3. WHAT?
In this class we will:
ā¢ Investigate the concepts, genres, formats and practices of art
criticism (and art writing in all its expanded forms)
ā¢ Describe, analyse, interpret and judge a variety of artworks
ā¢ Research and contextualise art and understand the role of art
history in framing artistic value
ā¢ Produce quality responses to art across a range of formats and
develop our own distinct critical voices
7. Art historian Dario Gamboni suggests that:
"In a narrow sense, 'art criticism' applies to a specific literary
genre that appeared in France in the eighteenth century, at the
moment when public exhibitions were once again regularly
organised, and of which the Salons of Diderot can be
considered a paradigm. In a broad sense, it designates any
commentary of a contemporary or past work of art,
encompassing other literary genres such as poetry, fiction,
biography, essays, correspondence or diaries."
(Gamboni, D. (1994) āThe relative autonomy of art criticismā in Orwicz, M. R. ed.
(1994) Art Criticism and its Institutions in Nineteenth-Century France. Manchester:
Manchester University Press: 182)
8. One of the earliest recorded āart criticsā was British artist
Jonathan Richardson the Elder.
He wrote a number of books in the 1700s which featured the term
'art criticism' and which set out a method for assessing the quality
of a painting.
In fact, he created a scorecard that featured seven criteria anyone
could use to judge art.
His methods coincided with a rise in art appreciation amongst the
middle-classes and contributed new ways of talking about art.
9. However it was really in Paris, where public exhibitions of art were
becoming popular that the genre of art criticism really takes form.
Known as Salons and organised by the French artistic academies,
these public art exhibitions provided people with the opportunity to
experience vast numbers of artworks.
There was always a catalogue provided which offered a small
amount of information on each artwork but soon, independent
writers opted to produce and sell pamphlets offering their own
take on the works on show or even write for newspapers.
10. Chief among these independent writers was Denis Diderot who began to
critique the Salons in 1759.
'Portrait of Denis Diderotā (1713-1784) Louis-Michel van Loo
11. For a time, the king of France had banned art criticism after a writer
named La Font de Saint-Yenne stirred up controversy with an overtly
political critique of work in the 1747 Salon.
As an initial reaction, the Salon itself was cancelled until 1751 and
then independent writing on art was suppressed for some years.
As a result, Diderot's first writings were published in a periodical
which, though outlawed in Paris, mailed its editions to a secret set of
international subscribers twice a month.
The clandestine nature of publishing his writings meant he was
relatively little known until the 1870s and 1880s when he was
increasingly seen as an exemplary art critic.
Art historian Kerr Houston argues that you can observe in Diderot's writing
the early formation of a type of art writing that fused personal reflection with
careful description of the artworks. (Houston, K. (2013) An Introduction to Art Criticism:
Histories, Strategies, Voices. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc)
12. In the UK the Royal Academy of Arts formed in 1768 and a similar
body of art critical writers to those in France amassed.
In Europe, art criticism steadily grew alongside the newspaper
industry and journalism.
Art historians Dario Gamboni and Martha Ward remind us that
from the start, art criticism was a precarious profession: few art
critics had any training in the arts, and the role itself was usually
part-time, or rather only part of what they wrote about as
journalists.
13. Martha Ward notes that different papers took different approaches
with Le Petit Journal in France offering a once-a-year slot to
reviews of annual Salons. (Ward, M. (1994) āFrom art criticism to art news:
journalistic reviewing in late-nineteenth-century Parisā in Orwicz, M. R. ed. (1994) Art Criticism
and its Institutions in Nineteenth-Century France. Manchester: Manchester University Press:
162-181.)
Other papers introduced art news in their gossipy feuilleton
supplements.
Gradually, writing about art crept into the mainstream press and
began to assume a certain form.
14. The French Revolution (1789-99) saw dramatic change across
France with a brief period of great creative freedom for artists and
critics as the Salons became more open.
New political leadership by Napoleon saw stricter press
regulations in the late 1700s and early 1800s yet art criticism
usually escaped control and as a result, was often laced with
political commentary. It became a vehicle for wider issues - much
like the art to which it referred.
