PowerPoint

So here's the PowerPoint I showed in class this morning. Hope it's useful...I'll post some guidelines for Friday's Criticism Round up tomorrow morning. Look forward to talking with you all on Friday.

Critical Source Summary

So it's time we got to work. By Friday, you should choose which of these publications you'd like to do your Critical Source Summary on. Details about that assignment are on the website. On Friday morning, July 2, we will go over who has what publication.

Periodicals for Review
* indicates recommended publication

After Image
*American Artist 1943 -
*American Ceramics 1985 -
*American Craft 1979 -
American Magazine of Art 1926-
Aperture #4 (1956) -
Art Bulletin 1927 -
*Art in America 1955 -
Art Journal 1967 -
*Art News 1954 -
ArtByte 1998 - 2001
*Art Forum 1962 -
Arts Magazine 1995-1992
*Bomb 1981 -
Cahiers D’Art 1926-1960
*Ceramics Monthly 1969-
*Crafts 1975 -
Critical Inquiry 1974 –
*Flash Art 1985 –
Journal of Aesthetics and Criticism 1985 –
Leonardo
*The Nation 1976 –
*New Art Examiner 1979 –
*New Criterion 1982 –
New Republic 1974 –
New Yorker 1954 –
*October 1982 –
*Sculpture 1973 –
The Studio 1901 - 1976

Chuck Close Speaks

Who are the critics that really matter? Tune in at about 5:30 for an answer...

art or community outreach?

Croce suggests that Bill T Jones’s “Still/Here” is not art but community outreach. “In those years, art and art appreciation were unquestioned good things to support, and “community outreach” had its own program.” And “People for whom art is too fine, too high, too educational, too complicated may find themselves turning with relief to the new tribe of victim artists parading their wounds. They don’t care whether it’s an art form.” If that was so, the piece in question could be compared to Philadelphia’s Mural Arts program or prison theater. Both take the form of art but serve a different purpose, therefore the question to ask is what is the purpose the work? Community outreach programs have a specific purpose to rehab or provide therapy for the makers. Although the work in question may serve this purpose, it seems to be more than this.

Question Topic for 6/30: A What If Scenario

Perhaps the year I spent working at a comic book store has damaged my brain irrevocably ("What if...Wolverine was a midget, What if...Peter Parker were never bitten by a spider, but had been bitten by a radioactive raccoon, etc.), but the Homi K. Bhabha piece got me thinking: Would Plath's poetry be considered "victim art" had she not ultimately succeeded in her attempts to take her own life? Obviously, the poem was written pre-mortem, between suicide attempts. At the time of Lady Lazarus' completion, how would the piece have read? Can listening to Nirvana be considered bomping along to Victim Music?

Arlene Croce placed heavy emphasis upon Bill Jones' status as an HIV positive gay man, as well as the death of Jones' lover (and former collaborator) of AIDS. Had Jones, himself, not been infected, where would Croce have stood? Though Jones was not the only HIV positive participant, presumably his health status alone could have affected whether or not Jones as artist and "Still/Here" as art piece had been absorbed by the AIDS quilt (Croce, 25), as Croce so tastefully puts it. Could this be the dilemma of artist as person vs. artist as Artist/"real life" vs. "studio life"?

As an aside:

Arlene Croce makes tireless mention of the limitations produced by the narcissism of self in regards to art while seemingly unaware of her own narcissism of self as critic.

Questions

It seems strange that Croce is so set in her ways about work that can be critiqued yet is willing to write about a work that she has not even seen and relies on secondary and tertiary sources for gathering questionable information. Might Croce be doing just what she despised about Jone's performance, in calling attention to herself and "baiting...[an]...audience"(21)? As Oates suggested at the end of her article, is this the last hurrah of a dying breed of art critic?

Does Jones ever declare "Still/Here" to be a work of art? Croce states that "people were asking wheter Jone's type of theatre is a new art form"(15). Should it be classified as art? Can we tell even though we haven't seen the performance? Does it matter?

Use your words...

