This eveing I attended a packed out panel discussion that attempted to address the following questions: "Is art criticism still able to galvanize debate or has its effectiveness been diminished? Or are there no issues? Is the art system now too complex for debate, or has the art community advanced beyond this need, having found other ways and forms of engaging discussion?"
Highlights include the following quotes:
panelist Mark Cheetham: Debate needs a context of contestation, and that needs to be staged.
panelist Sarah Milroy: The citadel has fallen to the art-hungry hordes.
panelist Catherine Osborne: Assumed knowledge is a failing.
The panel was lopsided in favour of journalism and accessibility (two things that I like), and therefore art criticism per se (another thing that I like) did not get a fair kick at the can. Philip Monk apparently felt that his role as moderator prevented him from truly advocating for the 'lost' discourse. Some riled-up audience members such as Andy Patton, Xandra Eden, Jessica Wyman and John Bentley Mays, spoke up for critique, but in the end Monk, somewhat fatalistically*, declared a consensus that art criticism is irrelevant, and the statement was met with an overall sense of quiet, defeated resignation. Ouch!
I told someone the other day, dismayed at my lack of a master's degree, that I got my learnin' at the school of hard knocks. HAh. Not true. I'm basically uneducated. But I do occasionally read (and also sometimes publish) art theory and criticism. My budding series of Canadian art quotes ( 1 / 2 / 3 / and JR ) is a tiny testament to the peaks of the discourse that have inspired me along the way. Reading art criticism (and here I will melt art theory into the same puddle, tho I know there's a distinction) may be the provenance of freaks and social deviants ...but I know you are out there!
Join me and post your favourite art criticism and theory quotes (with bibliographic citations, please) in the comment section below.
*or mabye he's right, and I'm a Pollyanna. Okay okay ... I am a Pollyanna. But that doesn't mean he's right!
Hi Sally.
I think the focus of OCAD debate was horribly flawed, unfortunate and cynical.
Art criticism in itself has never had the ability to galvanize debate - it needs a partner or catalyst - it needs art. Its effectiveness is diminished every time an art critic, (curator, educator, theorist etc.) gets up and starts talking without reference to a specific work or genre of art. This kind of talk is cheap - the critics get paid and they don't even have to go to the show. Further, what individual let alone whole art community has the need to engage in a one way (that is to say, all about me) discourse?
I propose an alternative. Next time OCAD invites a bunch of critics over after school, they should show them some art and demand a critical argument from each of these people, kind of like what they used to do in Greek and Roman times. A few well chosen art works and I think you would see quite a debate on your hands!
That is absolutely right. Panels suck that don't refer to specific works of art. Meaning all panels suck. I attended a public discussion of "the role of criticism" here in NY a few years ago, all famous name brand critics. It was excruciatingly awful. I went up to talk to the most approachable of the scribes afterward and said "How come you never talk about actual art?" Now, her answer was tailored to the pathologies of the NY scene, but the real reason is no one wants to offend or hurt anyone. What she said, though, had me reaching for the barf bag (which I brought just in case):
"(Heavy sigh.) Well, you know we can't, because the second we mention work by a particular artist, the collectors are running out the door to buy it up. Our words have a distorting effect on the market." I kid you not--this exchange actually took place.
That is classic. A panel discussion on "the role of criticism" is such a classic title for a get together with barf bags all round.
"show them some art and demand a critical argument from each of these people"
good idea!
"Art is anthing you can get away with."
"Art is anthing you can get away with."
Not sure who said it first.
I also like:
"Art is either precious or grandios."
But less so.
Love is, you never have to say you're sorry?
one of my mantras:
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it -- Bertolt Brecht
"I'm no artist. I'm just a guy who couldn't build a barbecue."
—Homer Simpson
"I don't know about art, but I know what I like. I'll be a-surfin' in a swamp on Saturday night."
—Lux Interior
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
—Bob Dylan
Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.
--purportedly, Groucho Marx
Professional critics were first of all 'reporters': they oriented people in the market of intellectual products. In so doing, they occasionally gained insight into the matter at hand, yet remained continually traffic agents, in agreement with the sphere as such if not with it's individual products.Of this they bear the mark even after they have discarded the role of agent. That they should have been entrusted with the roles of expert and then of judge was economically inevitable although accidental with respect to their objective qualifications. Their agility, which gained them privileged positions in the general competition - privileged, since the fate of those judged depends largely on their vote - invests their judgement with the semblence of competence. While they adroitly slipped into the gaps and won influence with the expansion of the press, they attained that very authority which their profession already presupposed. Their arrogance derives from the fact that, in the forms of competitive society in which all being is merely there for something else, the critic himself is also measured only in terms of his marketable success - that is in terms of his being for something else. Knowledge and understanding were not primary, but at most bi-products, and the more they are lacking, the more they are replaced by Oneupmanship and conformity. When the critics in their playground - art - no longer understand what they judge and enthusiastically permit themselves to be degraded to propagandists or censors, it is the old dishonesty of trade fulfilling itself in their fate.The prerogatives of information and position permit them to express their opinion as if it were objectivity. But it is solely the objectivity of the ruling mind....
This is from Adorno's essay, "Cultural Criticism and Society" in the anthology, Prisms, p20
If I had known this debate was going on, I would have been there instead of at "The Fog of War", which was probably just as stimulating and infuriating. I don't think art criticism is dead; but there's a lack of easy-to-understand, accessible writing. I think the general population sees art as something reserved for an intellectual elite, and most art writing does nothing to counter this perception. This inaccessibility negates the possibility of meaningful dialogue. Most art criticism makes readers, even if they are intelligent people, feel stupid because it is written for people-in-the-know by people-in-the-know. If art criticism is dying, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. (I'll think about how to combat this for a later email.)
Anyway, here's my favourite art-related quote. It was in the Toronto Star back in November 2002 and was attributed to Anonymous, who is, like, the most quotable guy (or gal) EVER!
"One photo out of focus is a mistake. Ten photos of out focus are an experimentation. One hundred photos out of focus are a style."
"The critic does not mean to criticise,
The critic means to open eyes,
To translate the demon seed of creation,
and make it palatable, that the people may eat..."
-Patti Smith
Anyone who has a mind, changes it.
--Peter Schjedahl
Re: Tom’s above comment about how critics are afraid of offending people, I got a kick out of seeing this old review by Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, recently posted by Schwarz. Now, JGR is a good formalist, so you can’t accuse him of finding more in a work than is really there, but in the course of possibly over-valuing Douglas Huebler, he does toss out this gem:
The aim of Huebler's best work (and I haven't mentioned here that work of his which never seems to leave the plane of the sociological, like the book Duration Piece #8, which seems to me to consist entirely of the sort of in-group star fucking that characterizes the work of an artist like Arman) is to find a way…
They don’t write ‘em like that anymore. (Full Disclosure: JGR was a teacher of mine, and, I think, a real art critic, who always proceeds from actual examples in specific works.)
Of course, one has one’s own chestnuts. I may be misquoting myself, but I think I’ve said that a good critical stance is: “I know a lot about art, but I don’t necessarily know what I like (until I see it.)”
that episode of the simpsons reminded me of this episode of sanford and son.
The moment that critique is understood, consciously or not, to be incapable of achieving the political, it becomes a solely and cynically contemplative affair de-linked from action. That is when repressive tolerance achieves its most complete victory.
[...]
It is tempting to see the concept of politics as one among many in a toolbox of options. But while most forms of art criticism prudently stop after carrying out descriptive or interpretive roles, political art criticism, like political artworks themselves, is unavoidably normative, making it something of a special case. Failing to distinguish the political from the non-political confuses the role of normative judgements. The legitimate and in fact necessary role that normative analysis plays can exceed its jurisdiction, which is the realm of the political proper, and find itself in the realm of poetics where it has no business. We see the results of this confusion when the process of art criticism assumes the outrageous power to "paraphrase" artworks and to say how they "ought" to have been.
From Gary Kibbins' article, "Bored Bedmates, Art & Criticism, Political vs. Critical", published in FUSE, Vol.22#2, 1999.
Great post from jim here with link to amazing free pdf texts.
GREENBERG, CLEMENT "Cézanne: Gateway to Contemporary Painting" in Clement
Greenberg, The Collected Essays and Criticism Vol. 3, John O'Brian ed., The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1995, p. 117.
Cézanne
did try to shade, much more than the Impressionists did, but with "natural"
frank colour; yet the very freshness and warmth of this colour tended to
negate its purpose. It was supposed to show planes that receded, but light,
bright, or "warm" colours give the effect of coming forward. Cézanne tried
to counteract this and resolve the contradiction by digging around the
contours of objects - which represent their furthest points of recession
from the eye - with deep blue lines, blue being a "cool" or receding colour.