15. In fact, criticism took a number for forms over these years. Art
historian Michael Orwicz explains in his entry on āArt Criticismā in the
Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics that:
āSalon reviews in mid-to-late nineteenth-century France, for
example, could take the form of vaudeville, verse, caricatures,
schematic diagrams, feuilletons, essays, books, albums, and
pamphlets.ā
(Orwicz, M. (1998) āArt Criticismā in Kelly, M. ed (1998) Encyclopaedia of
Aesthetics, Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University
Press: 464).
He asserts that this variety was mirrored in the range of people
drawn to this activity. For example civil servants made redundant by
the fall of Napoleonās empire often chose writing careers.
16. One example of this is Marie-Henri Beyle
who wrote under the pseudonym
āStendhalā and produced a number of
critical works.
Another type of writer who has regularly
taken on the art critical task is the poet.
One of the first of these to gain notoriety
was Charles Baudelaire who wrote his
earliest Salon critique in 1846.
17. Influenced by Diderot, and urging artists to move towards an art
that might capture the zeitgeist ā rather than rehashing the pros
and cons of classical versus Romantic painting ā he sought to
translate the artistic experience into words, rather than just
describe and judge artworks. This made him the quintessential
modern critic who demonstrated how contemporary art advanced
ideas about contemporary life.
By the early 1900s Guillaume Apollinaire, another poet and
playwright, gained attention for writing about Modernists ā
including being one of the first critics to write about Picasso and
as Kerr Houston notes, he bequeathed important art historical
vocabulary:
18. āIn his writings he introduced Parisians to the work of the
painter Marc Chagall, and his willingness to use an inventive
vocabulary in referring to emerging trends ultimately left a deep
imprint on the history of art. He was one of the earliest art critics
to use the term Cubism (which was apparently derived from a
reference, by Matisse, to the āpetits cubesā of certain artists, and
is said to have introduced the art world to the terms Orphism
and, in 1917, surrealism.ā
(Houston, K. (2013) An Introduction to Art Criticism: Histories, Strategies, Voices.
New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc: 48)
19. In the UK, artist John Ruskin made a name for himself as an art
critic by championing the work of J.M.W. Turner.
Turnerās increasingly abstract style had drawn criticism in the
early 1800s from art critics such as William Hazlitt and Sir George
Beaumont.
Ruskin however argued that Turnerās evolving style showed he
was getting closer to nature not farther away and, alongside
others who appreciated this change, he altered popular opinion on
the painterās work.
Ruskin wrote a number of books in a series he called Modern
Painters eventually becoming even more well remembered for his
connections to the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood.
20. Roger Fry, a British art critic is perhaps most noted for coining the term and
developing the concept of āPost-Impressionismā.
He was extremely interested in the type of art developing in France and was
well aware of the art historical impact it was going to have.
In 1910 his London exhibition āManet and the Post-Impressionistsā
demonstrated the work of Paul Gaugin, Ćdouard Manet, Henri Matisse, and
Vincent Van Gogh and in itself constituted a critical statement on the future of
art.
Along with friend and critic Clive Bell, Fry developed both a British taste for
Modernism and an approach to art criticism that emphasised the form of an
artwork over its content.
Fry was also responsible for tightening up and formalizing approaches to
writing about art. Less keen on the poetic styles that had thrived in France,
Fry would close read artworks without recourse to their context or history.
While Herbert Read, influenced by Fryās interest in Modernism, focused
instead on homegrown Modernists such as Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore
and Ben Nicholson and wrote in a highly accessible style.
21. However the critic who most springs to mind
when conjuring the image of an art critic is
Clement Greenberg.
Art criticism in the US in the early 1900s
promoted very conservative ideals and
writers such as Kenyon Cox and Royal
Cortissoz championed realism and technical
proficiency.
It was against this backdrop that the Armory
Show (first staged in 1913) featuring the work
of Modernist artists and less traditional voices
such as Willard Huntington Wright began to
usher in an appreciation for abstraction.
22. A number of factors contributed to rapid change in the American art scene.
Though US critics had begun to embrace Fryās formalism, the Great
Depression caused them to reconsider the impact of economics, politics and
local cultures on art.
Marxist theory fuelled this shift in thinking and many critics soon began to
advocate for art that reflected the times.
Likewise, in the face of global unrest, US artists and critics were interested in
developing an authentic American art.
Though initial nationalist work was realist, as the World Wars forced more
European creatives to seek sanctuary in New York, American began to
develop different tastes.
One of the earliest indicators of this change came in 1943 when artists Mark
Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman wrote a manifesto for art that
employed abstraction as a way to underscore the physical parameters of a
painting. Their manifesto was published in the New York Times and New York
artists, gallerists and critics took note.
