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V.Codec Online Forum Apr.25.2006: Panelist Adam Harrison
Forum Moderator:
(Question for Adam Harrison) What kind of training is necessary to evaluate contemporary visual art?
Adam Harrison:
I don't think any kind of formal training whatsoever is neccesary. The only requirement is to have ideas about art, and ideally a well trained eye for it.
Adam Harrison:
By trained, I mean that you have seen enough art and thought about enough art to make some sort of evaluation of it, whether or not it becomes an explicit part of the text.
Adam Harrison:
Being a competent writer also helps!
Corey Smith:
Encyclopedic knowledge of art history, a finger on the pulse of your region and the world, and a bit of charisma.
Adam Harrison:
Ideal maybe, but not a requirement.
Forum Moderator:
Forum Moderator has left the room.
Adam Harrison:
The moderator is gone, let's have a house party!
Gretchen Bennett:
Hooked into culture, as well, and wanting to affect it at times...
Corey Smith:
She committed cybercide because we kept going out of order.
Eva Lake:
Art history. Absolutely. However you find it, not necessarily degrees. Books. Museums. Travels.
Gretchen Bennett:
Yes.
Adam Harrison:
Like artists, anyone can be a critic. But not everyone can be a good or effective one.
Eva Lake:
Look at the best throughout the ages and you will absorb it.
Adam Harrison:
Exactly, Eva.
Corey Smith:
If a person is going to talk about someone's art as an authority on the subject, they must be just that.
Forum Moderator:
Forum Moderator has entered the room.
Forum Moderator:
Sorry all, tech issues of my own...
Eva Lake:
Keep on looking, keep evaluating. You're allowed to change your mind.
Regina Hackett:
But what is an authority?
Eva Lake:
And move on to new things constantly.
Corey Smith:
You can shout opinions all day but you need to have facts.
Eva Lake:
Facts are in history. Just regular history.
Corey Smith:
You need to understand what has been done before.
Eva Lake:
Which made huge impact on objects made.
Regina Hackett:
Facts flee from me, Corey. Opinion is lovely, unique as a fingerprint. Fact is anonymous and dreary.
Corey Smith:
What is the artist is tyring to accomplish...
Eva Lake:
But some facts are like ropes to hold onto, through the storm of your "progress" or evolution....
Gretchen Bennett:
Communication with like-minded folk (to Corey)...
Regina Hackett:
The critic tries to understand the artist. The artist doesn't have to try to understand the critic.
Corey Smith:
Everyone has opinions, what I'm talking about is criticism from someone who is qualified.
Eva Lake:
True.
Regina Hackett:
And yes to ropes. But that's only when there's wind breaking in the room.
Regina Hackett:
And qualified, Corey, for me, means somebody who lives her experiences looking at art, and reading about it.
Eva Lake:
Artists are sometimes frustrated with the power of the critic (which of course we need).
Corey Smith:
Everyone looks at art. I have to look at it in every crappy coffee shop and store in Portland!
Regina Hackett:
Critics abuse the power to judge. And dismiss. I tried to tell a younger critic in Seattle recently that her savvy won't be measured by all the artists she can dismiss.
Adam Harrison:
I don't really think that critics are as powerful as maybe they once were.
Corey Smith:
Not at all...
Forum Moderator:
Okay, time's up on the freeform...
Eva Lake:
Depends who they are/where they write.
Adam Harrison:
They don't have the same power to change art, the way people think about it, and the way people make it.
Corey Smith:
Artists aren't either.
Eva Lake:
Yes.
Forum Moderator:
I need maybe red text...
Regina Hackett:
Well, not as powerful as they were, but who wants to go back to critics as dictators? It's better in the puralistic era when we're all just reactors typing our way into print.
Forum Moderator:
Thanks all, on to the next panelist...
Forum Moderator:
So we don't go over time...
