Reading Response #2

I open with this image, one that you may have seen if you read my introduction.

Nevertheless, a quick recap: I was a theater critic in a program at my high school called CAPPIES.

I also won an award for it, giving me the title of 'Top Critic'. And that is where my screen name for this blog comes from.

I won't ramble on about that for too long here, but the reason I bring it up is because it relates to the next piece I want to respond to that we read in class.

Reading Response: "The Critic"

by Edmund Burke Feldman.

We went over this particular reading in the lecture titled "Exhibition Reviews and Art Criticsm" that occurred in early October.

Since I have a bit of experience writing critical reviews related to arts & culture, I came into reading this piece with some prior knowledge.

I think the main argument of this piece could be summed up in one line early on in the work that I took it upon myself to highlight when I first read it through.

"While art has power in itself, the power of talk about art should not be underestimated."

Of course this piece more or less explains the idea of criticism in the arts, looking more specifically at visual art. It talks about different kinds of critics and explains how criticism has a place in today's culture.

This piece helped me a lot when it came to my exhibition review. I've never really been one to fully appreciate or understand all of the significance behind visual art, so I was a bit worried about our exhibition review assignment, even with the very limited word count.

When you're reviewing and looking critically at theater, it's so different. Everything you have to review is right there in front of you: lighting cues, acting performance, set design, music, it's all there. In a way maybe it's too easy when you look at the more complex world at critiquing visual works of art.

And one thing that Feldman points out in a way relates to that idea of ignorance with regard to visual art. He states that critics are in "the business of making public sense out of art."

That's so true, isn't it? I could much more easily read an exhibition review than I could to go down to an exhibit myself and come to any sort of tangible conclusions.

Feldman labeled art criticism as so many things, and they are all so different from what I'm used to in reviewing theater, and these points helped me to better understand what I was meant to write in my own exhibition review.

Like the two agendas of a critic: "to comment on the aesthetic organization and technical execution of works of art" and "to comment on the interests and values symbolized or expressed in works of art."

That's much like how we discussed the key points of visual analysis in our lecture, only it's not expressed in point form like it was in lecture.

Such as when we spoke about the artist's intentions being a key part of a visual analysis, if they are known. Feldman seemed to hit the nail right on the head:

"[art criticism] is a kind of collective commentary about the hopes, wishes, and fears expressed in the work of the 'talented' few who are determined to paint or perform in public."

Also, there is another point of this article that I related to, although it's a bit unrelated.

When he speaks about how critics, when they get their pieces written in a newspaper or magazine, can find them in "the back section, in the 'cultural affairs' ghetto" of the publication.

It's sad how true that is. I remember hunting for my reviews in high school, they were always in the very back of the Welland Tribune, and it was more or less a hunt to find the published reviews.

Maybe arts & culture aren't as prominent in people's 'must-read' thoughts when they open up a newspaper, maybe Sports beats them out, but still, I feel like it's a depressing comment on our culture that the arts is always lumped to the back. Has it always been that way? I'll have to do some research.

Anyway, that's all for now! See ya later.

~ topCAPcritic