23. Kerr Houston describes how art critic Clement Greenberg
responded:
āIn 1947, for example, Clement Greenberg, who had
worked as a translator and customs agent before beginning
to write criticism in 1937, wrote in Horizon that Pollock, who
had recently begun to pour paint directly onto the canvas,
was āthe most powerful painter in contemporary America.ā
Arguing that the violence of Pollockās work recalled that of
Faulter, and Melville, Greenberg proposed an essentially
American interpretation of the artist that clearly reflected
the nationalist approach that was now more than a decade
old.ā
(Houston, K. (2013) An Introduction to Art Criticism: Histories, Strategies,
Voices. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc: 56)
24. Although it was Harold Rosenberg who expanded the idea of the
āAmerican Action Paintersā as artists who documented artistic
action on canvas, and although it was largely the publication
ARTnews that developed a robust archive of writing about
American Abstract Expressionism, Greenberg stands out as the
quintessential American art critic.
This was because for the next twenty years he would build a
reputation as an essential art commentator, identifying the new,
connecting it to wider art history and demonstrating itās critical
value and Americanness. His writing closely impacted the art
market and prices began to soar for artists he favoured.
25. Though Greenberg was very much a product of his time, his
importance was carried over when critics such as Michael Fried
and Rosalind Krauss adopted and expanded upon his formalist
approach in the publication Artforum.
Artforum quickly became an important source of this burgeoning
American brand of contemporary art criticism. And even as writers
and publications developed alternatives to Greenbergās approach,
he lived on as a popular figure to argue with or against.
Likewise, even though important critical voices have developed all
over the world, it is still arguably the US that produces the most
influential critics including Arthur Danto, Roberta Smith and
Jerry Saltz (even if that influence has come into question in
recent years).
26. Along with Annette Michelson, Rosalind Krauss went
on to found the journal October, in 1976, in order to
provide a dedicated publication for more critically and
philosophically-rigorous art writing.
In terms of the history of art criticism this marks an
important shift for not only does it indicate the rise of
critical theory as a way of analyzing art, but to a certain
extent it also signals the start of art criticismās
institutionalization and subsequent ghettoization.
At this point art criticism was viewed as a deeply
academic pursuit, cut-off from everyday discussions
about culture and politics. Indeed, Octoberās writers were
often academics ā including Yve-Alain Bois, Hal Foster,
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh ā and even though critics
continued to produce less theoretical texts for national
newspapers the world over, as we will shortly see, art
criticism had lost its relevance somehow.
27. THE CRISES OF ART
CRITICISM
Image rom seanbelcher.com
28. There have been many claims that art criticism is in a state of
crisis at symposia (such as the now infamous October roundtable
discussion held in 2002, āThe Trouble With Art Criticismā held at
Londonās Institute for Contemporary Art in 2011; āIām for an art
criticism that...ā hosted at Witte de With Center for Contemporary
Art, Rotterdam in 2012; and āArt criticism in the future media
landscapeā organised by the Association of International Art Critics
and staged in Stockholm in 2013) and in books (such as What
Happened to Art Criticism (2003), by art historian James Elkins,
Critical Mess, edited by critic Raphael Rubinstein (2006) and The
State of Art Criticism edited again by Elkins and art historian
Michael Newman (2008). )
29. Some argue that the crisis is felt more because up until Kerr
Houstonās 2013 publication An Introduction to Art Criticism, there
were few accounts of the history of art criticism ā (save for Lionello
Venturiās History of Art Criticism from 1936 and volume in French
called Lāinvention de la Critique dāArt edited by Jean Marc-Poinsot
and Henry Fragne from 2002).
As a result, it has been harder to look at the longer history of art
criticism and draw parallels between the writers of Salon critiques
and, say, todayās online art critics ā even though both tended to
publish independently, use a conversational style and have a
portfolio career.
Although it is widely agreed by many art critics and historians
(including JJ Charlesworth, Whitney Davis, Michael Duncan, James
Elkins, Eleanor Heartney, Dave Hickey, Kerr Houston, Thomas
McEvilley, Michael Newman, Peter Plagens, Nancy Princenthal,
Carter Ratcliff, Lane Relyea, Raphael Rubinstein, Jerry Saltz, Katy
Siegel) that the art critic as a figure has lost power.
