not P. Gaddis

[Mark Kohut]

Yeah. Your timing is off. The Recognitions was published in 1955, written
over a decently long say-it-all-in-one-great book time for Gaddis

Andy was still doing Tiffany windows in 1961, still a 'commercial'
artist making it in NYC. 60-61 were good years, 60 better. He bought a house
uptown.

The art that was Gaddis' target was Abstract Expressionism, the emphasis on
abstract. An art movement that ignored
human recognition for the sake of art for art's sake. Color, form, patterns
only, one might say, he might have said, and I'm sure a deeper Gaddis
reader will correct me if that isn't accurate enough.

But more it is about the art critics who made that movement credible and
monetarily valuable. And the whole lesser circle that thrived
off their words, not being able to recognize art themselves anyway. I
think.

Another meaning to the word, as I remember the novel, is that in the way
back time, Roman times in Gaddis's case, I think, we knew
ourselves clearly but the modern age had led us to lose that recognition.



On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 8:58 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Years ago I got about halfway thru The Recognitions.  It lost me in its
> depiction of its Pynchon-like whole sick crew. As such, I never dove deep
> into its questions about original Vs copied artwork.  Am I wrong to suspect
> Warhol was his target?
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 6:32 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> https://twitter.com/sarahw/status/1256726554748628992?s=20
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>