But the contradiction, or ambiguity, was only heightened thereby - happily,
I feel, for this ambiguity is precisely one of the largest sources of
pleasure in art.
sent in via email by Steve Armstrong, publisher of wegway
Ah, criticism. That reminded me to post Clem story I wrote awhile back.
So, I wanted to have a chat with Cezanne, as I stood before his painting in the National Gallery."Paul", I wanted to say, "about this picture plane thing...uh...I know it's there. So, couldn't we both just sorta agree that it's there and fucking get on with it?"
Hickey, Dave, "This Mortal Magic" in Air Guitar, Essays on Art and Democracy, Art Issues Press, 1997, pp 184.
"[Dave Hickey] is a quasi-beat fiction writer type that drifted into the art world, befriended artists, but never really 'got' art. [His] greatest achievement, I suppose, was twisting the theories of continental critics such as Deleuze & Guattari to make his own Critique of Institutional Critique, in the book The Invisible Dragon--that was damned clever! But if he's the new Clement Greenberg, who's his Jackson Pollock? After years of backslapping support for artist/country singer Terry Allen, he jumped on the Robert Mapplethorpe bandwagon, then more recently shifted his attention to West Coast abstractionists Tim Bavington and Yek Wong. He talks about Yek in terms of 'sunshine art,' which has something to do with LA, and surfaces that hold up to scrutiny in harsh daylight, I think. This is important?" --Tom Moody, Feb. 5, 2003
Well,
It is not my proposal that Dave Hickey is the new Clement Greenberg, nor that there should be a new Clement Greenberg. And hopefully also, Jackson Pollock will not be replaced (aka orange is the new black) anytime soon either. But this is one of my favourite art critical quotes and "This Mortal Magic "is a wonderful essay in my opinion and I hope we can still be friends.
"The new Clement Greenberg" in my quote refers to Hickey winning the Genius Grant and all the accolades that followed and preceded it, whether he stood for anything or not. But back to Cezanne--Hickey seems to be implying in that quote that Paul C. is a world class bore. Do you agree, or is it just the humor of the quote that appeals? (Or something else?)
I like the idea of someone standing in front of an art work and talking to it, reasoning with it, until he/she understands it. It's like applying dialectic methodology to the artwork itself. As an artist, I say that is an ideal viewer.
But if you want to know what Hickey is implying you've got to go to the source. Don't take my word for it.
I lent my copy of Hickey's "Invisible Dragon" to someone a couple of years ago, and I'll never get it back!!!!!!!! I am so crushed.
In case anyone missed it, Tom has written a very succint (one paragraph) history of late 20th century art criticism in the comments section here.
enlightening
I know Jennifer suggests I should judge Dave Hickey from his writings and not from the quote where he says "fuck" to Cezanne, but we've got an opportunity here, since this thread is about quotes, to compare two different responses to an artist's work. Steve's Greenberg quote analyzes the inner mysteries of art in clear language--the tricks a painter uses to elicit emotional effect and what those effects are (the "pleasures of ambiguity"). The reader comes away feeling like he or she has learned something. Jennifer's Hickey quote, I'd say, is more about the critic than the artist. He's having a dialogue, all right, but saying "I win, because I'm a clever, trangressive, cutting-through-the-bullshit kind of guy, and you're just an artist talking about the picture plane." Hickey does this on panels, too. I know which of the two quotes I prefer. I'm curious what other people think.
Steve Armstrong is no slouch himself when it comes to critique. I hope he doesn't mind me posting this old shotgun review of his from Lola 5 (1999). I don't feel particularly engaged with either Tony Scherman's work (which I actively dislike) or Jackson Pollock's (which I just never think about) but I do feel engaged by this review:
The Bible says darkness was on the face of the deep -- a complex and beautiful metaphor. Tony Scherman's encaustic paintings are of faces that seem to emerge from the deep. Although his chiaroscuro calls up Rembrandt and Ingmar Bergman, there is something disappointing about his paintings. I came away thinking of Jackson Pollock's "The Deep" which was a typical Pollock from a psychological point of view (gyno-homophobic), but very atypical in terms of his usual phenomenology of paint (the on-top paint is more of a barrier and less of an integrated part of the painting). For Pollock, the darkness emerges from the picture in a Biblical way, while with Scherman an image theatrically emerges from darkness. It strikes me that the artist is offering clichés. Perhaps ironic clichés, but even so, the inherent beauty of encaustic has been wasted. Steve Armstrong
I think the comparison is a bit apples and oranges. Hickey was shaking up what seemed to be a closed system. As a smart-guy-but-non-artist wanting in to art discourse, he was pretty inspiring at the time when all the discursive doors seemed to be closed. I appreciate his bombast for helping inspire us to start Lola Magazine in Toronto. We (at the same time as tons of other people all over the world) spent a chunk of years working to loosen the grip on who gets to speak about art and who doesn't. At Lola, Catherine Osborne always edited for quality, rigour, and precision of thought, but we were at the same time very vocal about accessiblity and fun. Now, however, I think its a very good time to take stock and re-remind ourselves of the value in rigour and critique. Good talk about art is not a sales pitch (Hickey's big analogy if I remember it correctly). There's nothing wrong with doing a little effortful thought (reading or writing) now and then if it takes you somewhere worthwhile, and you don't have to be an egg-head or an art-historian to participate, you just need to be able to pay some attention to an idea.
As an artist in Texas for many years I suffered under Hickey's brand of iconoclasm. He's a consummate insider pretending to be an outsider--a creature of panels, catalog essays, curatorial gigs--and always was. He gets laughs and paid gigs being Dennis Hopper, flipping the bird at the same institutions that support him. In other words, a classic boomer/compromised hippie. I kind of admired that he learned all that continental theory so he could use it to attack the 80s establishment that made art so stultifying in the 90s, but the best thing he could come up as an example of "transgressive beauty" was Mapplethorpe's X-portfolio. OK, that's fine, too, I just think it's setting your sights a bit low. Picasso, Duchamp, Pollock, Warhol, Sherman...Mapplethorpe? And now it's these west coast abstractionists. I understand he's been an inspiration to a lot of people, but trust me, the more you know about him--as a writer, curator, and person--the less inspiring he is. And I find his "jazzy enthusiastic" writing completely fake.
Hi Sally,
I think that the great thing about your quote collection is precisely that it will ultimately refer your readers to the context of their origin - remind them of great and interesting debates on art both past and present etc.
Tom,
I am familiar with the Hickey text that the quote in question derives from and I empathize with Hickey ... please forgive me... The more historical (historically important) the work I am looking at, the more I know about it and the things that have been said about it, I sometimes find these works more frustrating. Cezanne, The so called "gateway to contemporary painting" has been so thoroughly studied by everyone and his brother, it's not always easy to find the inner mysteries of his paintings and the works slip into cliches. I find I have to shove my library to the back of my brain, try to actively forget what I've read so I can have a frsh experience with the work. Maybe this is what Hickey is up to in the quote to which you have taken umbrage.
That sounds right. Thanks for taking the trouble to paraphrase the essay when I've been a butt in attacking it without reading it. (It should go without saying I'm friends with Jennifer and everyone else here even though I don't know any of you except Sally and Bill.) I will say this, knowing Hickey's critical strategems: he's all about getting past old dogmas and well-worn information and taking a fresh look; the problem is his fresh looks are often...wrong. An example: about 10 years ago he did a show at the Dallas Museum where he completely rehung the collection. The director let him take the frames off the "old master" paintings and hang them next to contemporary works. The result was a chaotic hodgepodge that relied on verbal rather than visual narratives to make points. An unframed Dutch still life next to a Tom Wesselman looks like nothing--there's no formal or emotional resonance between the two works at all, they're speaking completely different languages. Hickey has to tell you, in an essay or in one of his crotchety, shooting-from-the-hip gallery talks, that both works spring from the Vanitas tradition of having objects (whether candles or cigarettes) stand in for bigger themes of mortality, greed, earthly vanity, or whatever. That's two big stretches: that the viewer would want to compare the works and that his interpretation of Pop has any validity at all. I would say the latter is a pseudo-insight, one you're especially unlikely to "get" in a busy room full of disconnected art objects.1 I could give many other examples of where he "missed it"--just trying to explain why, by the time Air Guitar came out, I wasn't having it anymore.
1. As I recall several more so-called "vanitas" paintings were grouped together with the two I mentioned but nothing was made any clearer or more enjoyable by the pile-on.