Joyce Carol Oates is exactly right at the end of her essay in saying that "there can be no criticism for all time, not even for much time." If the artist wants to introduce death, illness and victim-hood as an element in their work, they should be prepared to be critiqued on how they use it. Using emotion can be described as "heavy-handed", "manipulative", "gross", "poignant", "subtle", "moving", etc; all the same adjectives we use for color, form, subject and every other element in the work. Croce herself does this when she goes on to discuss David and Ain Gordon's play The Family Business. Why couldn't she go to the Still/Here show and give it a bad review? Isn't that what movie critics do all the time?

I suppose someone has to go first…

With regard to the readings, I find myself grappling with the concept of the artist and disinterest. It seems a confusing notion. I’m having difficulty understanding Chandra’s and Croce’s take on how an artist can achieve the grandeur of the “Spirit” by being a casual onlooker to his own experiences and pain. The creation of art in-of-itself seems to me a self-indulgent practice, so why is there so much concern on Croce’s and Chandra’s part that an artist would immerse himself in his own misery, happiness, or self in order to make art? Is the artist to make only palatable work to satisfy the taste of the critics? At what point does self-expression become an expression of victimization? Is any artwork really “undiscussable" because of its content or the afflictions suffered by the maker? Is an artwork really less powerful or meaningful merely because the artist identifies with a particular group and expresses its ideals?

Beyond the pale (some thoughts on the craft of writing)

One of the biggest problems with art criticism is the overall horribleness of the writing. Often one has to look beyond the artworld (beyond even the plausible, implausible, and theoretical art worlds) for descent prose...writing one actually wants to read.

One of my favorite sources of such writing is New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn. She is screamingly funny, and one can learn a lot by observing her style. Notice how, in this little blog post, she glides between versions of the first person pronoun:

Full beards on men make us think of Karl Marx and Santa Claus. At least that’s my bipolar reference. But full beards on men in fashion shows just make us giggle.

Clever. Once the topic is introduced ("full beards on men"), extremely specific references conjure diametrically opposed images ("Karl Marx and Santa Clause"). She uses "us" to make a sweeping but reasonable generalization...and to telegraph the essential regality of her authority. A sweet, self-effacing retraction follows before the hauteur gets turned up again in a funny image of twittering glitterati at a stone serious event. Exactly why we are giggling is importantly deferred for later in the essay. Before I know it, I'm reading this whole analysis of something I could care less about - male models' grooming habits - all because of a pithy, well-conceived lead in.

Am I making too much of one sentence? Perhaps. But I think not. Writing is a craft like those we practice in the studio. One builds, shapes, revises, cuts away. With practice, one knows what will work and what will not. I doubt Horyn toiled over a hot word processor to get this little nugget (Sam Tenenhaus, writing in the Times about John Updike's personal archive, suggests that writing matters when one sees the revision in it...yawn). I think it came  to her, as if she were going to say it to a friend.

And that, dear reader, is what I think writing should feel like. But more on that later. If you'll excuse me, I have an essay that's overdue.

Weekly Criticism Round-Up

An important part of this course is figuring out what criticism (and art journalism in general) is doing these days. To that end, each Friday, we'll look at the literature in a that has come out in that week's press. This week, a few things caught my eye.

There was an interesting story in the Money section of today's Morning Edition on NPR. David Kestenbaum talked about art pricing in the wake of a record-setting sale on an Ansel Adams photograph.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story by A.D. Amorosi on a show called "Don't Hate Because I'm Beautiful" at a cosemtic surgeon's office in New Jersey. I would be interested in your responses to how this is addressed (we can proceed from the premise that this article is not criticism, but as a lenghty bit of coverage, it merits our consideration in seminar).

Finally, everyone should look through the stories in the Friday New York Times before coming to class each week...there has been a lot of coverage of the New Museum's Rivane Neuenschwander show (a profile of the artist in Monday's paper, a slide show, a review today). What's up with that? She's so everywhere, I put a photo of her at the top of the page... this is what we will try to sort out each Friay.

