Saturday, Nov. 20th, 2010 @ 2:00pm
The New School
Kellen Auditorium
65 5th ave. (corner of 13th st. and 5th ave.)
UPDATE! Video recordings from the event can be found here:
Panel 1: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10982070
Panel 2: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10985335
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What is Critique? is an all day symposium that consists of panel discussions with artists, critics, teachers, and students city-wide that investigates the role that art critiques and criticism play in art production. The first half of the day will focus on the nature and function of art critiques as a form criticism and pedagogy. The latter part of the day will be a panel discussion addressing the relationship between critical theory, art production and art reception.
Participants include Jay Bernstein, Tom Butter, Chris Cutrone, Simone Douglas, James Elkins, Lydia Goehr, Gregg Horowitz, and more.
This event is sponsored by the Platypus Affiliated Society, New School Union of Political Science Students, and Parsons Fine Arts Department
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Schedule details:
1:30-2:15: Congregation
2:15-2:30: Introductory Remarks
2:30-4:30: The Art Critique: Its History, Theories, and Practices
4:30-5:30: Dinner Break
5:30-8:00: The Relevance of Critical Theory to Art Today
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Panel Descriptions and Questions:
The Art Critique: Its History, Theories, and Practices
panelists include James Elkins, Tom Butter, and Simone Douglas; moderated by Laurie Rojas
This panel explores the art critique (a.k.a. the “art crit”) as a pedagogical model for teaching art production. Each panelist will focus on a specific element of the art critique pertaining to their area of interest. Elkins was asked to elucidate the history and variety of practices that inform today’s art critiques, and Butter and Douglas–as art teachers who have been leading critiques for some time now–were asked to consider their personal approaches towards critiques, and their educational philosophies. Butter will reflect specifically on the relationship the pedagogue has to the students as well as the relationship of art object to the artist’s intention and Douglas will face the question of how art created in a “transdisciplinary” form affect the way artworks are apprehended in today’s critiques. Overall, the panel is meant to further an understanding of the way art is both articulated and taught in today’s educational institutions, and how the “art crit” is a form of art criticism itself.
Questions for Elkins:
1) Please give an outline of the history of the way in which art critiques have been practiced, and how they changed over time. What historical precedents determined the nature of art critiques today? What contemporary educational ideologies influence the methodologies of art critiques. What is the criteria of judgment in a peer critique?
2) What is the importance of peer critique as a form of education as opposed to other forms of pedagogy in liberal arts education? What should an art student expect to get out of this style of learning that is beneficial for his or her specific discipline? Also, is the artist missing out on anything educationally by being immersed in such a structure?
3) Considering the differing uses of criticism as an autonomous field of production (i.e. art criticism and art theory), and critique as a pedagogical device, do you see any meaningful similarities between the two? How does this show (or not show) that criticism is a necessary organ that completes art production?
4) Where do you see the practice and educational philosophies of critiques going based on their current configurations today — esp. for a subject that you find difficult, if not impossible, to teach (i.e., argued in your book, Why Art Cannot Be Taught)? Do you think there needs to be a fundamental revision of the critique structure, or is it an adequate form of learning and teaching as it exists at the moment?
5) How does the structure of art critiques help us understand the way we socially position the discipline of art today? In other words, in trying to help the artist make “better” art, what do we expect the art work to do? Is it merely trying to make art more valuable for the market, or are we trying to get them to do something more than that?
Questions for Butter:
1) There is no standard curriculum for art critiques, which allows them to be a supposedly free space for dialogue and the exchange of ideas. What is your particular approach in leading art critiques, and what methods have you set as general guidelines? How does your approach differ from your other experiences with other group critique leaders?
2) Do you have any first hand experiences that exemplify what makes a successful art critique in terms of its pedagogical role? What about an example that shows some of the greatest flaws of critiques?
3) How are we to talk about art production in relation to the ideas the artist expresses in the critique? Is the critique geared towards the primacy of the art object, or the primacy of the artist’s subjective stance on it (i.e., his or her way of articulating it)? If there is a redirection from the art object to the art maker, what does this mean to you?