The Demise of Art Criticism, Part 1
So much criticism here; such complacency from the audience at the OCAD panel. But then I do not excuse the panel: Is not the notion of artwriting (one word now) complacency itself before the work of art? I don’t wish to insult all the panelists, now that I can dispense with my moderator function, but criticism can be a cruel business, especially when its definition is at stake. When at the end of the panelists’ presentations on their behalf I pronounced, “The panelists concur, art criticism, at least as a word, is irrelevant,”I myself did not lend my assent. With the disavowal of the word “criticism,”art criticism was not just being relabelled, it was being redefined. Perhaps it was not being redefined as much as rejected, because “artwriting”proposes another function for criticism. Though maybe it was not being rejected either because I do not think--could it be?--the concept of art criticism is understood, which is to say more than that its function is no longer important. Maybe this is why it is so easy to dispense with the word in favour of another more amenable to an audience, which is the aim of this writing, not the art object itself.
What does the disavowal of the word “criticism”mean? To be continued. . .
I'm not convinced that the panelists agreed that art criticism, at least as a word, is irrelevant. Although I do think Philip is right that the definition of the term may be under question. It is my understanding, and I might be completely wrong, that Philp Monk laments the loss of a written, published debate between peers (writing that addresses the artwork itself, another critic, or critics, rather than the general-interest reader). Is this the artcriticism that is supposedly lost? and if so, A: is it really lost, or has it just been eclipsed by more popular forms so that we need to dig deeper to find it? and B: We still have journals and books of theory and we still have art reviews and we have the potential for online discourse that we never had before... how bad would it be if art criticism were lost? What is it, exactly, that's at stake?
Hi Sally, Philip, Everybody,
I think there may be an important distinction here between the terms demise and disavowal.
Criticism has been in demise for about two decades. The term was disavowed at the panel. All the panelists very clearly rejected the term "art criticism" in favour of something else: artwriting (Mark Cheetham); or to retain a trace of it, called it new art criticism- (Sarah Milroy). Catherine Osborne said she had a problem with the word "criticism."
"How bad would it be if art criticism were lost?"
Well, the irony of an institution like OCAD, (with it's very structure/basis in studio instruction followed by critique) hosting a facetious panel that turns it's back on it's subject, would be lost.
To be fair, I wasn't at the event. I looked at the press release and it's groping, not even polemical title "Critical Voices/Critical Writing" and I thought I have been going to panel's like this since 1985 with the exact same (non)issues on the table!!!
If the structure of the event was more like what Robert C proposed at the beginning of this thread, a la "show them some art and demand a critical argument" each of the panelists would have had the opportunity to
apply/perform their respective methodologies in an active discourse that had an object. By object I mean purpose. And people could then assess the various approaches based on their merits. Otherwise it' all smoke, mirrors and the ponderous wondering of cultural amnesiacs.
Hi all,
Sally, I really do like what you've written regarding art criticism within the professional art realm. It's alive and well for the devotees as always. I've certainly never felt that it's no longer available, and of course YYZ's publishing series is doing more books this year than ever before.
I am not sure why Philip hasn't responded more fully to what you've said. I have to say, personally, I don't care too much for how any of these words -- criticism, artwriting-- weigh-in. It seems so irrelevant to any real point, and somehow seems to be used here as some sort of "code" for some greater thing being implied but not stated.
So here's my statement, and I hope I make myself clear: My problem with art criticism is actually more about HOW it is written than what it says--and I'm referring to art criticism that turns up in art journals more than newspapers. The tendency, especially in the 80s, was to write from an elite standpoint and with a selective readership in mind, and that the ideas being presented seemed to require a specialized vocabulary and assumed reference points.
This makes perfect sense since every specialization has this kind of insider level of discourse (if you've ever picked up Dentist Monthly you'll find the same thing). There are whole discourses around molars that I can only barely determine beyond the most shallow of meanings. (Btw, my dentist puts this magazine out with pride, along side Lola magazine since he sees them as comparable equals in their given fields).
There have been some amazingly profound art theorists who just blew the minds of many artists around the globe when their works were first published (or finally translated to English). I'm going to use Jean Baudrillard as an example, since he's my favourite and the one I've read the most. Baudrillard was/is always clear, always intent on communicating to his readers. He uses art jargon and an artwriting style but does not rely on it or fork it out to create a glass wall of intellectual protectionism. He presents complicated ideas with the kind of clarity that can give you mental epiphamies.
The interpretation of his and other art theorists was a mixed bag of equally inspiring writing, but a pseudo-intellectualism also erupted like some sort of toxic fallout. It seemed that anyone who wrote about art had to write it in some sort of over-intellectualized turgid style to prove the seriousness of themselves and what they were saying. Examples of this flourished in all art magazines, Canadian ones especially since they were getting public funding to operate which give them free reign to experiment without too much accountability (in terms of getting advertisers and subscribers to pay for costs the extent all other magazines must). No doubt this was an fabulous time for experimentation but completely unsustainable except as a publicly funded venture, and therefore most either died on the vein or have remained underpaid and under-read publications. (.... but all this is for another blog).
Back to the language that built up around artwriting as a form of pretectionism and a way of communicating only to your own kind: For me, that fallout, of an artifical language surrounding art and writing about art which proliferated in the 1980s and '90s, is what I personally have never felt comfortable with writing or reading. In fact, I find it does more harm to art and artwriting than any dumb-ass comments by the unwashed masses, even the unwashed media.
If I said at the panel I have problem with the word criticism, it is for this reason. Art is a priviledged occupation but it is not just for the elite. That's why it gets publicly funded and why art citizens have as much obligation to their own kind as they do to the public, the "white elephant in the room," as Pierre Theberge said at his lecture last weekend.
I recall Sarah Milroy saying during the panel it is as important for art critics/writers to be as interested in writing as they are in the art they are writing about. The demise of art criticism is actually the demise of poorly written art criticism ( I hope).
One last pont: I have done hundreds of studio visits with artists over the years, and I have never felt that some sort of intellectual discourse was dividing them from me. Unless they've all gone to great lengths to hide their true art theoretical meaning in their works and have refused to discuss it for some reason, the discourse of art criticism is pretty much background to what's going on in the studio. So, one could consider the topic of "the demise of art criticism" as a direct result of what artists are doing, and this seem like the right order of things to me--the donkey before the cart.
And I'll make a quick addendum too, since I am at it so early on Monday morning...
If art criticism is "disavowed" then urgent compelling and specific to the work discourse will be lost. I didn't say rigour but I do mean torque. And the dissent and debate engendered as a natural result of such discourse will also be lost - unfashionable to engahe in that stuff...it'll all be like reading the paper, going to events and buying jeans. la la
oops, obviously engage not engahe
Hi x-lola,
I liked your Peter Schjeldal quote.
So would you agree then, it might be more edifying to assemble a panel with some art on the table?
"Art is a priviledged occupation but it is not just for the elite. That's why it gets publicly funded and why art citizens have as much obligation to their own kind as they do to the public"
While public funds touch all sectors of the arts in Canada, not all art is publicly funded. All citizens pay taxes. All citizens have moral obligations. These are proscribed for art citizens because?
"the discourse of art criticism is pretty much background to what's going on in the studio. So, one could consider the topic of "the demise of art criticism" as a direct result of what artists are doing, and this seem like the right order of things to me--the donkey before the cart"
don't you mean the cart before the horse before the cart?
Yes, I think clarity is important to communicating, so using examples to explain your point (art on the table) is usually a good idea. It is the same with writing. Talking about concrete things forces you to think about how to explain yourself to someone else (a reader/a listener), and to not get caught up in your own inner dialogue.
ps. this was a response to Jennifer's post, but it seems to have landed in the wrong spot. T
re: trailing sentence question.... I'm not sure what you're wondering about here. Are you questioning why we all pay taxes?
Yeah, the boxes inside boxes are endless.
Ok say "art citizens have as much obligation to their own kind as they do to the public". That's a great tension. But does that mean all texts should be designed for this nebula? Turned to pablum so everyone can understand everything? I thought a democracy was the place where all the voices speak not where the one voice speaks in the one voice everybody else can understand. Never mind what's pulling the cart - the baby's gone out with the bath water! Who proscribes the manner in which art is disseminated?
and i think it's a mistake to assume the extent to which the arts and artists may or may not be funded.
No, all text does not have to be designed for this nebula. Pablum is baby food. I am talking about clarity and communication, not mushing ideas down to a smooth and bland substance. I am not advocating dumbing down. I'm advocating smart writing and critical thought that does not bury its relavence for the sake of "sounding" intelligent.
It is, of course, every writer's own choice how much their readership matters to them and who their reader are (that's democracy).
