Blue Poles: A Nation, a Painting, and the Storm It Never Meant to Cause
Author - Brian Hawkeswood. Nach unten scrollen für die deutsche Übersetzung There are moments in a nation’s cultural life when an artwork, through no intention of its own, becomes a lightning rod for anxieties that run much deeper than paint on canvas. Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles was one such catalyst. When the Whitlam government bought the painting in 1973 for the then-astonishing sum of $1.3 million, the Australian public reacted as if a great moral trespass had been committed. Ministers defended it, cartoonists mocked it, and the newspapers spoke of extravagance, waste, and elitism — all directed at a work whose purpose was far removed from the political theatre in which it suddenly found itself. ...