ART CRITICISMSM2273

CHARLOTTE FROST

LAST WEEK

We went to Asia Art Archive and learned about primary or original sources (literal evidence of creativity: an artwork, a letter by an artist) and secondary sources (information or writing about the evidence a book about the artist). We discovered how to research artists using the archive and prepared for a week of work researching the biography of a Hong Kong artist all in preparation for today’s task. This week we’re thinking about tertiary sources (places where primary and secondary sources are aggregated or indexed: Wikipedia!)

Before we can write an informed work of art criticism, we need to be good at finding out more about the artwork we are looking at. In previous weeks we have focused mainly in internal evidence (what we could see in front of us, the details of the artwork itself).

We have also touched upon external evidence by thinking about what the title of an artwork might tell us.

Sometimes however we might need to dig even deeper to understand the meaning of an artwork.

We might need to find more about the artist him/herself or the time in which the artwork was made – what was the political or economic situation for example?

We call this type of information ‘contextual’, it provides further context or background information on the conditions under which the artwork was made.

So far we’ve just described and analysed the work in front of us, but if we’re going to interpret the meaning of an artwork (next week), this background information can help.

Sometimes this ‘contextual’ information will be the writing of other art critics. For example we might read a critique written by someone else and decide if we think their description or even judgment of an artwork fits. But so far in this course we have avoided this because we need to first develop our own abilities.

We need to be able to describe and analyse artworks as we see them and we need to be able to do our own research – in particular we need to be good at researching areas of the arts that do not get enough coverage in the rest of the world.

TODAY

We are going to write artist biographies about artists who are little-known beyond Asia. To up the stakes and make you consider how be a good researcher and writer we’re going to write Wikipedia entries.

This means you need to be good at:

Clearly communicating with an unknown public

and

Clearly citing the sources of the information you have gathered

PREPARATIONYou will now have:

Created an account on Wikipedia (more information on signing up and choosing an appropriate username)

Read this guide on writing your first Wikipedia article

Watched this video on writing your first Wikipedia article

And in your pairs:

Returned to the Asia Art Archive and or

Used the CityU begin to research your allocated artist.

You will have discovered things like:

1. A copy of the artist’s CV.

2. The artist’s birth city/state and the country they were born in.

3. The artist’s date of birth.

4. The artist’s full name (including middle name).

5. How to best describe the art they are most noted for?

6. The exhibitions the artist has been featured in and the awards they’ve received and the dates for each.

7. References to articles, book chapters and catalogues the artist is featured in (these are essential!).

Now we need to work out how this information can be made available on Wikipedia by producing Wikipedia articles that conform to their guidelines, share information with a global audience and don’t get taken down for any reason.

Let’s look at what Wikipedia articles are made up of…

ANATOMY OF A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE

Most likely you’re used to reading Wikipedia, not writing it, so we need to be familiar with elements of Wikipedia pages you might not have looked at before.

Here is a good guide to the Anatomy of Wikipedia Article

Now let’s look at those elements on a topical article.

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONSJustify. Make sure the justification for your article is implicit. Ensure it is clear in the opening sentence of the article that the artist you are writing about is significant/has had an impact. But as we are writing biography articles is important they don’t sound promotional, this is a factual resource not an advertisement.

Citation. Citation. Citation. Wikipedia loves citations, the more and the better, literally, the better. Try and clearly reference as many statements as possible. If using a Chinese resource, at least translate the title to English as well so that English-speaking Wikipedians can verify it.

Don’t forget the footnotes. It’s easy to use the ‘cite’ button and then ‘templates’ to help you create citations, but it’s easy to forget that you need to add a footnote section at the end of the document to display the citations. Just include the text <references /> at the end of the page you create and you’ll be fine.

RESOURCES

1. Here are some examples of ‘good’ articles on Wikipedia:

Scottish art

National treasures of Japan

Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster

Examples of ‘featured’ articles on Wikipedia:

Bronwyn Bancroft

Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri

RESOURCES

2. Here’s a Wikipedia style guide for biography entries. And here is a template for writing biography entries in Wikipedia which we’ve made for you in advance.

3. Here are the Google Docs we’ve also made ahead of time so you’ve got somewhere to put your notes.

RESOURCES

4. Here are some more in depth guides to editing Wikipedia for further reference:

Wikipedia training for students:

Welcome, a short introduction;

The Core, an overview of Wikipedia's core principles;

Editing, a tutorial on the basic mechanics of editing pages and communicating with others; and Advanced, some selected advanced topics to help you get off to a good start with your first article.

STEP 1.

When you have gathered your information and read about how to write a Wikipedia article, log into Wikipedia and do a search for the name of the artist you are going to write about. When the search shows up no results you will see the sentence:

‘You may create the page ”Name of Artist”

Click on the “Name of Artist”

This will take you to a page where you can create the Wikipedia article on that artist.

STEP 2

Either use the template we made for you (and copy and paste into the Google Docs we made for you) or a new document, or follow the steps using the article wizard in your ‘sandbox’ and add information on the artist you have researched.

If you need help:

1. Try to find the solution using the resources provided

2. Ask people sitting near you (this task is about being resourceful)

3. Ask Charlotte

Warning:

Write your entire Wikipedia article in the Google Doc provided, or your own document, or your Wikipedia ‘Sandbox’ and only when you’re ready, then paste it into live Wikipedia and publish it. Do not publish it and then make changes as this will mean your article looks suspicious and it will be flagged for checking or even deleted.

STEP 3

When you think you have created your Wikipedia article publish it. Then go to the ‘talk’ page and summarise what you did so that Wikipedian’s checking the page know who you are and why you have made the page this way. It’s as simple as saying ‘I made this basic page as part of a class assignment.’ Then you need to sign this statement with you Wikipedia signature, you do that by typing 4 of this character: ~~~~

Here’s some more advice on talk pages

STEP 4

Email me the link to your Wikipedia page clfrost@cityu.edu.hk

PRIZES!!!

Between this class and next week you both need to keep an eye on your Wikipedia page. It might get flagged by a Wikipedian for mistakes or they might request more content or citations. Try to communicate with them using the talk page (and signing your name) and try to resolve the problems they find with the article.

There will be prizes for those who manage to keep their Wikipedia article live and resolve all the issues flagged by Wikipedians.

I will award 1st prize to the best Wikipedia article.

NEXT WEEK

No laptops needed. Come to class as usual.