The Canada Council has a new grant for commercial galleries. Here's a list of eligible expenses:
* the production costs for catalogues, promotional kits and other printed material for distribution to the national and international art market;
* costs incurred in mounting a national or international advertising strategy;
* expenses related to the dealer’s attendance at international art fairs and the promotion at the event of artists represented by the applicant;
* Web site development;
* costs incurred for special initiatives aimed at the general public, private corporations and public institutions to increase their awareness and knowledge of Canadian contemporary art and to encourage the purchase of works by professional Canadian contemporary visual artists.
state proscribed dissemination.
state proscribed dissemination.
not sure what you mean by this. As far as I see it, this is the state throwing it's weight behind art institutions that function in the market place, and I expect in order to run this pilot program they are diminishing grants to the non-profit institutions that show primarily installation, timebased and conceptually driven work.
This grant has been around more than a year. The idea behind it is explanatory in your post, my problem with this plainly lies with commercial dealers who receive grants and go nowhere and do nothing, except cover operating costs and simply don't want to even develop websites. What's the point to support dead-weight decorative dealers. Go to any Biennial, Documenta, etc. not much painting out there these days, not that's it not represented. Those who have been out there and are noticebly out there, have been doing it prior to adopting this grant.
nuff said
Hi Sally,
Looking over these late posts, especially by Philip Monk, x-lola and anonymous, thoughts and questions...
If aesthetics are dictated either in populist terms by the press, or by the government as cultural policy and worse if the two corroborate, what you have is art in the service of ideology. If art relies entirely on these institutions for it's dissemination, then it's not going to have any autonomy. Everything will fit neatly into it's mainstream or alternative category and the two will go at it in a tooth and nail in a fight for attention and funding.
If this is the discourse in the background of the studio practise x-lola mentioned, then it bodes ill for art. Doesn't it? Isn't there an opportunity here for critical activity to come into play? To uncover what's crucial, important,essential, new, (God forbid) original? To champion, support, notice, question, question and offer perhaps, dissent? Dissent - both Tom and Philip have alluded to the issue of not wanting to offend. But what is actually more offensive: to see the arts debated vigorously and fearlessly or to hear criticism is having trouble defining itself ? How meek is that? These are strident words, I realize. But I wonder why are there so many forums and panel discussions (ostensibly art critical debates) that decline this challenge.
"As long as human life last, art will go on being the one activity for which no amount of calculation can provide a substitute, and the job of the critic will be to explain why this is so. The ability to realize that he can never attain to an exhaustive analysis of the thing he loves best is the indispensable qualification for signing on. What he has to offer is his life, of which his learning can only be a part: the more he knows the better, but if he thingks that nothings else counts then he will count for nothing."
--Clive James
This huge hyrda-headed thread is getting damn hard to read now! A disadvantage to this kind of forum is a lack of resolution (as in the sense of closure, not dpi). But it's also an advantage - a big noisy ball of art thought to roll around in our minds for awhile. Jennifer, I love this last post of yours. Puts me back on track. The funding structures of art are practical realities and there is some ideological struggle there for sure, but that is not where art ideas themselves belong. Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you Sally for th hydra headed thread! It's great!
"Yes, I think clarity is important to communicating, so using examples to explain your point (art on the table) is usually a good idea. It is the same with writing. Talking about concrete things forces you to think about how to explain yourself to someone else (a reader/a listener), and to not get caught up in your own inner dialogue.
so true. this point was also raised near the top of this thread yet few of the posts here have followed through on that logic. pls site the art and/or theory in reference for the good of the discussion.
Re-reading what Robert C. wrote, I just realized that it isn't actually a paraphrase of what Hickey said in the essay, but what Robert thinks is "maybe" up with Jennifer's quote from it. I could say I'm curious to know what the essay actually says, but I'm not, really.
bummer
At the InFest conference (last week) there was very little discussion of the role or even definition of art critisism but there was a lot of discussion on the importance of art writing. People wanted people to somehow validate artworks but without giving comment. It's all very nice nice but after reading so much of it I just get bored. I wanted to ask, now that you have all of this art to look at what are you going to do with it?
Uh, have a look at it?
give the man a cupie doll!
What's an InFest Conference?
gyno-homophobic?
I have a terrible fear of voicing opinions about music. I know what I like....etc. So I've been trying and it's scary as hell - a good exercise for someone like me who is always telling other people not to be intimidated by art. Anyhow, if you are looking for accessible, inspiring, story-telling-type writing on classical music, go to have a look at ionarts (good stuff on The Passion of Christ too - via Tom ).
ignorance is bliss. InFest was a recent, big conference for artist-run centres, held in Vancouver.
oh god, imagine all the $600.00 flights to get to that one ... i was blissfully ignorant ... how depressing
Whaaaa happened?
I read a really short little book by James Elkins called "What Happened To Art Criticism?" published by Prickly Paradigm Press. I'll recommend this book to anyone who has been thinking about criticism lately. This book is tiny but incredibly succinct, lucid and thought provoking. Like everything else I've read by James Elkins, it's just great.
Why do we all expect anyone critic/writer/"whatever you want to call it" to get it right all of the time? Anyone here ever look at some art/writing/etc. that they made and think it sucks now? Hickey is just another voice out there and at least he's asking questions while telling you what he likes. Like a print teach of mine told me "Hickey's brilliant, but he's a pig." Live with it.
Art writing, art criticism...hmmm - possibly 'former' art critics have realized the need to construct textual art forms - realizing their storiated text could use some validity of intent.. ( shocker) Hence art-writing or writing art? Perhaps, more honestly - critical story-telling? The question is what media will they be toying with...a 'same old' string of artworks already couched in a curatorial critique of notations within the exhibition framework , the works, side by each, out of the creative context of intent of the artists body of work? Stirred up artists' alphabetized soup? Could referential theory-writing that only uses the art work ( sometimes viewed) as beginning ingredients, add a dash of worcestershire, be read as appropriated historica within an imposed textual framework? Perhaps former critics are interested in process? Is process thinking?
Do artists think? OR do they just do? Make-do? Some critics actually quote artists 'words' or they paraphrase them giving them a more tolerable context. As in ..".huh...I didn't say that."The problem remains that this textual story of 'others' takes up too much space leaving the included art to serve as mere illustrations in publications.- Yah gotta have a picture for every thousand words.! And works remain forever captured, in this form, out of the context of their creation, with textual additives, continuing to exist perpetually in some critical 'how to view' handbook archive. Well, harsh you might say...but what could be harsher than the pathological intent of some critics?( unamed) - or in the reverb nature of critical writing itself - haunting retro-text.
The 'unfolding' of exhibiting art and selling art has become real estate. Location, location, location. Perhaps the net as 'no fixed address' or a function of cybernetics allows more visual access - maybe more visual communication - than any time-based 'real' exhibition space.
Of course there is no present technology here that can reveal true surface or texture. Possibly that is no longer important. Maybe we are into urban cyber-impressionism. In any case we can be sure that words are not enough. ( smile)
Should art be artisitic?
Thanks to Marcel Duchamp’s work, the time when our society was given masterpieces to be contemplated by an amazed audience is over. Our society is now more encouraged to forget talent and to take a critical look beyond the works themselves.
Works with frames, on a pedestal or with directional spots to highlight their autonomy appear now obsolete. Galleries and museums wishing to continue confining the artist in their restrictive limits are also becoming archaic. Each of these components, related to the traditional art work and which, in some way, framed it or marked it to control it better, are now replaced by our architectural, social or ideological frames. These frames are a set of different contexts creating the elements of the definition of art and encouraging a community osmosis, which associates art’s environment and networks with art itself.
This new perspective allows art to interfere in a whole series of processes, roles and paths inherent to collective practices which reveal production and diffusion modes designed to works, which will be successively interpreted. In an approach in which art focuses less on the conventional and private nature of its finite objects than on the creative attitudes related to scenography of our living environments, everything becomes likely to evolve.
This is why art today is not only a state of mind but also a multimedia. Art is spread everywhere and is not only the result of a free association of ideas, techniques, or disciplines. It breaks free from the concept of style or self-sufficiency of the work in order to join activities that surround it such as fashion, design, architecture, computer-science, publicity and also gardens, sport, parties… All this aims to legitimise influences which beneficially lead to replacing Art with a nice art of life!
I am closing this thread due to spam.
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This eveing I attended a packed out panel discussion that attempted to address the following questions: "Is art criticism still able to galvanize debate or has its effectiveness been diminished? Or are there no issues? Is the art system now too complex for debate, or has the art community advanced beyond this need, having found other ways and forms of engaging discussion?"
Highlights include the following quotes:
panelist Mark Cheetham: Debate needs a context of contestation, and that needs to be staged.
panelist Sarah Milroy: The citadel has fallen to the art-hungry hordes.
panelist Catherine Osborne: Assumed knowledge is a failing.