30. Or as New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz has put it:
āAt no time in the last 50 years has what an art critic writes had
less effect on the market than now.ā
(Saltz, J. (2006) āSilence of the Dealerā in Modern Painters, September 2006: 35)
31. On the whole, Clement Greenberg is seen as the last critic whose
opinions held tremendous critical and financial sway. Art historian
James Elkins and art critic Peter Plagens both note how today
we are in a paradoxical situation where more commentary is
produced on contemporary art than ever before, and yet is seldom
read, so has little real impact on artists careers. As Elkins puts it in
his much cited book What Happened to Art Criticism?:
ā[s]o in brief, this is the situation of art criticism: it is practiced
more widely than ever before, and almost completely ignored."
(Elkins, J. (2003) What Happened to Art Criticism. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm
Press: 5).
32. Elkins further argues that one of the main problems with todayās art
criticism is that it has ceased to make judgments.
He cites the 2002 report by Columbia Universityās National Arts
Journalism Programme which found that judgment was way down
the list of an art criticās priorities (SzĆ”ntĆ³, A. (2002) āThe Visual Art Critic: A
survey of art critics at general-interest news publications in Americaā. A report conducted
at the National Arts Journalism Program Columbia University).
This is reflected Houstonās 2013 guide to art criticism which places
the chapter on judgment after description and contextualisation
(Houston, K. (2013) An Introduction to Art Criticism: Histories, Strategies, Voices. New Jersey:
Pearson Education Inc.)
While Arthur C. Danto is held up as the exemplar of non-critical
criticism by critics such as Raphael Rubenstein (Rubinstein, R. (date) ātitleā
in Rubinstein, R. ed. (2006) Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice. Lenox,
Massachusetts: Hard Press Editions: 33).
33. Plagens explains how viewing art ā despite a dramatic rise in
museum visitor numbers in recent years ā is still a niche activity
that doesnāt engage the average person on the street:
āThe majority of contemporary art still consists of one-of-a-kind
art objects. That fact alone puts contemporary art at a
disadvantage regarding coverage. Simply stated, tens of
thousands of times more readers see the movie or hear the CD
or watch the television program than view the art object(s)
under consideration.ā
(Plagens, P. (2007) āContemporary Art, Uncoveredā, Art in America, v.95 (no.2)
Fall, 2007: 49).
34. Added to this, he points out that many people still regard viewing
art as an activity they need special skills to participate in, and they
also feel these are skills bestowed only upon certain, wealthier,
social groups.
The poet and art critic Thomas McEvilley notes that this, in
effect, āghettoizationā of the arts, means that art critical
commentary is really only of use to other arts professionals.
(McEvilley, T. (1995) āThe Tomb of the Zombieā in Rubinstein, R. ed. (2006) Critical Mess: Art
Critics on the State of their Practice. Lenox, Massachusetts: Hard Press Editions: 15).
The fact few people actually read art criticism might also be due to
the opacity of much art writing; Plagens asks outright why art
critics arenāt better writers? (Plagens, P. (2007) āContemporary Art, Uncoveredā, Art
in America, v.95 (no.2) Fall, 2007: 49).
35. Critics Michael Duncan, Helen Princenthal and Lane Relyea all
observe something of a power struggle between different modes of
art writing (Rubinstein, R. ed. (2006) Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice.
Lenox, Massachusetts: Hard Press Editions).
Often this is posed as the āimpressionistic, belles-lettristic, essayist,
rhetoricalā and even at times judgmental work often of poet critics,
versus the critical theory-infused academic mode of writing about art.
(Siedell, D. A. (2008) āAcademic Art Criticismā in Elkins, J. and Newman, M. ed. (2008) The
State of Art Criticism. New York: Routledge: 244)
The relentless professionalization of the arts is also to blame for
cutting art criticism off, according to Relyea. As soon as art
departments began to regulate the skills required for art world
acceptance and art criticism was absorbed into this system, its
precarious value system was exposed. (Rubinstein, R. ed. (2006) Critical Mess:
Art Critics on the State of their Practice. Lenox, Massachusetts: Hard Press Editions).
36. Or a Michael Duncan has it:
āFor critics the slippery slope to irrelevancy has been greased
by academia. Decades ago, the value judgments that were once
the core of criticism were exiled from art departments, the
victims of a double whammy of deconstructive theory and
political correctness.ā
Duncan, M. (2006) āBuggy-making in Tulip Timeā in Rubinstein, R. ed. (2006)
Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice. Lenox, Massachusetts: Hard
Press Editions: 111.)
