- 2 months ago
Fair Enough is a podcast by Art Cologne & Texte zur Kunst, exploring how art and institutions respond to the urgencies of our times. In this episode of Fair Enough, host Micaela Dixon (together with Anna Sinofzik, senior editor at Texte zur Kunst) dives into the complex world of art criticism. Together with her guests, she explores the cultural role of negative reviews: when they’re justified, when they miss the mark, and what they reveal about power, taste, and accountability in today’s art world.
Joining the conversation are: Maurin Dietrich (Director, Kunstverein München), Tim Griffin (curator & writer), (Aleksandra Mir, artist & thinker), and John Miller (artist, writer & educator.
Fair Enough Podcast by Art Cologne & Texte zur Kunst. Berlin (Germany), September 25, 2025.
Joining the conversation are: Maurin Dietrich (Director, Kunstverein München), Tim Griffin (curator & writer), (Aleksandra Mir, artist & thinker), and John Miller (artist, writer & educator.
Fair Enough Podcast by Art Cologne & Texte zur Kunst. Berlin (Germany), September 25, 2025.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00:00Hello and welcome to Fair Enough, a podcast series by Art Cologne in collaboration with
00:00:05Texarkunst. Fair Enough brings together artists, curators, writers, and thinkers
00:00:10to reflect on how art and its institutions are responding to the urgencies of our present moment.
00:00:16This season, to mark the 35th anniversary of Texarkunst, we're taking up the journal's motto
00:00:23for the year, which is there is no art without criticism. With that in mind, we've put together
00:00:29a panel on the topic of The Bad Review, bringing together Maureen Dietrich, Tim Griffin, Alexandra
00:00:34Meir, and John Miller to discuss what's at stake for art criticism today. I'm delighted to welcome
00:00:40our panelists. First, we have Maureen Dietrich, who is the director of the Kunstverein Munich,
00:00:46one of Germany's oldest art associations. Next, we have Tim Griffin, a writer, curator, and former
00:00:53editor. He served as the director-in-chief curator of The Kitchen and additionally was the editor-in-chief
00:00:59of Art Forum from 2003 to 2010. Alexandra Meir is a contemporary artist known for her large-scale
00:01:07collaborative projects and anthropological methods which involve archival research, oral
00:01:12history, and fieldwork. And we also have John Miller, an artist and writer based in New York
00:01:17and Berlin. He is a professor of professional practice in Barnard College Art History Department.
00:01:23My name is Michaela Dixon, and I will be co-moderating the panel alongside Anna Sipnovsik, who is a senior
00:01:29editor here at Texarkunst. Hi. Thanks for joining us. And it would have been so nice to meet you all
00:01:37in person, but that's not possible, so we make the best of it. I would like to start us off with,
00:01:44yeah, maybe it's worth mentioning the fact that we stole the title for this conversation from a book.
00:01:51That you, Alexandra, and Tim did together. The topic is the bad review, and we, or Texarkunst,
00:02:02not only me, but also the teams before us, the editorial teams before, have been working on that
00:02:08subject for a long time. So it's really something that, because it's always, or one of the key concerns
00:02:14of Texarkunst has from the beginning been the shifting role of art criticism, as you all know.
00:02:20So there's one issue that previous editorial team did that was called the Faris. That's basically
00:02:28the German term for the bad review. Maybe not all of you know, so Faris means verreisen, which means
00:02:36to put some, or tear something to pieces. So this was, this issue came out in 2002. And the proposition
00:02:45was that, like, really negative value judgments were becoming, or were in decline. So there were less
00:02:53and less bad reviews, and reviews tended to become more complacent, more affirmative.
00:02:59And the editors of this issue said, it really started in the 90s, when networking became more
00:03:07important in the art world. And I think, Tim, in the book that you and Alexandra did together,
00:03:13you mentioned something along these lines as well in your text that you contributed.
00:03:17So this was back then. And then, two years ago, we did another issue on reviews, which was this one.