The panel was lopsided in favour of journalism and accessibility (two things that I like), and therefore art criticism per se (another thing that I like) did not get a fair kick at the can. Philip Monk apparently felt that his role as moderator prevented him from truly advocating for the 'lost' discourse. Some riled-up audience members such as Andy Patton, Xandra Eden, Jessica Wyman and John Bentley Mays, spoke up for critique, but in the end Monk, somewhat fatalistically*, declared a consensus that art criticism is irrelevant, and the statement was met with an overall sense of quiet, defeated resignation. Ouch!
I told someone the other day, dismayed at my lack of a master's degree, that I got my learnin' at the school of hard knocks. HAh. Not true. I'm basically uneducated. But I do occasionally read (and also sometimes publish) art theory and criticism. My budding series of Canadian art quotes ( 1 / 2 / 3 / and JR ) is a tiny testament to the peaks of the discourse that have inspired me along the way. Reading art criticism (and here I will melt art theory into the same puddle, tho I know there's a distinction) may be the provenance of freaks and social deviants ...but I know you are out there!
Join me and post your favourite art criticism and theory quotes (with bibliographic citations, please) in the comment section below.
*or mabye he's right, and I'm a Pollyanna. Okay okay ... I am a Pollyanna. But that doesn't mean he's right!
- sally mckay 2-25-2004 8:24 am
Hi Sally.
I think the focus of OCAD debate was horribly flawed, unfortunate and cynical.
Art criticism in itself has never had the ability to galvanize debate - it needs a partner or catalyst - it needs art. Its effectiveness is diminished every time an art critic, (curator, educator, theorist etc.) gets up and starts talking without reference to a specific work or genre of art. This kind of talk is cheap - the critics get paid and they don't even have to go to the show. Further, what individual let alone whole art community has the need to engage in a one way (that is to say, all about me) discourse?
I propose an alternative. Next time OCAD invites a bunch of critics over after school, they should show them some art and demand a critical argument from each of these people, kind of like what they used to do in Greek and Roman times. A few well chosen art works and I think you would see quite a debate on your hands!
- Robert C (guest) 2-25-2004 10:16 am
That is absolutely right. Panels suck that don't refer to specific works of art. Meaning all panels suck. I attended a public discussion of "the role of criticism" here in NY a few years ago, all famous name brand critics. It was excruciatingly awful. I went up to talk to the most approachable of the scribes afterward and said "How come you never talk about actual art?" Now, her answer was tailored to the pathologies of the NY scene, but the real reason is no one wants to offend or hurt anyone. What she said, though, had me reaching for the barf bag (which I brought just in case):
"(Heavy sigh.) Well, you know we can't, because the second we mention work by a particular artist, the collectors are running out the door to buy it up. Our words have a distorting effect on the market." I kid you not--this exchange actually took place.
- tom moody 2-25-2004 10:29 am
That is classic. A panel discussion on "the role of criticism" is such a classic title for a get together with barf bags all round.
- Robert C (guest) 2-25-2004 10:55 am
"show them some art and demand a critical argument from each of these people"
good idea!
- sally mckay 2-25-2004 4:39 pm
"Art is anthing you can get away with."
- tino (guest) 2-25-2004 5:02 pm
"Art is anthing you can get away with."
Not sure who said it first.
I also like:
"Art is either precious or grandios."
But less so.
- tino (guest) 2-25-2004 5:04 pm
Love is, you never have to say you're sorry?
- Robert C (guest) 2-25-2004 5:14 pm
one of my mantras:
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it -- Bertolt Brecht
- Pamila Matharu (guest) 2-25-2004 5:19 pm
"I'm no artist. I'm just a guy who couldn't build a barbecue."
—Homer Simpson
- anonymous (guest) 2-25-2004 5:20 pm
"I don't know about art, but I know what I like. I'll be a-surfin' in a swamp on Saturday night."
—Lux Interior
- anonymous (guest) 2-25-2004 5:21 pm
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
—Bob Dylan
- anonymous (guest) 2-25-2004 5:25 pm
Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.
--purportedly, Groucho Marx
- anonymous (guest) 2-25-2004 5:50 pm
Professional critics were first of all 'reporters': they oriented people in the market of intellectual products. In so doing, they occasionally gained insight into the matter at hand, yet remained continually traffic agents, in agreement with the sphere as such if not with it's individual products.Of this they bear the mark even after they have discarded the role of agent. That they should have been entrusted with the roles of expert and then of judge was economically inevitable although accidental with respect to their objective qualifications. Their agility, which gained them privileged positions in the general competition - privileged, since the fate of those judged depends largely on their vote - invests their judgement with the semblence of competence. While they adroitly slipped into the gaps and won influence with the expansion of the press, they attained that very authority which their profession already presupposed. Their arrogance derives from the fact that, in the forms of competitive society in which all being is merely there for something else, the critic himself is also measured only in terms of his marketable success - that is in terms of his being for something else. Knowledge and understanding were not primary, but at most bi-products, and the more they are lacking, the more they are replaced by Oneupmanship and conformity. When the critics in their playground - art - no longer understand what they judge and enthusiastically permit themselves to be degraded to propagandists or censors, it is the old dishonesty of trade fulfilling itself in their fate.The prerogatives of information and position permit them to express their opinion as if it were objectivity. But it is solely the objectivity of the ruling mind....
This is from Adorno's essay, "Cultural Criticism and Society" in the anthology, Prisms, p20
- Robert C (guest) 2-25-2004 6:02 pm
If I had known this debate was going on, I would have been there instead of at "The Fog of War", which was probably just as stimulating and infuriating. I don't think art criticism is dead; but there's a lack of easy-to-understand, accessible writing. I think the general population sees art as something reserved for an intellectual elite, and most art writing does nothing to counter this perception. This inaccessibility negates the possibility of meaningful dialogue. Most art criticism makes readers, even if they are intelligent people, feel stupid because it is written for people-in-the-know by people-in-the-know. If art criticism is dying, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. (I'll think about how to combat this for a later email.)
Anyway, here's my favourite art-related quote. It was in the Toronto Star back in November 2002 and was attributed to Anonymous, who is, like, the most quotable guy (or gal) EVER!
"One photo out of focus is a mistake. Ten photos of out focus are an experimentation. One hundred photos out of focus are a style."
- Bill Clarke, former Lola scrib 2-25-2004 6:59 pm
"The critic does not mean to criticise,
The critic means to open eyes,
To translate the demon seed of creation,
and make it palatable, that the people may eat..."
-Patti Smith
- Von Bark (guest) 2-25-2004 7:07 pm
Anyone who has a mind, changes it.
--Peter Schjedahl
- x-lola 2-25-2004 7:50 pm
Re: Tom’s above comment about how critics are afraid of offending people, I got a kick out of seeing this old review by Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, recently posted by Schwarz. Now, JGR is a good formalist, so you can’t accuse him of finding more in a work than is really there, but in the course of possibly over-valuing Douglas Huebler, he does toss out this gem:
They don’t write ‘em like that anymore. (Full Disclosure: JGR was a teacher of mine, and, I think, a real art critic, who always proceeds from actual examples in specific works.)Of course, one has one’s own chestnuts. I may be misquoting myself, but I think I’ve said that a good critical stance is: “I know a lot about art, but I don’t necessarily know what I like (until I see it.)”
- alex 2-25-2004 8:41 pm
that episode of the simpsons reminded me of this episode of sanford and son.
- bill 2-25-2004 9:20 pm
From Gary Kibbins' article, "Bored Bedmates, Art & Criticism, Political vs. Critical", published in FUSE, Vol.22#2, 1999.- sally mckay 2-26-2004 5:24 pm
Great post from jim here with link to amazing free pdf texts.
- sally mckay 2-26-2004 11:21 pm
GREENBERG, CLEMENT "Cézanne: Gateway to Contemporary Painting" in Clement Greenberg, The Collected Essays and Criticism Vol. 3, John O'Brian ed., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1995, p. 117.
sent in via email by Steve Armstrong, publisher of wegway- sally mckay 2-27-2004 9:04 pm
Ah, criticism. That reminded me to post Clem story I wrote awhile back.
- tom moody 2-27-2004 9:19 pm
So, I wanted to have a chat with Cezanne, as I stood before his painting in the National Gallery."Paul", I wanted to say, "about this picture plane thing...uh...I know it's there. So, couldn't we both just sorta agree that it's there and fucking get on with it?"
