Blockbuster Doubleheader

Dallas Museum of Art Gives Us Pop and Pollock

By Catherine D. Anspon // Aug 29, 2015

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Hans Namuth’s photograph of Jackson Pollock painting "Autumn Rhythm; Number 30," 1950 (Courtesy MOMA BULLETIN, VOL. XXIV, NO. 2, 1956–57)

I’d travel almost anywhere to see either Jackson Pollock or Pop art. But when both show concurrently in a single museum? That’s unbelievable.

While Houston has Mark Rothko this fall (thanks to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), Dallas delves into the under-known splendors of two important subjects. First, “International Pop” arrives at the Dallas Museum of Art with great fanfare (October 11 – January 17). Organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, it charges toward Texas with a fresh take on the movement that to date has largely been all about the Americans.

The show pairs favorite suspects — Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, Thiebaud and Ruscha — with those from around the globe who played Pop out in surprising new ways, often reflecting sociopolitical critique devoid of the brash, bold U.S. take on the ’60s. Five weeks later, the DMA again digs deep and offers us a blockbuster. This time, it’s a window onto one of the seminal American artists of the Post War era: the man who defined action painting and launched Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (November 20 – March 20).

Probing a little-studied period of the painter’s career (1951 – 1953), the exhibition culls more than 40 rare Pollock works, including some once thought to be missing, coaxed from public and private collections in the U.S., Europe and Asia. This tour de force of scholarship bears paintings, drawings and five of his six known sculptures, where Pollock pushed on through, farther than even his previous drip paintings, to forge some of the most radical art of the 20th century: sublime, sexy black enamel and oil pours on pure, unprimed canvas. Considered one of the most significant exhibitions ever mounted in the DMA’s history and organized by the museum’s senior curator of contemporary art, Gavin Delahunty, “Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots” is co-produced by both the DMA and the Tate Liverpool, where it started its international tour this past summer. Dallas is the exhibition’s sole American venue and the second and final tour stop. Info and tickets, dma.org.