Artists dislike labels.
They invariably regard them as crude reductive devices best suited to the needs of art critics and commentators. At best they rarely articulate anything meaningful about creative impulses, at worst they merely describe attributes of a perceived style. The American artist Willem De Kooning disliked the term 'Abstract Expressionism' and took the view that it was disastrous both for him and his contemporaries to be described as such. Yet with the passage of time and the wisdom of hindsight the term has prevailed, and in fairness has offered useful starting points to access the essential concerns of this particular cultural phenomenon. There are connections to be made here, and ultimately they centre on the business of classification and association.