Hickey, Dave, "This Mortal Magic" in Air Guitar, Essays on Art and Democracy, Art Issues Press, 1997, pp 184.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 2-27-2004 10:10 pm
"[Dave Hickey] is a quasi-beat fiction writer type that drifted into the art world, befriended artists, but never really 'got' art. [His] greatest achievement, I suppose, was twisting the theories of continental critics such as Deleuze & Guattari to make his own Critique of Institutional Critique, in the book The Invisible Dragon--that was damned clever! But if he's the new Clement Greenberg, who's his Jackson Pollock? After years of backslapping support for artist/country singer Terry Allen, he jumped on the Robert Mapplethorpe bandwagon, then more recently shifted his attention to West Coast abstractionists Tim Bavington and Yek Wong. He talks about Yek in terms of 'sunshine art,' which has something to do with LA, and surfaces that hold up to scrutiny in harsh daylight, I think. This is important?" --Tom Moody, Feb. 5, 2003
- tom moody 2-28-2004 12:03 am
Well,
It is not my proposal that Dave Hickey is the new Clement Greenberg, nor that there should be a new Clement Greenberg. And hopefully also, Jackson Pollock will not be replaced (aka orange is the new black) anytime soon either. But this is one of my favourite art critical quotes and "This Mortal Magic "is a wonderful essay in my opinion and I hope we can still be friends.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 2-28-2004 1:49 am
"The new Clement Greenberg" in my quote refers to Hickey winning the Genius Grant and all the accolades that followed and preceded it, whether he stood for anything or not. But back to Cezanne--Hickey seems to be implying in that quote that Paul C. is a world class bore. Do you agree, or is it just the humor of the quote that appeals? (Or something else?)
- tom moody 2-28-2004 2:13 am
I like the idea of someone standing in front of an art work and talking to it, reasoning with it, until he/she understands it. It's like applying dialectic methodology to the artwork itself. As an artist, I say that is an ideal viewer.
But if you want to know what Hickey is implying you've got to go to the source. Don't take my word for it.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 2-28-2004 2:35 am
I lent my copy of Hickey's "Invisible Dragon" to someone a couple of years ago, and I'll never get it back!!!!!!!! I am so crushed.
- woman of steel (guest) 2-28-2004 5:58 am
In case anyone missed it, Tom has written a very succint (one paragraph) history of late 20th century art criticism in the comments section here.
- sally mckay 2-28-2004 6:33 pm
enlightening
- Robert C (guest) 2-28-2004 6:47 pm
I know Jennifer suggests I should judge Dave Hickey from his writings and not from the quote where he says "fuck" to Cezanne, but we've got an opportunity here, since this thread is about quotes, to compare two different responses to an artist's work. Steve's Greenberg quote analyzes the inner mysteries of art in clear language--the tricks a painter uses to elicit emotional effect and what those effects are (the "pleasures of ambiguity"). The reader comes away feeling like he or she has learned something. Jennifer's Hickey quote, I'd say, is more about the critic than the artist. He's having a dialogue, all right, but saying "I win, because I'm a clever, trangressive, cutting-through-the-bullshit kind of guy, and you're just an artist talking about the picture plane." Hickey does this on panels, too. I know which of the two quotes I prefer. I'm curious what other people think.
- tom moody 2-28-2004 7:17 pm
Steve Armstrong is no slouch himself when it comes to critique. I hope he doesn't mind me posting this old shotgun review of his from Lola 5 (1999). I don't feel particularly engaged with either Tony Scherman's work (which I actively dislike) or Jackson Pollock's (which I just never think about) but I do feel engaged by this review:
- sally mckay 2-28-2004 7:37 pm
I think the comparison is a bit apples and oranges. Hickey was shaking up what seemed to be a closed system. As a smart-guy-but-non-artist wanting in to art discourse, he was pretty inspiring at the time when all the discursive doors seemed to be closed. I appreciate his bombast for helping inspire us to start Lola Magazine in Toronto. We (at the same time as tons of other people all over the world) spent a chunk of years working to loosen the grip on who gets to speak about art and who doesn't. At Lola, Catherine Osborne always edited for quality, rigour, and precision of thought, but we were at the same time very vocal about accessiblity and fun. Now, however, I think its a very good time to take stock and re-remind ourselves of the value in rigour and critique. Good talk about art is not a sales pitch (Hickey's big analogy if I remember it correctly). There's nothing wrong with doing a little effortful thought (reading or writing) now and then if it takes you somewhere worthwhile, and you don't have to be an egg-head or an art-historian to participate, you just need to be able to pay some attention to an idea.
- sally mckay 2-28-2004 8:04 pm
As an artist in Texas for many years I suffered under Hickey's brand of iconoclasm. He's a consummate insider pretending to be an outsider--a creature of panels, catalog essays, curatorial gigs--and always was. He gets laughs and paid gigs being Dennis Hopper, flipping the bird at the same institutions that support him. In other words, a classic boomer/compromised hippie. I kind of admired that he learned all that continental theory so he could use it to attack the 80s establishment that made art so stultifying in the 90s, but the best thing he could come up as an example of "transgressive beauty" was Mapplethorpe's X-portfolio. OK, that's fine, too, I just think it's setting your sights a bit low. Picasso, Duchamp, Pollock, Warhol, Sherman...Mapplethorpe? And now it's these west coast abstractionists. I understand he's been an inspiration to a lot of people, but trust me, the more you know about him--as a writer, curator, and person--the less inspiring he is. And I find his "jazzy enthusiastic" writing completely fake.
- tom moody 2-28-2004 8:34 pm
Hi Sally,
I think that the great thing about your quote collection is precisely that it will ultimately refer your readers to the context of their origin - remind them of great and interesting debates on art both past and present etc.
Tom,
I am familiar with the Hickey text that the quote in question derives from and I empathize with Hickey ... please forgive me... The more historical (historically important) the work I am looking at, the more I know about it and the things that have been said about it, I sometimes find these works more frustrating. Cezanne, The so called "gateway to contemporary painting" has been so thoroughly studied by everyone and his brother, it's not always easy to find the inner mysteries of his paintings and the works slip into cliches. I find I have to shove my library to the back of my brain, try to actively forget what I've read so I can have a frsh experience with the work. Maybe this is what Hickey is up to in the quote to which you have taken umbrage.
- Robert C (guest) 2-29-2004 7:13 pm
That sounds right. Thanks for taking the trouble to paraphrase the essay when I've been a butt in attacking it without reading it. (It should go without saying I'm friends with Jennifer and everyone else here even though I don't know any of you except Sally and Bill.) I will say this, knowing Hickey's critical strategems: he's all about getting past old dogmas and well-worn information and taking a fresh look; the problem is his fresh looks are often...wrong. An example: about 10 years ago he did a show at the Dallas Museum where he completely rehung the collection. The director let him take the frames off the "old master" paintings and hang them next to contemporary works. The result was a chaotic hodgepodge that relied on verbal rather than visual narratives to make points. An unframed Dutch still life next to a Tom Wesselman looks like nothing--there's no formal or emotional resonance between the two works at all, they're speaking completely different languages. Hickey has to tell you, in an essay or in one of his crotchety, shooting-from-the-hip gallery talks, that both works spring from the Vanitas tradition of having objects (whether candles or cigarettes) stand in for bigger themes of mortality, greed, earthly vanity, or whatever. That's two big stretches: that the viewer would want to compare the works and that his interpretation of Pop has any validity at all. I would say the latter is a pseudo-insight, one you're especially unlikely to "get" in a busy room full of disconnected art objects.1 I could give many other examples of where he "missed it"--just trying to explain why, by the time Air Guitar came out, I wasn't having it anymore.
1. As I recall several more so-called "vanitas" paintings were grouped together with the two I mentioned but nothing was made any clearer or more enjoyable by the pile-on.
- tom moody 2-29-2004 9:27 pm
The Demise of Art Criticism, Part 1
So much criticism here; such complacency from the audience at the OCAD panel. But then I do not excuse the panel: Is not the notion of artwriting (one word now) complacency itself before the work of art? I don’t wish to insult all the panelists, now that I can dispense with my moderator function, but criticism can be a cruel business, especially when its definition is at stake. When at the end of the panelists’ presentations on their behalf I pronounced, “The panelists concur, art criticism, at least as a word, is irrelevant,”I myself did not lend my assent. With the disavowal of the word “criticism,”art criticism was not just being relabelled, it was being redefined. Perhaps it was not being redefined as much as rejected, because “artwriting”proposes another function for criticism. Though maybe it was not being rejected either because I do not think--could it be?--the concept of art criticism is understood, which is to say more than that its function is no longer important. Maybe this is why it is so easy to dispense with the word in favour of another more amenable to an audience, which is the aim of this writing, not the art object itself.
What does the disavowal of the word “criticism”mean? To be continued. . .
- Philip Monk (guest) 2-29-2004 10:34 pm
I'm not convinced that the panelists agreed that art criticism, at least as a word, is irrelevant. Although I do think Philip is right that the definition of the term may be under question. It is my understanding, and I might be completely wrong, that Philp Monk laments the loss of a written, published debate between peers (writing that addresses the artwork itself, another critic, or critics, rather than the general-interest reader). Is this the artcriticism that is supposedly lost? and if so, A: is it really lost, or has it just been eclipsed by more popular forms so that we need to dig deeper to find it? and B: We still have journals and books of theory and we still have art reviews and we have the potential for online discourse that we never had before... how bad would it be if art criticism were lost? What is it, exactly, that's at stake?
