Current
Issue »
Email
List »
Submissions
»
About
Us »
Contributors
»
Contact
Us »
V.Codec Online Forum Apr.25.2006: Panelist Clint Burnham
Forum Moderator:
(Question for Clint Burnham) If contemporary visual art (not necessarily artists) is answerable to critics, who are (or should) said critics be answerable to?
Clint Burnham:
OK. FIRST OF all I'm not sure that art is answerable to critics. It seems to me that much criticism just adds a fluffy texture to the art, i.e. in artforum, to surround the ads.
Clint Burnham:
Then if it is true, it depends on the forum of where the criticism is. In other words, if I'm writing in the daily I'm trying to communicate to the non art savvy reader (the majority) as well as the art community.
Clint Burnham:
And finally, to get back to the early chatter, I like enthusiasm about art, but criticism has to be more than that. I'd even say that criticism doesn't have to be about liking art. Done.
Forum Moderator:
cool.
Forum Moderator:
NOW we have five minutes of freeform response from everyone...
Forum Moderator:
To the question, to the answer, to a tangent on the question or answer...
Adam Harrison:
I think that criticism, like art, can be many different things.
Gretchen Bennett:
Trying to communicate to the non art savvy reader — I think it's important to speak to the everyman, I like this idea.
Eva Lake:
Maybe criticism is not about liking the art at all but a focus on the writers tale; I like that idea too.
Regina Hackett:
Writing in a daily paper, as you do sometimes, Clint Burnham, is tap dancing, trying to create a beat and move images along on it. Otherwise, it can go limp on you pretty fast.
Adam Harrison:
There is, for example, serious critical art, funny, fluffy art, bad art, good art, mediocre art, whatever.
Matthew Stadler:
I don't think art answers to criticism, though artists often pay attention more than they should. I used Red76, here in Portland, to write about my own concerns and was criticized for writing "about" them so inaccurately.
Clint Burnham:
Yeah — the thing about talking about contemporary art to the "everyperson" is that you have to get past that "but is it art" thing.
Gretchen Bennett:
And definitions are always shifting.
Adam Harrison:
You could differentiate between serious criticism and non-serious criticism (or ethusiasm as Clint says) but we don't always make those distinctions for visual art.
Eva Lake:
One PDX critic told me he owned nothing to the artist, but he did have certain obligations to the paper who paid him.
Matthew Stadler:
Yes, Gretchen and Eva's point suits me. I consider my writing to be my concern. I hope it is useful or relevant to others.
Eva Lake:
Yes, they should not let themselves be defined by it, Matthew.
Betsey Brock:
That piece was so good, Matthew.
Regina Hackett:
I love that. The screen ate my message. A nonhuman no vote.
Betsey Brock:
That's happened to me three or four times now. As soon as I get going, I get the boot.
Adam Harrison:
I think critics can have many intentions, but I think the best criticism is not really related to the artists at all. they are simply used as ciphers to work through ideas.
Clint Burnham:
Adam, I think we do make the distinctions between enthusiastic art and critical art...or at least if enthusiasm is code for the lowbrow/outsider art...
Forum Moderator:
(tech note — everyone try sending more often...shorter messages...
Forum Moderator:
see if that helps...and thanks to all for hanging tough!!)
Betsey Brock:
Vancouver is king of critical art, no?
Adam Harrison:
Okay that's true, but I'm thinking more of the difference between, say, Richter and Francesco Vezzoli, as an example off the top of my mind.
Eva Lake:
And that is how it works best Clint. They have ideas and utilize art for their ideas. It was like this way back when; it hasn't really changed.
Forum Moderator:
(One minute left in current freeform...)
Matthew Stadler:
I'm not sure what the category "enthusiastic" is. Is that not a critical position, a choice one makes and then enacts? How is it different than critical art or writing?
Regina Hackett:
Are these rules working? If the screen eats all but the shortest messages...?
Clint Burnham:
Adam's piece on Scott McFarland in doppelgangermagazine.com was about McFarland's work, not just Adam's ideas.
Betsey Brock:
I will speak only like a robot from here on out.
Gretchen Bennett:
Me too.
Regina Hackett:
How come Matthew gets to type in sentences, three of them, strung elegantly together?
Forum Moderator:
Matthew is special.
Forum Moderator:
We all know this...?
Betsey Brock:
I like to read critics who are both critical AND enthusiastic.
Adam Harrison:
But I wrote it to work out things I am concened with, not to neccesarily spread the word, although i'm happy to do that.
Matthew Stadler:
I have a POWERMAC! I am a green Toa.
Clint Burnham:
Oh yeah, you weren't just propagandizing, Adam — but you said stuff about McFarland's work.
Forum Moderator:
(Ten seconds...)
Forum Moderator:
DONE.
Forum Moderator:
I call.
Regina Hackett:
I'm a man squatting in the desert, naked beastial, who holds his heart in his hands and eats of it. (s. crane.) in other words, jealous of Matthew.
Matthew Stadler:
In PORT I described it as a relay race, with the artists handing off a baton to me and then I run with it, hoping we end up somewhere interesting, and they can take up the baton and run wherever they like.
Regina Hackett:
Run with legs tied, you big show off.
Forum Moderator:
Okay, QUIET
Forum Moderator:
::giggle::
Matthew Stadler:
Who, the Toas? Or the Metorons?
Forum Moderator:
BOTH.
Forum Moderator:
All.
Forum Moderator:
Stop.
Forum Moderator:
Don't make me use CAPS!!!!
