Clement Greenberg Quotes

American essayist and visual art critic (1909-1994)

Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994) was an American art critic known for his advocacy of Abstract Expressionism.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: K. Hardesh

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* the dividing line between the painterly and the linear [painting] is by no means a hard and fast one.

One is also reminded of how in art the tortoise so often overtakes the hare. Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longer have anything to say and take to performing instead of stating. This is how they first become accessible to broad taste, which is lazy taste, and by the same token to the processes of publicity and consecration. As long as they were trammeled up in the urgency of getting things said they were too difficult, too "controversial."

Hofmann is perhaps the most difficult artist alive-difficult to grasp and to appreciate. But by the same token he is an immensely interesting, original, and rewarding one, whose troubles in clarifying his art stem in large part precisely from the fact that he has so much to say.