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?