37. The biggest indicator that there might be a serious problem with
art criticism is simply that many full-time art critics are losing their
jobs.
Plagens explains that although there is more writing on art than
ever before, conversely, fewer newspapers across the US are
featuring any of it.
Gallerist Edward Winkleman describes the popular narrative of
the art criticās rise through the ranks:
38. āThe narrative for most art journalists (that is, a writer whose
publisher/editors discovered they had, in addition to strong journalistic
instincts, a knack for the complex task of translating the visual language of
fine art into words) like any journalist, used to be they would find or be
assigned a particular beat and cover it consistently for a specific publication
or media outlet (i.e., TV or radio network) that had a budget to cover travel
expenses (e.g., to send them to the Venice Biennial or Documenta or to
interview an artist or museum director half way across the country) and a
decent full-time salary with benefits. If they were notably successful, they
might be hired away by a bigger publication/network or an arts-specific
publication, often becoming a semi-celebrity within the art world, getting
lecturing gigs or panel discussion invitations, possibly becoming the editor of
a major arts publication/network, and hopefully eventually publishing their
collected works in a book or two or launching their own TV series.ā
(Winkleman, E. (2013) āA Conversation with Tyler Green on the Art Journalist's
"Narrative"ā edward_winkleman, 9th July 2013:
http://www.edwardwinkleman.com/2013/07/a-conversation-with-tyler-green-on-art.
html)
39. But in an interview with blogging critic Tyler Green, suggests that
this model is all but dead.
In 2011 art critic at Milwaukeeās Journal Sentinel, Mary-Louise
Schumacher, started chronicling job losses across the US in her
sector, compiling footage for a documentary on the plight of the
American art critic.
Schumacher noticed how art criticsā roles were regularly absorbed
or merged with other journalistic duties and how they often faced
having to rapidly expand their skill-set so they could manage
social media accounts and stables of regular arts bloggers, for
example.
40. As if to prove a point, two prominent voices in debates about the
crisis of art criticism, James Elkins and Dave Hickey ā who,
interestingly, occupy different ends of the spectrum in terms of
academic art historian and journalistic critic ā have thrown
themselves from art criticismās sinking ship.
Elkins is moving into creative writing while Hickey, who is at
retirement age, said he was abandoning an insular and money-motivated
scene quite unlike the one he was drawn to in the first
place.
41. Meanwhile others have observed the meteoric rise of the
independent curator, or, as art critic Jennifer Allen puts it, the
ācurator-criticā. (Allen, J. (2008) āDeath Becomes Themā Frieze no. 114, April 2008:
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/death_becomes_them/).
The global expansion of the contemporary art market and with it,
the growth of the biennial and art fair scene has dramatically
altered art world terrain.
The so-called gatekeepers are now more likely to be curators who
work internationally and often independently selecting artworks
and introducing equally itinerant collectors to them.
42. Writer Randy Kennedy observes:
āOver the last decade, as the contemporary art world has grown
to planetary size ā more galleries, more fairs, more art-selling
Web sites, bigger museums, new biennials almost by the month
ā it has sometimes seemed as if a new kind of cultural figure
has been born as well: the international curator, constantly in
flight to somewhere.ā
(Kennedy, R. (2012) āThe Fine Art of Being a Curatorā, New York Times, 18th July
2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/arts/design/as-the-art-world-grows-so-does-
the-curators-field.html?_r=0)
43. As artist and eflux founder Anton Vidokle explains, that the
contemporary curator can fuse an independent critical voice with
a more directly institutional source of legitimacy and itās a potent
force.
On top of this, the concept of curation has been expanded to
include all manner of things. In light of social media for example,
adding things a Pinterest board is considered curating.
