j o h n  r o s

on the recent install — on the recent work — .

at a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one american painter after another as an arena in which to act — rather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or express an object, actual or imagined. what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. the big moment came when it was decided to paint ‘just to paint.’ the gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value — political, aesthetic, moral.”
– harold rosenberg, 1952.

action/abstraction: pollock, de kooning, and american art, 1940-1976

only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.
– marcel proust