Here's an article via ArtsJournal from which I could write a few blogposts. However at the moment, I've got so many blank canvases on the wall... and I'm pacing and fretting and scraping too much. Greco eyes.
It might look easy...
So this post serves to hand the link off (good stuff) and sidestep the essay impulse, offering instead a big FYI to the blogosphere and to underline a quote from William Kentridge in the last sentence of the article:
?No critic?s review of an exhibition has ever been harsher than what that artist has dreamt up at 3a.m. on his own.?Posted by Dennis at April 15, 2005 7:45 PM
I can attest to the truth in that statement. I have just turned my students (Grade 12 art IBers)on to your site. We all eagerly await the evolution of the canvases.
it'll all be good
don't make yourself crazy about it
forget the critics
take a walk
forget yourself
look inside
see infinity
paint again
who do you work for?
There's a list tacked on a wall where I paint of Diebenkorn's "notes to self before starting a painting". My poor memory sees these few of ten: "tolerate chaos", "do search,but only for other than what is searched for", and "keep thinking about Pollyanna". He also said "I want painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems...the better."
But you already know this stuff, no?
I do like those scrapes though.
Sherie'
Are critics relevant? Does it matter in this day and age? I think making decisions based on the great critics of this time is really a wrong way to go. But, still, it?s like asking are artists relevant. Are they? I wouldn't hang around for the answer--it's uninteresting, somehow. And marabous. Anyway, Dennis, I too like the last scrape. But the point is you gotta like it.
Brent, I'm with you.
Our current period in art might be characterized as post-critical, as I see it.
Thanks, everyone for the infeild chatter.
And a BIG SHOUT OUT to Art IBer PARTY PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE!
The article is interesting enough in that it is spotlighting the effect of change going on within the artworld, changing in unexpected places perhaps. I believe in change by augmentation over change by eclipse, so I don't think critics today are irrelevent, it's just that they are relevant in a different way than before. It's all pretty interesting and I could go on and on. For example, its interesting that the art fairs are the major draw of collectors nowadays forcing galleries to strap on the workload to attend the art fairs. Museums are vying with galleries for collectors... and in museum shows like "Public Offerings", the only valid subject for the artworld is the artworld as a system itself. Or how a 11-12 month gallery show schedule is foregone conclusion, to the detriment of what is natural or what vision/statement a gallery is trying to convey.
Pretty heavy stuff.