Materiality Is thE Message
Jeanne Siegel
Jackson Pollock. Exh. cat. New York: The Museum of Modern Art"gg8. Distr. Harry N. Abrams. Essays by Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel. 336 pp., 277 color ills., 198 duotone. $75, $35 paper.
Exh. schedule: The Museum of Modern Art, November 1,1998-February 2, 1999; Tate Gallery, London, March ii June 6, 1999.
One of Kirk Varnedoe's primary curatorial aims in the recent Jackson Pollock retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art was to reexamine the significance of the artist's work and to confront doubts about it that have lingered since the artist's death fortythree years ago. The curator sought "to cut through the …