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CRITICISM [i 2] |
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We present the second part of the special
double issue devoted to criticism, thus completing the survey conducted
in conjunction with Eduardo Pérez Soler in which the leading
most regularly published art critics in Catalonia replied to the
question ‘Does criticism exist today?’ — an opportunity
to clarify their positions with regard to the current state of
criticism. We would like to thank all those who agreed to take
part, and conclude this first dossier devoted to criticism with
a short text that attempts to draw a few conclusions.
SURVEY: DOES CRITICISM EXIST TODAY?
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CARLES
GUERRA
It goes without saying that criticism exists.
The problem lies in confusing it with journalism. For
all that the two are very closely related, criticism
has to remember that it is a transitory act with little
transcendent significance. Being informed is a basis
for opining. This being so, an opinion without information
goes nowhere, and vice versa. Abrogating more responsibility
to criticism can only complicate things. As soon as
the critic starts to think he is exercising a certain
authority and believes he has to go around handing
out judgements, he spoils the most interesting game:
in other words, that after the criticism it is possible
to carry on opining and doing more criticism. That
criticism never represents a full stop! That he never
commits the sin of abusing the authority of the first
person singular! At the same time, the critic is never
independent. Ethics and all the slack chatter about
virtue make me want to throw up. When I decide to speak
about something it is because I believe that no one
else will say what I think needs saying. If I fail
in this kind of criticism, and it happens time and
again, it is because I haven’t said anything
new. Criticism, then, has of avoid reproducing commonplaces.
More and more now we see notices in the press converted
into critical opinion, a sure sign that the catastrophe
is propagating like wildfire. These days, doing criticism
is a good platform for doing other things. In my opinion,
the best artists have started out doing criticism (Judd,
Godard...). Criticism is one of the most modest yet
most flexible productions. For me it constitutes the
most productive space of art, even more than the supposed
centrality of the work. If it were up to me, the artwork
would have the critical reviews stuck onto it like
Post-its. I have no doubt that at some point the work
would no longer be visible. The day that the institutions
do this, criticism will no longer be dispensable.
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| Carles Guerra is a regular
contributor to Cultura/s |
ROSA PERA
It seems to me that the
existence of criticism today is like questioning the existence
of art. Evidently, the answer is affirmative. However, we
need to think about where and how to act and also look to
see how far it is in step with contemporaneity. Tool and
space of communication, criticism has to find the most suitable
channels in which to develop itself if it is to establish
a fruitful connection with the public.
The exercise of criticism entails developing textures
of analysis and research that serve to problematize processes
and situations related to actuality on the basis of contemporary
creativity and in this way situate oneself in areas that
promote dialogue with voices from other spheres of knowledge,
the relationship with the social body, the emergence of
intellectual and aesthetic architectures that will act
as a chain of transmission of ideas and as a loudspeaker
for these ideas.
As occurs in the realm of art practices,
criticism does not always live up to these considerations:
either it shuts
itself up in closed capsules that do not no connect with
the world around it or it loses itself in the stridency
of the media, often exercising propaganda, subject to the
powers that be. This is only the low profile of criticism.
What is needed is to foment and exercise an open, intelligent
and active criticism.
Rosa Pera
is a regular contributor to Arte Contexto
CARME ORTIZ
The existence and the redefinition of the role of
criticism in a globalized world in which the new communications
technologies mean that the interaction between individuals
is changing, and the ways of seeking information and of creating
and disseminating opinion with it: these are premises and
concerns that take into account and include many of the actions
that have been carried out in the last couple of decades
and that have taken concrete form in publishing projects,
both ephemeral and enduring, whether on paper or using precarious
systems of distribution such as the Internet. If this is
the panorama that is taking shape internationally, it should
be noted that the scene in this country embraces these parameters,
but that the crucial difference is due to a lack of tradition
that results in a precarious real art system in which training,
dissemination, the system of public collections and the system
of private collecting are not normalized. One consequence
of the gulf between aspirations and realities is the lack
of a sufficient critical mass in relation to the inadequacies
of the system.
Carme
Ortiz is a regular contributor to Papers d'Art
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DAVID
ARMENGOL
Faced with the initial premise as to the existence
or not of criticism as a discursive mechanism in the
realm of art, it seems to me that, for all its limited
capabilities as an effective link of relation between
art practice and public, the answer has to be affirmative.