- sally mckay 2-29-2004 10:55 pm
Hi Sally, Philip, Everybody,
I think there may be an important distinction here between the terms demise and disavowal.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 2-29-2004 11:27 pm
Criticism has been in demise for about two decades. The term was disavowed at the panel. All the panelists very clearly rejected the term "art criticism" in favour of something else: artwriting (Mark Cheetham); or to retain a trace of it, called it new art criticism- (Sarah Milroy). Catherine Osborne said she had a problem with the word "criticism."
- Philip Monk (guest) 3-01-2004 3:13 am
"How bad would it be if art criticism were lost?"
Well, the irony of an institution like OCAD, (with it's very structure/basis in studio instruction followed by critique) hosting a facetious panel that turns it's back on it's subject, would be lost.
To be fair, I wasn't at the event. I looked at the press release and it's groping, not even polemical title "Critical Voices/Critical Writing" and I thought I have been going to panel's like this since 1985 with the exact same (non)issues on the table!!!
If the structure of the event was more like what Robert C proposed at the beginning of this thread, a la "show them some art and demand a critical argument" each of the panelists would have had the opportunity to
apply/perform their respective methodologies in an active discourse that had an object. By object I mean purpose. And people could then assess the various approaches based on their merits. Otherwise it' all smoke, mirrors and the ponderous wondering of cultural amnesiacs.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-01-2004 5:40 pm
Hi all,
Sally, I really do like what you've written regarding art criticism within the professional art realm. It's alive and well for the devotees as always. I've certainly never felt that it's no longer available, and of course YYZ's publishing series is doing more books this year than ever before.
I am not sure why Philip hasn't responded more fully to what you've said. I have to say, personally, I don't care too much for how any of these words -- criticism, artwriting-- weigh-in. It seems so irrelevant to any real point, and somehow seems to be used here as some sort of "code" for some greater thing being implied but not stated.
So here's my statement, and I hope I make myself clear: My problem with art criticism is actually more about HOW it is written than what it says--and I'm referring to art criticism that turns up in art journals more than newspapers. The tendency, especially in the 80s, was to write from an elite standpoint and with a selective readership in mind, and that the ideas being presented seemed to require a specialized vocabulary and assumed reference points.
This makes perfect sense since every specialization has this kind of insider level of discourse (if you've ever picked up Dentist Monthly you'll find the same thing). There are whole discourses around molars that I can only barely determine beyond the most shallow of meanings. (Btw, my dentist puts this magazine out with pride, along side Lola magazine since he sees them as comparable equals in their given fields).
There have been some amazingly profound art theorists who just blew the minds of many artists around the globe when their works were first published (or finally translated to English). I'm going to use Jean Baudrillard as an example, since he's my favourite and the one I've read the most. Baudrillard was/is always clear, always intent on communicating to his readers. He uses art jargon and an artwriting style but does not rely on it or fork it out to create a glass wall of intellectual protectionism. He presents complicated ideas with the kind of clarity that can give you mental epiphamies.
The interpretation of his and other art theorists was a mixed bag of equally inspiring writing, but a pseudo-intellectualism also erupted like some sort of toxic fallout. It seemed that anyone who wrote about art had to write it in some sort of over-intellectualized turgid style to prove the seriousness of themselves and what they were saying. Examples of this flourished in all art magazines, Canadian ones especially since they were getting public funding to operate which give them free reign to experiment without too much accountability (in terms of getting advertisers and subscribers to pay for costs the extent all other magazines must). No doubt this was an fabulous time for experimentation but completely unsustainable except as a publicly funded venture, and therefore most either died on the vein or have remained underpaid and under-read publications. (.... but all this is for another blog).
Back to the language that built up around artwriting as a form of pretectionism and a way of communicating only to your own kind: For me, that fallout, of an artifical language surrounding art and writing about art which proliferated in the 1980s and '90s, is what I personally have never felt comfortable with writing or reading. In fact, I find it does more harm to art and artwriting than any dumb-ass comments by the unwashed masses, even the unwashed media.
If I said at the panel I have problem with the word criticism, it is for this reason. Art is a priviledged occupation but it is not just for the elite. That's why it gets publicly funded and why art citizens have as much obligation to their own kind as they do to the public, the "white elephant in the room," as Pierre Theberge said at his lecture last weekend.
I recall Sarah Milroy saying during the panel it is as important for art critics/writers to be as interested in writing as they are in the art they are writing about. The demise of art criticism is actually the demise of poorly written art criticism ( I hope).
One last pont: I have done hundreds of studio visits with artists over the years, and I have never felt that some sort of intellectual discourse was dividing them from me. Unless they've all gone to great lengths to hide their true art theoretical meaning in their works and have refused to discuss it for some reason, the discourse of art criticism is pretty much background to what's going on in the studio. So, one could consider the topic of "the demise of art criticism" as a direct result of what artists are doing, and this seem like the right order of things to me--the donkey before the cart.
- x-lola 3-01-2004 6:04 pm
And I'll make a quick addendum too, since I am at it so early on Monday morning...
If art criticism is "disavowed" then urgent compelling and specific to the work discourse will be lost. I didn't say rigour but I do mean torque. And the dissent and debate engendered as a natural result of such discourse will also be lost - unfashionable to engahe in that stuff...it'll all be like reading the paper, going to events and buying jeans. la la
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-01-2004 6:12 pm
oops, obviously engage not engahe
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-01-2004 6:18 pm
Hi x-lola,
I liked your Peter Schjeldal quote.
So would you agree then, it might be more edifying to assemble a panel with some art on the table?
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-01-2004 6:37 pm
"Art is a priviledged occupation but it is not just for the elite. That's why it gets publicly funded and why art citizens have as much obligation to their own kind as they do to the public"
While public funds touch all sectors of the arts in Canada, not all art is publicly funded. All citizens pay taxes. All citizens have moral obligations. These are proscribed for art citizens because?
- anonymous (guest) 3-01-2004 7:11 pm
"the discourse of art criticism is pretty much background to what's going on in the studio. So, one could consider the topic of "the demise of art criticism" as a direct result of what artists are doing, and this seem like the right order of things to me--the donkey before the cart"
don't you mean the cart before the horse before the cart?
- anonymous (guest) 3-01-2004 7:38 pm
Yes, I think clarity is important to communicating, so using examples to explain your point (art on the table) is usually a good idea. It is the same with writing. Talking about concrete things forces you to think about how to explain yourself to someone else (a reader/a listener), and to not get caught up in your own inner dialogue. ps. this was a response to Jennifer's post, but it seems to have landed in the wrong spot. T
- x-lola 3-01-2004 7:55 pm
re: trailing sentence question.... I'm not sure what you're wondering about here. Are you questioning why we all pay taxes?
- x-lola 3-01-2004 8:01 pm
Yeah, the boxes inside boxes are endless.
- x-lola 3-01-2004 8:02 pm
Ok say "art citizens have as much obligation to their own kind as they do to the public". That's a great tension. But does that mean all texts should be designed for this nebula? Turned to pablum so everyone can understand everything? I thought a democracy was the place where all the voices speak not where the one voice speaks in the one voice everybody else can understand. Never mind what's pulling the cart - the baby's gone out with the bath water! Who proscribes the manner in which art is disseminated?
- anonymous (guest) 3-01-2004 8:26 pm
and i think it's a mistake to assume the extent to which the arts and artists may or may not be funded.
- r2d2 (guest) 3-01-2004 8:32 pm
No, all text does not have to be designed for this nebula. Pablum is baby food. I am talking about clarity and communication, not mushing ideas down to a smooth and bland substance. I am not advocating dumbing down. I'm advocating smart writing and critical thought that does not bury its relavence for the sake of "sounding" intelligent.
It is, of course, every writer's own choice how much their readership matters to them and who their reader are (that's democracy).
- x-lola 3-01-2004 8:56 pm
The Canada Council has a new grant for commercial galleries. Here's a list of eligible expenses:
- sally mckay 3-02-2004 6:54 am
state proscribed dissemination.
- anonymous (guest) 3-02-2004 5:19 pm
state proscribed dissemination.
- anonymous (guest) 3-02-2004 5:19 pm
not sure what you mean by this. As far as I see it, this is the state throwing it's weight behind art institutions that function in the market place, and I expect in order to run this pilot program they are diminishing grants to the non-profit institutions that show primarily installation, timebased and conceptually driven work.
