Attended a workshop on writing art criticism and came away with questions. Is the art reviewer on the same level with the artist, as co-creators career-wise speaking -- seems like a goofy idea but it’s out there. See the reviewer, an expert by decree of congress, converts the art into words, predigests if you will, and prints out this verbal equivalent for avid art fans to consume. They’re going to be avid fans because other segments of the population won’t find the coded pig-latin of artspeak palatable, dense and sly, in actuality the writer’s audition for a better assignment -- so full of action phrases, evocative descriptors, such as that.
They presuppose a certain familiarity with the liturgy of modern art, ‘elements of so-and-so with occasional quotes,’ and such throughout, weaving references so they reinforce each other. Sorry to tell you guys but the art stopped being interesting a while back -- polka dot paintings. There’s an omission on your business card -- no, it isn’t like a food review, and there’s a big reason why. I’m nobody special but when I read that the cheezy-mac has just the right amount of salt, actually saw this in a restaurant review once, I can go to that restaurant and try it myself. Maybe I’ll agree, maybe I won’t.
Can’t do that with contemporary art. It takes more than just an appetite, you’ll have to acquire an OT knowledge of endless begats, the linage of kings, the litany of successive movements and personalities who finally left us here -- skinny, skinny people eating mud-pies, sorta looks like food used to look. Everybody so busy writing and reading no one looks up as art spirals down to rooms four inches deep in flour, candy wrappers and cigarette butts significantly scattered.
I kid. I don’t care what kind of art you guys like, but do you have to pretend you’re the only game in town? Does your point of view really require a lovely new facility, paid for by all of us, just to march graduates off a cliff by teaching a style of art that can only leave the lucky ones public dependents, living on grants, public commissions, and teaching positions forever? Why are academics with ‘credentials’ the only ones qualified to write about art for publication, and who chooses the art exhibited in dark public galleries seldom visited?
Here’s the thing -- art isn’t about words. Mostly they contend, and for some time now words have been winning. Take an evocative, meaningful work of art, a Van Gogh for example. How much can be said? Any honest reviewer will have to say, ‘I can tell you what’s in it but you’ve really got to go see it.’ A painting with no content, say a uniform monochrome, on the other hand, can be written about endlessly and the truly gifted reviewer can soar reaching counterpoints of idiocy so profound they’d baffle Irwin Corey. In the end it won’t be necessary to see the work and might not be worth the effort, anyway -- have you heard of the big rock in LA?
Art review will be more like food review when they scrutinize private businesses who depend on public approval for a lively-hood, in this case private galleries and artists’ studios, and not hothouse kinds of art, unsustainable without grants and subsidies, and when they use terms the average citizen can verify with their own eyes. If your tastes are too rarified for fellow citizens, it’s a free country, just try paying the freight for contemporary art out of your own pocket, and leave the cretins to an art which they find satisfying and sustaining.
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