Actually, I think Pollock's work is more the other way around — the pieces are the remnant of a bit of performance art the viewer never got to see. While I'm not in any sense a fan of the work aesthetically, it feels even more of a cheat since the process was what was important, not the product. Neither do I particularly care what sort of anguish Mark Rothko may have been feeling when he put a black border around a yellow rectangle — however poetic his intent may have been, he had a piss-poor way of expressing himself. At least the Warhols and Lichtensteins of the period were authentic: they were unashamedly in it for the fame and the bucks.