AE works.
Thus what matters now is not so much the style and content of the painting as the now collectively celebrated specific historic early postwar artistic and commercial experience it was part of. Jean-Michel Basquiat , Untitled, acrylic, spray paint and oilstick on canvas, Karel Appel β Robert Combas born , Jackson Pollock The Deep , , More even than his then recent and now feted Blue Poles? Here he also returned to assigning a narrative title not another antiseptic number.
It means whatever it means to each viewer, but the title β and the timing β certainly suggest it did mean something to the artist. Thus we know in he was sliding personally, and terminally, having resumed drinking late A life apparently always near the edge was now surrendering to alcohol, and he obviously knew it.
Knew too this time the surrender would likely be terminal. Abstract Expressionism was NOT an art movement in the sense of having a coherent artistic common there, a distinct artistic style and purpose. Rather the only useful definition of Abstract Expressionism is as a specific historic collective art experience or context, by a keen and diverse group of painters in New York soon after WW2, the first main images emerging in second half of the s. Once substantial success emerged β by the late s?
But it was eye-catching , and therefore marketable. All the labels below seem to overlap, to a greater or lesser degree. Though there is some contradiction? They have been accorded far less market attention because of a vastly different commercial context in Europe after WW2. Jean-Paul Riopelle β Abstraction Orange , Oil on canvas; 99 x The painted works β produced with palette knife and spatula β are made up of multi-coloured elements of notable thickness, superimposed and animated with extensive, vigorous lines.
