Visual Art On Art Criticism Criticism
posted by on June 11 at 12:00 PM
This message, titled “Art Criticism Criticism,” arrived in my inbox last week from someone named Christopher Shelton:
Regarding your coverage of the Cornish BFA show, anyone who had been to the show on more than one occasion might be struck by how far your opinions deviated from the unspoken consensus of visitors. Jen Graves praised Katie Miller and Charles Mudede praised Rachel Cavallo. Katie Miller’s art was so safe it attracted only fleeting attention from visitors. She will have a fine career designing ads for Rolling Stone and liner art for bands named after monosyllabic plural nouns (Strokes, Hives, etc). Rachel Cavallo’s ideas seemed like obvious pandering to fashionable political thinking. Her art might genuinely reflect feelings, but it could also be an opportunistically crafted “clever idea,” like Ron Popeil Design. Overall the most blatantly political stuff in both shows was by the least skilled or laziest artists. MEANWHILE, the people who sold a lot of art and drew a lot of visitor affection were people that put real effort into their work and people with genuine human feeling communicated by their art.
In other news, Seattle Weekly was busy sucking in their usual way, ripping on your art criticism section while copping your racy cover style. So you’re better than awful. Still, your art section, just like the fine art establishment itself, is a useless dinosaur with nothing real to offer the human race.
Better than awful is something, right?
Seriously, I appreciate this email. It’s obviously from somebody who actually cares about art, and who expects me to do the same—which I do.
A few things: First, I love hearing about audience response. As a critic, I often feel like people don’t talk honestly around me, and I, too, get tired of the sound of my own loud voice. So, Mr. Christopher Shelton, that’s two thank-yous to you.
Now I have some explanations and some questions. First, where did you get the idea that I praised Katie Miller’s work at the Cornish show? Because I Currently Hung her? I give lots of art that treatment, and hers happened to be particularly legible online (an ostensible criterion of the Currently Hanging selectees). Plus, I put together a slide show featuring several artists from the show, including Claude Andrew, Sierra Stinson, and James Brittain. Showing their works constitutes neither a yay or a nay.
But I didn’t review that show, anyway: Charles Mudede did.
Maybe you thought Rachael Cavallo’s designs for refugee housing were panderingly political. Why? Was the design bad? Or are you of the opinion that being political at all is necessarily disingenuous and aesthetically ineffectual—out of place at an art school? (As a side line, check this story from the New York Times mag this weekend.)
Basically, Mr. Shelton, I just don’t think you went far enough in your art criticism criticism.
Which artists did you—and this faceless (and buying) majority—like, and why?
Should reviewers be reviewing student shows in the first place?
Come on now, Mr. Shelton. You started this, now let’s hear more.
For anybody jumping in late, here’s a link to this year’s Cornish BFA show web site, including plenty of images.
BFA shows are always really tricky. I've been maybe a dozen or so, mostly at CCAC - and they always have one common thread. Blame it one spending so much time in the school and studio environment, but the artist work tend to only communicate with each other.
I like your art criticism criticism criticism. It's solid. My art criticism criticism criticism criticism here, though, is pretty fuckin' shallow. Oh, wait -- I'm critiquing myself -- that's art criticism criticism criticism criticism criticism, isn't it?
i went to the show and was generally underwhelmed. a friend texted me, asking how it was, and i responded "art is still now, and for at least a few more years, safely dead."
I wouldn't have known I was slogged unless a friend hadn't mentioned it to me. You're welcome twice.
I didn't elaborate on my critique because I wanted to keep the word count low and increase my letter's odds of being published. I read Mudede's piece and yes, assumed your "currently hanging" was a thumbs up. My bad.
Dana Deckard, Arturo Araujo and Loren Doner were crowd favorites in the Fine Art show, and the first two sold a lot of pieces. I don't know as much about the reception of the design show, so I may have overstated my case there. Really my opinion of the design girl's art is informed by prejudice. I'm mega-liberal and for me fake liberals are objects of extreme loathing. I had some reasons for believing her kindness false and they weren't completely derived from the work itself... I leave it at that.
In short, you called my bluff. I really don't have an informed opinion about most of the show; I just wanted to give you the business. But here's some half-assed critique: People had all year to work on their senior show, but some people didn't do anything 'til the last month. Often they used politics to cover for a lack of depth and especially a lack of craft. Tachevah Brewer & James Brittain did real shoddy work and even lay observers could tell, though they couldn't put it into words. Brewer's painting skills are underdeveloped and simple - really high school level. She copied her compositions from other artist's photographs and hung 'em in a simplistic and obvious installation format. Brittain's photoshop work was just bad- jpeg compression information loss, lazy area selections, etc. Also,the message was trite beyond belief.
Personally I liked the silly but intense Tilla Kuenzli and the simple, skillful image craft of Kelly Sheridan (I was told some of her subject matter is determined randomly, but it's all painted with a distinct personality).
On the design side there was a lot of work that suffered from the aforementioned laziness that I won't go into. Michelle Gutierrez and Celia Marie Baker had fun work. Gutierrez was more bent and original, but Baker just had a ton of work which was all fun in a very traditional way. Not everything has to be innovative. I personally prefer if it's just Good.
I could get further into this discussion, but I have dinner to eat and cats to beat. Naughty kitties!
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One of my students at Parsons in NYC had just moved here from Seattle. Unfortunately the New School did not consider any of his credits at Cornish to count at all toward the curriculum at Parsons since Cornish lacks thorough accreditation. I'd be more concerned about that. You hardly see it on any artist resumes, either. So what is the use of the program?
"I wouldn't have known I was slogged unless a friend hadn't mentioned it to me."
So you only found out about being Slogged because a friend refrained from telling you about it?
You caught my double negative! It's fair- I regularly note errors in your slog posts. My excuse: distracted by the SO. Yours?
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Eesh, Dan, chill.
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