Greenberg Quotes

A standard line, promoted by people like Clement Greenberg,... is that politics contaminates art, and Manet is often cited as an example of art for art's sake. (Hans Haacke)

Clement Greenberg talked about the ideas or possibilities of painting in his - I think -, 'After Abstract Expressionism' article, and he allows a blank canvas to be an idea for a painting. It might not be a good idea, but it's certainly valid. Yves Klein did the empty gallery. He sold 'air', and that was a conceptualized art, I guess.

Frank Stella

You can't talk about the civil rights movement in this country without talking about Jewish freedom riders and Jack Greenberg. You can't talk about the women's movement without talking about Betty Friedan. I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else. [...] It wasn't anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,' it was the social media. Literally. That's what changed peoples' attitudes. That's why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace. Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it's in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.

Joe Biden

In the 1950's there was a kind of agreement that a good artist would do something in his picture that acknowledge the edge, but it was a question of doing something when you got to the edge. Cropping was something new. It came from photography and from w:Clement Greenberg. It was resisted as being too easy.

Kenneth Noland

Greenberg and I are simply playing different games.

Paul K. Benedict

With 'Greenberg,' I wanted to make a movie about Los Angeles... my great love for it and also the way that I felt not at home and alienated there.

Noah Baumbach

And then [after the break with Clem [Greenberg], c. 1955] I investigated something which is related to what I talked about in 'Number 14', [of Jackson] Pollock, a side of me that --.... Well, I always use this word and I'm always dissatisfied with it because it's not what I mean at all, but a 'surreal' side. There are two words that are applied to me often that I think are very wrong but there aren't any other words that I can think of at the moment that would --. But one is 'lyrical' and the other is 'surreal'.... I understand what's meant when that word [lyrical] is used in relation to my pictures. And I don't think 'lyric' is a put down but 'lyric' never implies the profound enough.... In other words, 'lyric' can imply light, untouched, angelic, witty. Which are marvelous qualities. But 'light' can also imply simple, which is not a marvelous quality. I don't know..

Helen Frankenthaler

We [Helen and Clement Greenberg] went through the hill towns of Italy together, and we'd picnic in Perugia and argue about the Quattrocento painters and why this Simone Martini was better than that Simone Martini, or why this Sienese guy was better than that guy from Orvieto. I learned how to look at modern pictures because of Old Masters, and vice versa.

Helen Frankenthaler

We went around the room together, And he Clement Greenberg finally let me know that he thought my picture was the worst one in the show.. [she laughs]. At the same time he took my phone number.

Helen Frankenthaler

The first Pollock show I saw was in 1951 at Betty Parson's gallery, early in the fall, probably September or October. It was staggering. I really felt surrounded. I went with Clement Greenberg [famous art-critic of American Abstract Expressionism / New York School] who threw me into the room and seemed to say 'swim'. By then I had been exposed to enough of it so it hit me and had magic but didn't puzzle me to the point of stopping my feelings.

Jackson Pollock

in East Hampton where Pollock lived .. ..if we [the couple then Helen Frankenthaler and Clement Greenberg arrived in mid-afternoon [for a weekend-stay with the Pollock's] the activity would be going out soberly, everyone, to look at Jackson's new pictures. He always had a very immaculate studio in that barn and would unroll one after another of what he'd been working on and each would walk around it on the floor and occasionally hold a picture up and talk about it. And then, say, if it was a Friday, we'd do the same thing with the same pictures Saturday. And then look again Sunday. And maybe something that didn't look good Friday afternoon had a double take on Sunday. (Jackson Pollock)