J.Pollock and The Sullivan Institute: cultism and the fallacies of “free thinking”

It is quite interesting to see how any type of cult, no matter whether it’s a sophisticated (or so you say) “movement” involving psychoanalysis, art-therapy and panel discussions about the very essence of life (NXIVM, I see you) or just dumb fringe LDS propaganda paired with the “sovereign citizen” bs, always predisposed by the same lazy mindset (“seeking MY truth”) and build with the usage of identical structural elements that sooner or later allow it to turn into a total (also, quite literally, bloody) chaos, ending up with the same ole crap—“free love” (which often means assaulting minors or vulnerable groups of confused folk), consuming plenty of drugs and experiencing physical violence.

Looks like in case with Pollock and his spouse, the dynamic was no exception, with additional elements of toxicity from a so-called “sensitive friend” and an insidious therapist.

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Aw, how cute. ’cause gaslighting your gifted friend is the best thing you can do, of course.

Pollock was in a period of deep crisis, one that Greenberg himself had helped create. A lifelong alcoholic, Pollock, with Krasner’s help, had managed to remain sober between 1947 and 1951, one of his periods of greatest productivity. But in 1954 he decided to take his art in a new direction, moving away from the drip paintings that made him famous.

Greenberg was unimpressed, describing Pollock’s 1954 show at the Janis Gallery as “forced, pumped, dressed up.” His review seemed to imply that Pollock had lost his way: Pollock “found himself straddled between the easel picture and something else hard to define, and in the last two or three years he has pulled back.” In the same essay, Greenberg seemed to place the crown of America’s preeminent painter on the head of Clyfford Still, calling him “one of the most important and original painters of our time.”

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QED.

After Pollock’s weekly sessions with Klein, he would often go out for an evening on the town, drinking heavily. On Tuesdays, he took the train into the city accompanied by a friend, Patsy Southgate, who was tasked with making sure he didn’t detour into the bar at Pennsylvania Station on his way to Klein’s office on West Eighty-Sixth Street. “On the train he kept talking about how much he loved Ralph Klein,” Southgate told Pollock’s biographers. “He thought Klein was the only person who understood him.”

Pollock may have loved Klein because the message Klein conveyed was very much what Pollock wanted to hear [sic]. The Sullivanian view in a nutshell was that a person’s creative energy and drive for growth are suppressed early in life by controlling parents, and that the answer is removing repression.

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*shrug* Sure, Jan.

“[The Sullivanians] gave you permission to indulge yourself in anything that made you feel good,” Barbara Rose said. “You drive and drink, don’t worry about it. Lee was very angry, and she didn’t want him to see [the Sullivanians], but Pollock was very happy. And then they said, do you like young girls? And they’re beautiful and your wife is old and she’s ugly. Go after the young girl. They gave him permission and he was completely out of his mind in anything he wanted to do.”