



Fate: Rethinking Art Criticism (Abstract)
For the panel Rethinking Art Criticism, I will argue that as we move into an era in which the internet, social networking, blogs, e-newsletters, and interactive databases have replaced many traditional art magazines, this transition is part of a much broader paradigm shift within contemporary art and culture, and that art college curricula, starting at the Foundations level, must reflect these changes.
As the delineations between fine art, commercial art, visual culture (and the roles of the players therein) are currently in question, the In-Question nature of this paradigm shift poses a unique dilemma in regards to developing curricula that will retain its relevance for a duration over students’ careers and lives. At the core, this dilemma points to the need to impart students with the tools to become not only object-makers, but also critical thinkers.
In-Question:
-What range of writing and research skills should be expected at the undergraduate level for fine art students?
-As academic and professional boundaries between Art Criticism, Art History, and Visual Culture Studies overlap, is there any permeability between these disciplines and Fine Art/Studio Art?
-Does the notion of “The Artist As Critic” still hold relevance, or is The Artist Critic no longer a category that need be differentiated from other art writers?
-On what grounds do we accept a piece of writing as being at “a professional level,” or a “publishable” level in a post-print world?
-What place does poetry and experimental have in art criticism?
-Can art schools be trade schools in the 21st Century? Who decides what that means?
-How do we find language to talk about craft?
-Which “Art World” do we, or should we, prepare students for?
-Is self-censoring and group-censoring a form of art criticism, or does criticism always refer to the written dialogue that proceeds the art object?
-Are studio and group seminar critiques a form of Art Criticism, or are these critical discussions held between art-makers something different?
-How does the study and praxis of Fine Art/Studio Art play out within the international Art World in relation to the writing about it, at present?
-As boundaries between academic and creative disciplines are destabilized, what may be the place of interpretive or critical language within the “global visual economy”?
-How does the interplay between visual and verbal language impact the specificity of a non-verbal piece of art?
-What do historical models and aspirations of universal communication have to do with contemporary art and criticism?
After days and months dedicated to falling short of meeting any obligation, we will cross paths in our discrete trajectories, within the elliptical expressions of reversals, underwater worlds of incredible and thorough loss.
Failure. Do you remember when we used to run with this word, owning it as prize-winning job title and life strategy?
Artistically and academically, thrilled by its abject potential, we mined failure for all it was worth. We glorified living in flats with leaking ceilings, prided our attempts to flunk out of Painting 101, and bonded over beers stolen from the next table over. The possibilities seemed endless, visually manifested through scribbly line drawing, undocumented (ephemeral) public interventions, and deliberately pseudo-anti-gallery processes. We were the founders of post-conceptual working methodologies. We collapsed the space between intent and action, rejecting content and meaning; whatever the new project was “about” was beside the point--what mattered was how it made you feel or how it functioned, in-context; we fore grounded extremes of social isolation and its antipode, and worked in earnest to tease out universal aspects of the human condition through vigorous processes of elimination.
Crucial to this endeavor was an art scene that implicitly supported our efforts by providing access to bottomless drinks and comp tickets to anything in town. In recent years, this model of aggrandized poverty and excess has been replaced by one of moderation in every aspect of life. The worth of this extensive collection of shortcomings, wrongdoings, and disappointments that we worked so hard to attain is, given more contemporary concerns, lost upon our parents and potential employers. Concerned mentors and career-savvy peers who saw this coming politely refrain from criticism and gently forward web links to employment sites and coupon days.
The End Of Failure
Katrina Lamb
Summer 2010.
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from A SHORT PLAY ON FAILURE by Harry Aclund, 1999.
Andrew Mackenzie-Oh timelord, we have heard your cries from the future. We are the oracles you called. You have succeeded in distorting time.Andrea Garner-Yes, Lord knows how blind you have been: all here are from the past, like it or not.
Timelord- Then you are not real.
Chorus (sing)- A Ha. Are we real. Real or false. Are we real. Real or false.
Timelord- By Davros what are these voices -- my failure is confirmed, Am I real or false? My success is a fraud, it is not possible at all. My failure is my inevitable tragedy.
Chorus (Sing)- But we are here, we are real, you are false.
Nickie Smith- Yes we are here for you, we have come for you, to rid time of you. We come in the image of friends, but Davros sent us to destroy you; your success is your downfall; your success is to be our end. you could say your failure.
(she strangles him)
Timelord- My success? my success is my downfall. I have run out of time....
(dies)
Narrator- And so we witness the madness, and the death of our hero - a self-proclaimed failure, who's success was his downfall, although he (tragically) only knew this on his death. He was surely a sacrifice for the stability of time itself at the command of the mighty Davros, but we are running out of time too, and our moral tale must close upon this sadness.
Chorus (sing)- Our tale must end, our tale must end,
this sadness is so overwhelming,
the Lord of time is dead, the lord of time is dead,
this sadness is so overwhelming,
or will he fight the mighty Davros on another day,
in another time.
(THE END).