Jackson Pollock and Shamanism

In 1947, Jackson Pollock began the first of his now canonical drip paintings by splattering, spilling, and pouring paint into a labyrinthine network of forms. These allover paintings became emblematic of American innovation, and with them, a purely homegrown painterly style was born. Subsequently, Pollock’s earlier, figural work was seen as heavily indebted to European Surrealism, and thus, less original: simply the “before” to the drip painting’s mythic “after.”

In Jackson Pollock and Shamanism curators Marc Restellini and Stephen Polcari challenge this particular narrative of the artist’s development. They claim to be offering a “radical re-reading” of his work, by revealing the deep influence of Native American culture and thought on the entirety of Pollock's art. No, they say, it is untrue that Pollock left behind his more heavy-handed symbolic subjects (birth, death, sexuality) for the pure abstraction of the drip paintings. By juxtaposing a selection of those paintings alongside the film The Spirit of Navajos (1966) by T. Maxine and Mary J. Benally Susie, the curators draw our attention to the similarities between Pollock’s technique and the therapeutic ritual of sand painting, as practiced by the Navajo peoples. Moreover, they suggest, the drip paintings are conceptually informed by the shamanistic belief that all things are related; that the universe is made up of a dynamic network of spiritual powers.

As such, these paintings continue many of the shamanistic concepts that appear in Pollock’s earlier work, if under different guise. That lesser known earlier work, bathed in dramatically-low lighting, actually comprises the bulk of the exhibition at the Pinacothèque. Throughout, Pollock’s paintings are placed side by side with Native American art and artifacts. Pollock’s Birth c. 1938-1941 from the Tate confronts a beautifully carved totem pole, made by either Haida or Nootka peoples from British Columbia, Canada.

The dialogue between these two objects (depicted here) is representative of the exhibition. The visual parallels are convincing enough, and we know Pollock studied Native American art (curators point to the “Indian Art of the United States” exhibition he visited in 1941, at the Museum of Modern Art). But did Pollock borrow the vertical format of swirling totemic forms in this painting from this specific object? If stylistic affinities are the rationale for their meeting, are affinities compelling enough to encourage new ways of seeing both objects, or do they end up limiting the possibilities for both?

Visitors with an interest in Native American culture may be surprised by how much about these compelling objects is left to the imagination of the visitor. There is much discussion, in accompanying wall texts, of anthropological concepts, but little material information about the wildly diverse objects on display. (And non-French reading visitors will be left out of the mix entirely; there are no translations at all). The exhibition does not represent the Native America cultures on display so much as a certain idea Pollock might have had of them.

“Jackson Pollock et la chamanisme”
Through February 15, 2009
http://www.pinacotheque.com/
Pinacothèque de Paris
28, place de la Madeleine
75008 Paris

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