- sally mckay 3-02-2004 5:28 pm
This grant has been around more than a year. The idea behind it is explanatory in your post, my problem with this plainly lies with commercial dealers who receive grants and go nowhere and do nothing, except cover operating costs and simply don't want to even develop websites. What's the point to support dead-weight decorative dealers. Go to any Biennial, Documenta, etc. not much painting out there these days, not that's it not represented. Those who have been out there and are noticebly out there, have been doing it prior to adopting this grant.
nuff said
- anonymous (guest) 3-02-2004 7:12 pm
Hi Sally,
Looking over these late posts, especially by Philip Monk, x-lola and anonymous, thoughts and questions...
If aesthetics are dictated either in populist terms by the press, or by the government as cultural policy and worse if the two corroborate, what you have is art in the service of ideology. If art relies entirely on these institutions for it's dissemination, then it's not going to have any autonomy. Everything will fit neatly into it's mainstream or alternative category and the two will go at it in a tooth and nail in a fight for attention and funding.
If this is the discourse in the background of the studio practise x-lola mentioned, then it bodes ill for art. Doesn't it? Isn't there an opportunity here for critical activity to come into play? To uncover what's crucial, important,essential, new, (God forbid) original? To champion, support, notice, question, question and offer perhaps, dissent? Dissent - both Tom and Philip have alluded to the issue of not wanting to offend. But what is actually more offensive: to see the arts debated vigorously and fearlessly or to hear criticism is having trouble defining itself ? How meek is that? These are strident words, I realize. But I wonder why are there so many forums and panel discussions (ostensibly art critical debates) that decline this challenge.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-03-2004 6:28 pm
"As long as human life last, art will go on being the one activity for which no amount of calculation can provide a substitute, and the job of the critic will be to explain why this is so. The ability to realize that he can never attain to an exhaustive analysis of the thing he loves best is the indispensable qualification for signing on. What he has to offer is his life, of which his learning can only be a part: the more he knows the better, but if he thingks that nothings else counts then he will count for nothing."
--Clive James
- anonymous (guest) 3-03-2004 6:36 pm
This huge hyrda-headed thread is getting damn hard to read now! A disadvantage to this kind of forum is a lack of resolution (as in the sense of closure, not dpi). But it's also an advantage - a big noisy ball of art thought to roll around in our minds for awhile. Jennifer, I love this last post of yours. Puts me back on track. The funding structures of art are practical realities and there is some ideological struggle there for sure, but that is not where art ideas themselves belong. Thanks for the reminder.
- sally mckay 3-03-2004 7:24 pm
Thank you Sally for th hydra headed thread! It's great!
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-03-2004 7:34 pm
"Yes, I think clarity is important to communicating, so using examples to explain your point (art on the table) is usually a good idea. It is the same with writing. Talking about concrete things forces you to think about how to explain yourself to someone else (a reader/a listener), and to not get caught up in your own inner dialogue.
so true. this point was also raised near the top of this thread yet few of the posts here have followed through on that logic. pls site the art and/or theory in reference for the good of the discussion.
- bill 3-03-2004 7:52 pm
Re-reading what Robert C. wrote, I just realized that it isn't actually a paraphrase of what Hickey said in the essay, but what Robert thinks is "maybe" up with Jennifer's quote from it. I could say I'm curious to know what the essay actually says, but I'm not, really.
- tom moody 3-03-2004 10:02 pm
bummer
- Robert C. (guest) 3-03-2004 10:50 pm
At the InFest conference (last week) there was very little discussion of the role or even definition of art critisism but there was a lot of discussion on the importance of art writing. People wanted people to somehow validate artworks but without giving comment. It's all very nice nice but after reading so much of it I just get bored. I wanted to ask, now that you have all of this art to look at what are you going to do with it?
- bunnie 3-05-2004 7:26 pm
Uh, have a look at it?
- Robert C (guest) 3-05-2004 8:15 pm
give the man a cupie doll!
- bill 3-05-2004 9:27 pm
What's an InFest Conference?
- ignorant (guest) 3-06-2004 12:27 am
gyno-homophobic?
- ignorant (guest) 3-06-2004 12:30 am
I have a terrible fear of voicing opinions about music. I know what I like....etc. So I've been trying and it's scary as hell - a good exercise for someone like me who is always telling other people not to be intimidated by art. Anyhow, if you are looking for accessible, inspiring, story-telling-type writing on classical music, go to have a look at ionarts (good stuff on The Passion of Christ too - via Tom ).
- sally mckay 3-06-2004 10:19 am
ignorance is bliss. InFest was a recent, big conference for artist-run centres, held in Vancouver.
- sally mckay 3-06-2004 10:34 am
oh god, imagine all the $600.00 flights to get to that one ... i was blissfully ignorant ... how depressing
- ignorant (guest) 3-06-2004 5:19 pm
Whaaaa happened?
- Robert C (guest) 3-14-2004 6:03 pm
I read a really short little book by James Elkins called "What Happened To Art Criticism?" published by Prickly Paradigm Press. I'll recommend this book to anyone who has been thinking about criticism lately. This book is tiny but incredibly succinct, lucid and thought provoking. Like everything else I've read by James Elkins, it's just great.
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 3-23-2004 6:02 pm
Why do we all expect anyone critic/writer/"whatever you want to call it" to get it right all of the time? Anyone here ever look at some art/writing/etc. that they made and think it sucks now? Hickey is just another voice out there and at least he's asking questions while telling you what he likes. Like a print teach of mine told me "Hickey's brilliant, but he's a pig." Live with it.
- anonymous (guest) 12-17-2004 12:56 am
Art writing, art criticism...hmmm - possibly 'former' art critics have realized the need to construct textual art forms - realizing their storiated text could use some validity of intent.. ( shocker) Hence art-writing or writing art? Perhaps, more honestly - critical story-telling? The question is what media will they be toying with...a 'same old' string of artworks already couched in a curatorial critique of notations within the exhibition framework , the works, side by each, out of the creative context of intent of the artists body of work? Stirred up artists' alphabetized soup? Could referential theory-writing that only uses the art work ( sometimes viewed) as beginning ingredients, add a dash of worcestershire, be read as appropriated historica within an imposed textual framework? Perhaps former critics are interested in process? Is process thinking?
Do artists think? OR do they just do? Make-do? Some critics actually quote artists 'words' or they paraphrase them giving them a more tolerable context. As in ..".huh...I didn't say that."The problem remains that this textual story of 'others' takes up too much space leaving the included art to serve as mere illustrations in publications.- Yah gotta have a picture for every thousand words.! And works remain forever captured, in this form, out of the context of their creation, with textual additives, continuing to exist perpetually in some critical 'how to view' handbook archive. Well, harsh you might say...but what could be harsher than the pathological intent of some critics?( unamed) - or in the reverb nature of critical writing itself - haunting retro-text.
The 'unfolding' of exhibiting art and selling art has become real estate. Location, location, location. Perhaps the net as 'no fixed address' or a function of cybernetics allows more visual access - maybe more visual communication - than any time-based 'real' exhibition space.
Of course there is no present technology here that can reveal true surface or texture. Possibly that is no longer important. Maybe we are into urban cyber-impressionism. In any case we can be sure that words are not enough. ( smile)
- jcs (guest) 7-24-2005 10:37 am
Should art be artisitic?
Thanks to Marcel Duchamp’s work, the time when our society was given masterpieces to be contemplated by an amazed audience is over. Our society is now more encouraged to forget talent and to take a critical look beyond the works themselves.
Works with frames, on a pedestal or with directional spots to highlight their autonomy appear now obsolete. Galleries and museums wishing to continue confining the artist in their restrictive limits are also becoming archaic. Each of these components, related to the traditional art work and which, in some way, framed it or marked it to control it better, are now replaced by our architectural, social or ideological frames. These frames are a set of different contexts creating the elements of the definition of art and encouraging a community osmosis, which associates art’s environment and networks with art itself.
This new perspective allows art to interfere in a whole series of processes, roles and paths inherent to collective practices which reveal production and diffusion modes designed to works, which will be successively interpreted. In an approach in which art focuses less on the conventional and private nature of its finite objects than on the creative attitudes related to scenography of our living environments, everything becomes likely to evolve.
This is why art today is not only a state of mind but also a multimedia. Art is spread everywhere and is not only the result of a free association of ideas, techniques, or disciplines. It breaks free from the concept of style or self-sufficiency of the work in order to join activities that surround it such as fashion, design, architecture, computer-science, publicity and also gardens, sport, parties… All this aims to legitimise influences which beneficially lead to replacing Art with a nice art of life!
- Ghislain Mollet-Viéville (guest) 9-24-2006 10:11 am
I am closing this thread due to spam.
- sally mckay 7-17-2007 5:41 pm