Critique & Criticism

This class has a dual focus on the related but distinct practices of critique and criticism.

 

The practice of criticism is undergoing substantial changes, driven by two consecutive democratizations, the first (beginning in the sixties) with the opening up of a wide range of ostensibly incommensurate arts practices and the second (beginning in the nineties) with the popularizing of internet venues for writing about art. The class looks at these putative “crises” in art criticism from a theoretical perspective, and so is relevant for those interested in writing arts criticism at some point in the future.

 

While criticism takes place largely in the public sphere, critique is mostly a feature of higher education in the arts. The class offers strategies for eliciting more useful critical feedback on one’s own work and as well as improving capacity for providing feedback to others. Participants are exposed to a range of mechanisms for structuring discussion and will experiment with a wide variety of critical styles.

 

The class also dispels some of the isolation of studio production and/or critical practice by putting students in touch with the work of peers in a range of disciplines.