With more or less efficacy, the mainstream communications
media cannot avoid the presence of different structures
of critical approach to contemporary art, above all
in the printed press (the situation in the field of
radio and television is more problematic). Despite
this coverage, perhaps one of the main problems that
afflicts criticism at present has to do with the need
to generate more specific and specialized contexts;
freer and more flexible working frameworks capable
of favouring critical judgements over and above readings
linked to the knowledge, dissemination and promotion
of the artistic phenomenon. If it is to achieve this,
criticism will have to make itself more autonomous
and more independent from the institution, in doing
which it would situate itself at a more balanced and
more honest mid point between art and user.
David Armengol
is a regular contributor to A.Desk.org |
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MARTÍ MANEN
Criticism has always occupied different positions
in contemporary art. I think it is evident that criticism
exists today, as it always has. Bearing in mind, of course,
that the work of Marcel Broodthaers, Hans Haacke, Andrea
Fraser or Fred Wilson can also be read as a critique of art
and the way it functions.
And if we turn to criticism and its relationship with the
communications media, I don¹t that the situation is
wholly unfavourable. In the pages of mass-circulation newspapers
such as Avui, La Vanguardia or El
País we have seen
criticism enjoy a sufficiently wide margin of manoeuvre,
bearing in mind that these are businesses run according to
strict economic criteria. The monitoring of what is going
on at the artistic level is fairly good, but perhaps the
role of the critic in the mass print media has not traditionally
concerned itself with marking out tendencies or possibilities,
with a few exceptions.
What is scandalous is the case of public television, which
serves neither as a link between the art context and social
reality nor as a space for the constructive criticism of
contemporary art ‹ all the more scandalous in that
public television should be governed by considerations not
of economics but of social quality.
We find ourselves now at an interesting moment in which the
ease of on-line publication is opening the door to a democratizing
of criticism. It remains to be seen what the reaction of
the traditional media will be, and what links will be established.
Martí Manen is a regular
contributor to A.Desk.org
MARTÍ PERAN
1,000 characters on criticism?… three
in the hole: shit! Criticism is a commentary,
it’s writing, it’s an experience
of language, it’s mediation, it’s
the effect of the work, it’s historiography,
it’s hermeneutics, it’s an element
in the circle of art, it’s a subject, it’s
a hook, it’s a judgement, it’s thoughtfulness,
it’s a card, it’s a fashion, it’s
a transaction, it’s badly-made poetry,
it’s a profession, it’s a distraction,
it’s art itself, it’s the enemy,
it’s the abyss of speech, it’s an
aesthetic episode, it’s a tautology, it’s
an instrument, it’s a shortcut, it’s
useless, it’s a recreation, it’s
a destruction, it’s a reaction, it’s
a commission, it’s a vertical cut, it’s
a narcotic, it’s a paradox, it’s
an alternative, it’s institutional, it’s
a parasite, it’s journalism, it’s
a survey, it’s opaque, it’s a bridge,
it’s a voice, it’s nothing, it’s
a theme, it’s a lecture, it’s a programme,
it’s a lack, it’s an effort, it’s
a negative, it’s an attention, it’s
a production, it’s a knowledge, it’s
a curator, it’s a question, perhaps it’s
true, it’s a direction, it’s an intention,
it’s a market, it’s a mistake, it’s
a journey, it’s a montage, it’s a
magnifying glass, it’s a talent, it’s
a technique, it’s a dissection, it’s
reverberation, it’s a pretext, it is the
moment zero of 1,000…
Martí Peran is a regular
contributor to Exit
ANNA MARIA
GUASCH
I am more and more of the opinion that
it no longer makes sense to speak either of a
formal criticism (based on the visual, on perception,
on the ‘trained eye’ and the shock
effect) or of a textual criticism with all that
that entails, such as Marcel Duchamp advocated
in his text ‘The Creative Act’ (1957),
with the artist as critic-observer, but of a ‘situated’ or
contextual criticism.
A criticism grounded in specific situations and
places, a criticism committed to the vicissitudes
of the present in which the language and the
style end up relinquishing their leading role
in favour of the individual subject and his or
her relationships to the space, always within
the highest levels of reflexivity and interest
in ‘alterity’. Instead of speaking
of the much bruited ‘crisis’ of criticism,
I would like to think of a change of profile
in the figure of the critic and above all in
the function of criticism. And at this point
I propose, in a line similar to that posited
by Andrea Fraser, to uncouple criticism from
the ‘economic market’ and situate
it in other markets, such as the ‘intellectual
market’ that includes the academy or the ‘institutional
market’ (museums, foundations, public bodies,
cultural policies) in which the figure of criticism
can enjoy a certain authority and relative autonomy
Anna Maria Guasch is a
regular contributor to ABCD las artes
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| Survey done in collaboration
with Mireia Ferrer Munill |
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