ART CRITICISMSM2273

CHARLOTTE FROST

LAST WEEK

We thought about how to interpret an artwork. This involved thinking of ourselves as translator, detective, archaeologist or scientist and trying to uncover what an artwork might mean – as it appears to us. Then for the first assessment of this course, we each created a live work of #arttwitticism reporting from an art show on what we saw (description and analysis) what we thought it might mean (interpretation) and whether we thought it was any good (judgment).

Art criticism has for the most part been a genre of writing. From Denis Diderot’s pamphlets to Jerry Saltz’s Facebook page, art critics and commentators have written about art. However internet technologies and particularly the social media platforms of the era known as Web 2.0 have not only given more people the opportunity to write about art but they have expanded the tools we might use. You no longer have to be a professional art critic to write well on art. You also don’t have to write about art, you could compose a song, make a video, compose a Tumblr blog of images….

TUMBLR BLOG

The New Aesthetic Tumblr blog by James Bridle demonstrates new visual styles born of an era in which we increasingly see the world via computer technologies.

It’s like public form of research where he demonstrates an idea as he gathers it…

DANCE

Julia Bryan-Wilson’s ‘Embodied criticism’

She learns and performs Yvonne Rainer's "Trio A" in order to better understand it and write about it.

This is a practice-based form of research. Artists do practice-based research all the time but it is rare for art critics and historians to get so hands-on…

PERFORMANCE

Jayson Musson’s character Hennessy Youngman on ‘Damien Hirst’

This is a form of parody which has racial inequality at its core…

WEBSITE/PERFORMANCE

Graham Harwood/Mongrel’s work ‘Uncomfortable Proximity’ (also known as ‘Tate Mongrel’) was a net art commission for Tate where he critiqued Tate as an institution by demonstrating its biased collection policies and less than honorable history.

EXTREME PERFORMANCEDevon Britt-Darby a gay man who legally married a heterosexual woman as a protest against an artwork that trivilaised marriage rights.

‘The Art Guys’ big fat not so gay wedding’

‘When two guys married a tree ’

This might be described as ‘extreme art criticism’ Britt-Darby changed his life (including his name and legal marital status) in order to make a strong political statement about an artwork.

MOVIESFrida

Other examples:

Ai Weiwei ‘Never Sorry’

Exit Through the Gift Shop, A Banksy Movie

VIDEOSArt 21, Philip Tinari on Xu Zhen

Other examples:

Tate, Yayoi Kusama

As you listen to each audio clip, think about what you can hear.

How much is there of the following content?

• Description

• Analysis or Interpretation

• Judgment

• Or contextual information

And what form does it take?

• Interviews or discussion

• Storytellng or narration

• The live sounds of the location

• Music or sound effects

AUDIO BROADCASTS: INTERVIEW

Tyler Green talking to Chris Burden

AUDIO BROADCASTS:DISCUSSION

Front Row on Gerhard Richter

AUDIO BROADCASTS:LECTURE

Grayson Perry ‘Democracy Has Bad Taste’

Radio documentary: This American Life ‘Blame it On Art’

AUDIO BROADCASTS:CREATIVE

Liberate Tate’s ‘Tate a Tate’

Other examples:

Soundsky

Janet Cardiff ‘After Banhoff’

99%Invisible on ‘Kowloon Walled City’

TASK

For the rest of this session and your homework you’re going to work on a project of Expanded Art Writing’ and it will count for 20% of your final mark. Instead of writing about art, you’re going to make art audio.

In groups of 3 you will make an audio guide to a public artwork currently on show in Hong Kong. You will need to choose a location, do some research and plan a script of elements that might include (description, interviews or discussion, the live sounds of location, music or sound effects). Your audio guide should be between 4 and 8 minutes in length.

TOOLS YOU WILL NEED• Recording equipment (smartphones or audio recorders

from SCM)

• Editing software: Audacity

• Audio storage: SoundCloud

Next week each group will present their audio tours. You will explain briefly:

• How you chose your location?

• How you chose what content to create?

• Who did what?

We will then listen and everyone will answer the following questions:

QUESTIONS

Tour location: Score out of 10 (least-most)

1. How many types of content did you count? (description, interviews or discussion, storytelling or narration, the live sounds of location, music or sound effects)

2. How much did you learn?

3. How likely are you to visit the location?

4. Did you enjoy the tour?

5. What one thing could the group have done better