Comments on On Art Criticism Criticism

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.