4) In what ways are art critiques a judgment of the way an artwork (and the artist) relates to society? How exactly are we to judge the art beyond the artist’s relationship to the object they have created? In other words, how do we balance their creation as both a product of that individual verses it being a social product within critiques?
Questions for Douglas:
1) Can you please define what “transdisciplinary practice” entails? Under what social conditions did transdisciplinary practice become valued, and in what ways does it still meet the social needs of today? If transdisciplinary work is devoted to breaking down boundaries then wouldn’t this entail just another ‘death’ of art? And, to follow, to what extent have other disciplines endeavored to break down their own boundaries? Or, is art unique to such an endeavor? What historical precedents anticipated this paradigm shift, and why?
2) Can you give one or two examples of artists that you think are working transdisiplinarily? How does the quality of their works uphold expectations for art to be critical? For what reasons do you see these artists as primary examples of this kind of approach?
3) How does transdisciplinary work change the way we understand and talk about art in art critiques? Are art critiques a crucial arena to flesh out transdisciplinary work, or is it more apt to talk about these practices in different fields?
4) What kind of effects does this paradigm shift have on the conditions of critical reflection? Does this ultimately transform the way we engage with art critically as viewers, or does it distort critical faculties altogether? Can we still effectively talk about transdisciplinary work aesthetically, or must we conjure up a whole new set of terms? Please talk about the drawbacks and advantages transdisciplinary art has on art critiques.
5) Where do you see transdisciplinary practice going? Do you think it is a method that will stick around for sometime to come, or is it a reaction to the temporal moment we live in? How do you imagine the best way to structure the art critique for these future practices?
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The Relevance of Critical Theory to Art Today
panel includes Jay Bernstein, Chris Cutrone, Lydia Goehr, Gregg Horowitz; moderated by Chris Mansour
Critical Theory was born as a theoretical model which attempted to understand how humanity under capitalism was socially regressing rather than progressing in the mid-twentieth century. For thinkers like Theodor Adorno, the most crucial remains resided in aesthetic experience – both within mass culture and avant-garde art. What social features within aesthetics did critical theorists see as redemptive of the tragedies they endured? What social role does art, in its increasing public significance, play in deepening collective consciousness of the present and its history that formed it? Does a theory of aesthetics have a political effect on the practice of art production and criticism, and if so, how? Bringing together thinkers influenced by Critical Theory’s method, this panel seeks to assess its relevance to contemporary conditions.
Questions for panel:
1) Critical Theory evolved as a specific attempt to preserve the insights of Marxism in the face of political and social decline after the failed Russian Revolution. How did critical theory in general relate to the Marxist philosophy of history and the political possibility it sought to redeem?
2) Why did the first members of the Frankfurt School (such as Adorno, Benjamin, and Marcuse more or less) see it as imperative in their writings to rescue and develop aesthetic experience (which they saw in a decline) in the face of the crises of the 20th century? How was the potential for aesthetic experience regressing? What strategies did they use to provoke this recognition? What were the philosophical, political, and aesthetic stakes of this attempt?
3) Adorno and Horkheimer saw that art in modernity was defined in its relation to the advent of what they called the “culture industry.” The dynamics they pointed out — “canned” aesthetic experience, repressed utopian drives, and the increasing difficulty to maintain art’s autonomy and standards– have become more acute today, but perhaps less critically recognized as such. Does contemporary art criticism maintain a critical relation to the culture industry? Is the ubiquitous attempt to short-circuit commodification via art as a utopian, “subversive” island (e.g. transdisciplinary practices, relational aesthetics, artistic gift economies, etc.) an adequate way of aesthetically addressing art’s role in the culture industry?
4) What role do art production and art criticism play in advancing aesthetic experience, or, at least, saving it from decline? What makes a “critique” critical? If possible, cite one art work (or artist) and an art criticism (or art critic) that exemplifies the way in which critique can push forward aesthetics.
