Art in dark times: Abstract Expressionism, Hannah Arendt, and the "natality" of freedom.
Item
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Title
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Art in dark times: Abstract Expressionism, Hannah Arendt, and the "natality" of freedom.
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Identifier
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AAI9808031
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identifier
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9808031
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Creator
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Zucker, Steven Ezekiel.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Mona Hadler
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | Philosophy | Political Science, General
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Abstract
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There is virtually no literature that explores the complex relationship which existed between the artists and critics of the early New York School and the unprecedented number of German scholars and artists then finding refuge in New York. Due partly to the early nationalist claims made for Abstract Expressionism and a cultural bias which has favored the study of French over German art, there has been an underestimation of the impact of German culture on mid-twentieth century American art and criticism.;This dissertation seeks no direct cause and effect between the German refugees and the advance of Abstract Expressionism, yet by utilizing Hannah Arendt's concurrent political philosophy as a case study, a lens with which to reveal meaning, a richer understanding of the art's concern with the questions of evil and freedom is achieved. Arendt offered a timely and reasoned philosophical structure with which to react to the immense violence of totalitarianism. Her work has proven valuable in illuminating aspects of the early New York School that have otherwise resisted interpretation.;It is my thesis that Arendt's concurrent writings and lectures were as relevant to the work of principal Abstract Expressionists as they were accessible. Her conceptions of the polis, radical evil, and her analysis of those elements of freedom which remain accessible in the modern world, shed light on the artists' groups, on the abandonment of myth by certain artists, and on the achievement of abstraction as an enactment of freedom. This dissertation focuses, for the most part, on the artwork of Lewin Alcopley, William Baziotes, Adolph Gottlieb, Willem de Kooning, Seymour Lipton, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and David Smith.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