44. Or as an article for the New York Times on popular uses of the term
puts it:
āThe Tipping Point, a store in Houston that calls itself a sneaker
lifestyle shop, does not just sell a collection of differently coloured
rubber soles, along with books, music and apparel. No, its Web site
declares the store ācurateās its merchandise. Promoters at Pianoās,
a nightclub on the Lower East Side, announced on their Web site
that they will ācurate a night of Curious burlesqueā. Eric Demby, a
founder of the Brooklyn Flea swap meet, does not hire vendors to
serve grilled cheese sandwiches, pickles and tamales to hungry
shoppers. He āpersonally curates the food stands,ā according to
New York magazine.ā
(Williams, A. (2009) āOn the Tip of Creative Tonguesā, New York Times, 2nd October
2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/fashion/04curate.html?pagewanted=all)
46. So, why all this focus on the West? Weāre in Hong Kong!
Well, its because art criticism is a largely Western phenomenon.
China was oblivious to the various genres and movements that
characterise Modern and Contemporary art in the West until very
recently. It wasnāt until the 1970s that Chinese artists first
encountered the Western Modernist canon and often worked hard to
assimilate its various features in their own practice.
The figure of the Western art critic was inextricably bound in the
Western history of art.
Clement Greenberg, the most popular example of the concept of the
art critic was as much a part of the Modernist scene as Abstract
Expressionism itself.
So at the same time as Chinese artists were first exposed to art
forms that were not a part of their own art experience, they were
likewise introduced to a writerly practice called āart criticismā.
47. The crisis of art criticism here then is something quite different, as art
critic and curator Pauline J. Yao explains:
āThe most frequently heard refrain around the proverbial water
cooler of the Chinese contemporary art world (next to the lament
that there are no real curators) is that there are no real art critics.
This position has been widely echoed in international art circles
where every year we hear the exhortation that criticism is dead and
then a panel is quickly thrown together (usually at an art fair) to
discuss the ācrisis in art criticismā. But while in the West people
seem to lament the relevance or efficacy of art criticism, we inside
Asia seem hard-pressed to locate it in the first place.ā
(Yao, P.J. (2008) āCritical Horizons ā On art criticism in Chinaā in Diaaalogue, Asia
Art Archive, December 2008: http://www.aaa.org.hk/Diaaalogue/Details/592)
48. So we need to consider:
1. Whether Asia really wants this approach to understanding art?
If artists here have produced beautiful works of art for thousands
of years without designated writers to describe, analyse, interpret
and evaluate their work in this way, why would they need them
now?
49. 2. Is art criticism still an essential force on the art market? The
Asian art market is growing at a rapid pace and many urge that
the bubble will burst without respected figures to pronounce on
which art is significant and which isnāt.
In an article for Time Out Hong Kong, art writer Edmund Lee
asserts that:
50. āWhile thereās an enviable degree of artistic freedom in Hong
Kong when compared to the Mainland, what we lack sorely is a
culture of professional art criticism that could effectively give the
artists an honest assessment on their practice ā an essential
part of the art ecology to situate the art created into a larger
discourse. Good critics usually make good curators, but when
critics are largely absent and artists begin to regard staying in
the profession as a triumph in itself, it becomes increasingly
difficult for Hong Kong art to rise above its sideshow status to
the cityās prospering market.
(Lee, E (22nd May 2013) āIs Hong Kong Ready for Contemporary Art?ā, in Time
Out, Hong Kong:
http://www.timeout.com.hk/art/features/58536/is-hong-kong-ready-for-contemporary-
art.html)
51. 3. What might Asian art criticism look like? If the philosophical
theories and art histories that support the Western practice of art
criticism are imports, is there a way we might develop a more
Asia-appropriate approach to evaluating art? And if so, what might
we do differently? Or does a Western-style art market need a
Western-style criticism?
52. We therefore have a very special task in this class.
Weāre pioneers!
Not only do we get to consider what it takes to experience and
interpret artā¦not only do we get to intensively develop our own
personal critical voices that will be unique to each and every one
of usā¦but we also get to consider what the practice of art
criticism could and should be in Hong Kong today.
54. NEXT WEEK
Come to next class with your laptop and an example of a
book, movie or album you either really like or really hate and
be prepared to tell the world why.
Any questions come talk to me or email clfrost@cityu.edu.hk
Editor's Notes
Who: Charlotte Frost/Digital Critic
What is an art critic anyway?
Or is this a clearer depiction of the labour of art criticism?
What do you think art criticism is?
A literary genre or, a type of writing
A commentary on art that blends together a range of writing styles
Vaudeville is a kind of variety show of different forms of entertainment
Belles-Lettres is a term applied to particularly beautiful pieces of writing.
Itās a French term and it usually more specifically refers to works that are neither poetry nor fiction but essays, speeches or works of criticism