If you want to get into the groove of this part of the class, you are invited to add your comments to this post. It may result in some form of extra credit, or serve as an insurance policy against a later absence, though I hate to leverage participation in grad seminars like this....

Have a  great weekend!

Exegesis and interpretation

Robert Storr at "On Painting" Conversation, May 3, 2010 from Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on Vimeo.

I thought this was an interesting little snippet from Robert Storr - as applicable to criticism as to curatorial practice. You can see more from Storr's conversation on painting with Thomas Nozkowski at the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative blog.

How do I use this dang thing???

I got an email from one student with some really good questions - here are some answers for all of you:

-With regard to the blog and the question/s due on Tuesday before 5pm, is/are the question/s to be from any of the readings, and is the objective to spark discussion/s in class?  Does it have to be a question?  Could it be a statement?

The questions/comments should come in response to the reading. They should be directed to your peers for discussion (a question about, say, the biography of the author would be one I would imagine would be a lousy discussion question, as it would be directed toward me and I could give you the facts and then there's not much to talk about). Comments are as good as questions, but don't blow your participation grade by writing essays on the blog. Keep it short so we still have something meaty to talk about when we get together.

-How/where do I subscribe to the RSS feed for the blog?  This is the first time I have done anything with a blog...

Right at the top of the page there's a button that says "posts" with a little radio-wave logo...click on that and updates of the blog will be sent to your Google, Yahoo, or other pages....If you cannot navigate the subscription thing, just remember to check the blog daily for announcements. It's meant to be a easy, low-stress means of getting out info, not a burden.

Questions like this can go on the blog, because that way we can all get the answers at once. Thanks and hope all are well. Someone please post photos from Storm King and Dia.

Class Info

If you got an invite to be an author on this blog, you should also have gotten a link to the class website where the syllabus and readings are posted. Check your email (and your UArts email) to verify that you have gotten this message.

In case you missed it, here's the content of that email message, with all links:

Welcome back for your final summer at UArts! I look forward to meeting with you on Wednesday, June 30 at 9am in room M4 for our seminar.

We will be extremely busy this term, so I want to hit the ground running.

Please take a minute to familiarize yourself with the syllabus that's posted on my teaching site:

http://web.me.com/gerard_brown/UArts_GR750/Criticism_Home.html

It lists all the relevant course information and will include a week-to-week plan after I have finished coordinating it with the rest of the faculty (I am trying to make sure we don't pile due dates on you). But it briefly describes each major assignment and gives you a sense of what you're in for.

On the top of the page, there is a link that says READINGS. Please follow that link and download the readings we will discuss in class on June 30. There are two essays in one PDF - one by dance critic Arlene Croce and another by author Joyce Carol Oates. There is a response in the third PDF by Homi Bhabha. We will spend the most of the first hour and a half of class of time discussing Croce and Oates, with a little time for Bhabha. I will be inviting each of you to join a blog for the class and would like you to post one discussion question for the readings before 5pm on Tuesday, June 29. Expect the invitation to arrive Wednesday, June 23 (look in your junk mail folders if you don't see it)

You will notice that I expect 2 1/2 - 5 hours of reading and/or writing per week in the syllabus. If you would like to get ahead of the game, please begin reading James Elkins' short book "What happened to art criticism?", available in the bookstore. Each of you will be assigned a section to summarize and analyze for the class on July 9.

Finally - I have project that we will begin on June 30 I plan to have due on July 7. The project entails a presentation and requires that you spend considerable time in the library. I think it would be vastly preferable for us to meet in the evening on July 7 at UArts so you can have the morning to work on the project in the library or computer lab. How does that sound? We'll firm up that plan when we meet next week.

Thanks in advance for your attention to this course and I look forward to working with you all - it's great to be back at University of the Arts and let's have a good summer.

Best,

gerard

Let it begin!

Okay - here's the blog for my section of Criticism Seminar GR750. Because we need to cover a ton of ground fast, we will use this as a place to post discussion questions to jump start our meetings. I will also use it to post updates. I urge you to book mark it and check it daily, and subscribe to the RSS feed so you get word when someone makes a change...