00:03:29It's only titled reviews. And the focus was a bit different there, because we wanted to celebrate
00:03:34the review as a form of art criticism, or as a form of art writing, because we thought it's not really
00:03:40only the bad review that's in decline, but the review itself. So in the feuilletons and newspapers,
00:03:47there's less and less reviews, more features, more portraits, like also the borders between these
00:03:52different forms are becoming ever more blurred. So as the cover shows, with the disco balls on it,
00:03:59we really wanted to celebrate the review as a form, and invited several writers to contribute reviews.
00:04:07So the whole issue, or almost the whole issue is just reviews. And I think, John, you contributed one too,
00:04:14right? It did, yes. It just comes to me. Which one?
00:04:18Yeah, it was a review of Bridget Riley's show.
00:04:21Ah, at Hetzer, yeah. Right. Yeah, and we also invited or encouraged all the contributors to this
00:04:29issue to also reflect on their own role as a reviewer. Like, why am I reviewing a certain show
00:04:36in this and that way? What's my background? And am I really independent as a critic? And stuff like
00:04:45that. And how did I come to my argument? Some people did that, some others didn't do that. So it's a mix.
00:04:55But in the end, it was really about having more reviews in this issue than usual, because normally we
00:04:59have like six to eight in each issue. And there's a lot more. And there's also a roundtable discussion
00:05:08in this issue. And this was actually how I came across your book, Alexandra and Tim. And Alexandra,
00:05:16you've been kind enough to send me one copy of it. And then I found out that there's also a review
00:05:25by John, a review of John's show in it. And we even showed that one as an image or Marilyn Minters as
00:05:32well in that roundtable discussion. And I thought maybe to start us off, I would invite you to comment
00:05:41on the propositions from our issues. I mean, do you disagree, agree with it? What's your perspective?
00:05:50And also how this whole project came about? Maybe you want to tell us a bit about that, Alexandra and Till?
00:06:00You want to start, Tim?
00:06:01No, no, you go for it, Alexandra.
00:06:02Should I start? We don't want to be responsible for this.
00:06:07Well, this book took seven years to put together. So I would keep you here all night,
00:06:12if I should tell you everything. But roughly speaking, there are 150 artists who
00:06:16agreed to contribute. It started with an open call. So we just spammed the whole art world as we knew
00:06:24it. And then that spam spread and organically people learned about it. And a lot of people
00:06:30rejected the proposition from the get go. They thought it was a terrible idea. They didn't want
00:06:34to be associated with it. They thought it was painful or just boring or just pointless. And
00:06:42the ones who decided that it was cool to be in it, they are in it. So that's the premise of the book.
00:06:49And all the reviews were submitted by the artists themselves. That was the only editorial criteria
00:06:54that we had. Everything else that came in was published as the artists themselves decided it
00:07:00represented them or their idea of what a bad review is.
00:07:03And I think for me, I mean, Alexander, we had had a friendship for a long time. One of my first
00:07:12pieces with art form, I think, was about your work. So that had carried a certain resonance for me.
00:07:18But you came to me asking if we'd like to collaborate. And I had recently pivoted off of
00:07:25art form to another kind of institution, which I think even the parameters of which
00:07:31had a lot to do with a feeling that there were significant changes in the field that asked for
00:07:37a smaller sort of footprint. But in terms of the appeal of the book, beyond its implicit sense of
00:07:44humor, I think there was a sense that yes, legacy media was changing in terms of its force and dynamics.
00:07:57Definitely, there was a recognition that was a little historic, even at that point,
00:08:02you know, that there was less of an interest among writers in engaging the negative review,
00:08:08you know, as such, you know, for all the reasons that were outlined by Tech Sequence at that juncture,
00:08:15in terms of, you know, if one wants to enhance the power and reach of one's network,
00:08:22one should not cut off one's, one should not risk cutting off one's opportunities.
