The Met/ The Morgan

Besides the amazing abstract paintings we saw at the Met, the thing that stood out to me the most was something Marcy told us at the very beginning of her lecture. She said that the entire collection of paintings we were looking at all belonged to a middle class woman from Chicago. Today that would be impossible; the price tag on the Pollok alone would be in the million never mind the other incredible price tags that would be on Miro and Kooning’s works. To own such a collection today you would probably have to be a large corporation or large business entity.
Pollok is such an amazing artist. So many dismiss his work as random brush strokes and splatters of paint, when in reality every drop of paint, every single line and movement was meticulously thought out. Organized methodical chaos if you will. As I stared at the painting all I could think about was the fact that this average woman owned it and that if it was sold today only an incredibly wealthy individual or a giant corporation would be able to afford it. I thought about how Jackson Pollok would feel about and decided he probably wouldn’t like some giant corporation owning his work. A work that was so revolutionary at the time, trying to break out of the boring mold art had fallen into.
This then brought me back to the park, where Pollok and his fellow artists lived, worked, and breathed. Washington Square Park has always inspired artists and writers to be creative and challenge the norm or the ideal. I wonder how Kerouac, Poe, Ginsberg, and Pollok would feel about the city taking over the Park and spending millions of dollars to move a fountain 10 feet. It’s as if “the man” has taken over the park, a sanctuary of freedom of thought and creative passion. They would probably be upset, and as many of the other village inhabitants, realize that the money could have been used to improve the park in many other ways, such as keeping it clean and safe or somehow preserving it’s history/ keep the history going.
Of all the incredible letters and documents Dr. Declan Kiely showed us at the Morgan Library, the most magnificent by far was the Edgar Allen Poe scroll. As I looked at the hand written scroll on multiple pieces taped together, my mind went immediately to the Jack Kerouac scroll that was actually just purchased by the owner of the Colts football team. Kerouac wrote on the scroll as a form of spontaneous prose. He wanted it to flow without artificial editing into chapters. However, let’s be honest, no one has written on scrolls as a daily practice for a couple of centuries now. However I really liked this idea of looking to the past as something new and different in the future. When Kerouac wrote his scroll it was a different way of writing, evoking the past to make a statement in the future. When you think of things written on scrolls in the past you think of important legal documents or decrees from the king. One of the most famous scrolls ever, the Torah in the Jewish religion. Now I’m not saying that Kerouac was placing his work on the same level as the Torah, but it is interesting how the past can play into the future.
-Catherine Gargan