Pollock hits harder in person tbh.

Prints and photos don't really work; it ends up looking flat and empty. But in person, there's more "depth" in both a literal and figurative sense. You can see more of the intent put into the methodology.

Mind you, I agree with the idea that he's over hyped. He wasn't exactly breaking new ground, and there's plenty of other artists that explored abstract painting with more satisfying and effective results.

But I don't think it's accurate to call it shit either. As much as people love to say it, no a kindergartener couldn't do it. Even high schoolers have trouble making something that looks similar enough to carry the same visual effect. Some art students at a collegiate level can't.

Turns out you do have to have some degree of development in your techniques at the very least to get the same results, no matter how much raw talent you have.

Now, don't ask me if I really like his stuff. I mean, I'm going to say it anyway, but still. My take on his body of work is that he fully explored the "drip" technique way before he quit doing it, and likely could have stopped after the first one because the only real differences between them amount to nothing more than the difference between most hotel and doctors' office wall hangings. You see one, you've seen them all.

Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that he got something more than money out of the process. I make bland and basic art myself, and IDGAF about the results as much as the enjoyment of making. Every art student I've ever known gets super into the process of creating and that's a wonderful thing; dissecting what they're doing as they do it.

But that value isn't something that carries on beyond the process itself.