00:08:28You know, what I might sort of say by a counterpoint, because obviously, you know,
00:08:32we live in an ever-shifting river, is that, you know, I think actually we might see more negative
00:08:38reviews now. But the question is whether or not they have the effect that they once did,
00:08:43insofar as there can be a desire to interject within a sort of discursive field that would have
00:08:51been attributable one way in an earlier period around criticism. And now there can be, if not
00:08:57a performative aspect, a kind of algorithmic aspect, where the writer is actually fulfilling
00:09:02what you expect of that writer, whether that's through the brand that they've cultivated for
00:09:07themselves, or if there are certain positions that a community expect to be articulated,
00:09:12which then are, as opposed to being problem attest. So I think that the life of the book has taken
00:09:18different, it itself would be a kind of document. But what was thrilling, I know, was you to be able to,
00:09:26from a different position, for me, contact any number of artists who had
00:09:32uh, ferreted away their negative reviews, either psychologically or in the archives, and being able
00:09:39to tease that out, um, and to just be, be part of that sort of family of experience was, was a great,
00:09:47great thing. Yeah, I mean, quickly, one of my, I mean, one of my favorite, and quite early on in your book
00:09:53is the review of an artist, and I can't remember the name of the critic, but he calls the sculptures or the
00:09:59assemblages of a certain artist unforgivable, which is quite strong. And I forgive someone also for
00:10:05their artwork is uh, distinct. But we're still laughing. We're still laughing. It's a, it's a good,
00:10:12bad review, you know? Great. Yeah. Well, there are different balances of good. There's the, you know,
00:10:18we can laugh at it good, but then there's the question of like, what's a good generative, shall we
00:10:23say? Negative review, but the unforgivable. Yeah, it's a delicious, who does, who doesn't like camp
00:10:30every once in a while? Yeah, indeed. I mean, right before, and I have been speaking also about like,
00:10:34the difference between a good, bad review and a bad, bad review. Speaking a lot about like, editorial,
00:10:39like, requirements. Also this, a requirement of a, of a review to make an argument in particular.
00:10:46I think that's also what the book does in a quite an interesting way. I mean, you don't necessarily have to
00:10:50make an argument in a book to make a really mean proposition about somebody's work under whatever
00:10:56terms you feel in that certain moment. It also speaks, I think, to the question in general about
00:11:02like, do you have to make an argument to write a text about art? I mean, it's kind of an open,
00:11:06it's an open statement. Yeah. And I mean, at first sight, you know, the bad review, the book,
00:11:14you know, it's very blunt. It's like, everybody knows what a bad review is. It's like, it's bad.
00:11:19But then once you start looking into it, it's actually like, is it, is it the artist that's
00:11:24bad? Or is it the critic, the writing that is bad? And then that's when you have the complexity of
00:11:29good, good, good, bad, bad, good, good, bad, bad, which, in my opinion, is great, you know, so you,
00:11:36there's a play, there's all this going on, you know, and 150 people contributed what they thought,
00:11:43you know, a bad review is, and we have a spectrum of contributions who that answered a question.
00:11:52So yeah, of course, you know, criticism can be bad for as many reasons that an artwork can be bad. And
00:11:58you have the layering of skill and talent and intention. And, you know, and that's what's so
00:12:05beautiful about it, how rich it got. When you just ask a very simple question, and you pose it as a
00:12:10survey, as opposed to an opinion or a thesis, it's like, what do you think this means? You get the most
00:12:16incredible range of responses.
00:12:20And you haven't, I think, in the forward or somewhere in your text in the book, Alexandra,
00:12:25you said that you never asked the artists who submitted the reviews for the reasons why they
00:12:32chose this particular one, or the motivations behind it. And I thought maybe it's worth, because
00:12:38now we have John here, who contributed one. I would like to ask you, John, do you still remember
00:12:45what your motivation was? Was it like more for this cathartic effect or like coming to terms with
00:12:51something or just for fun? Well, I submitted a review that when I received at a pretty young
00:13:01age, I was just 30 years old. It was my first show at Metro Pictures, and Grace Gluck reviewed my show
00:13:10and ended with the tagline, next time try art, Mr. Miller. And so I was both depressed, but also
00:13:24just wondering, like, how can someone so inept be judging my work? And I was feeling really badly about
00:13:31it. And I went into Metro Pictures one day, and I ran into Walter Robinson. And he told me, I'm really jealous.
00:13:41That's the review I've always wanted to get. So yeah, he kind of like, put the shoe on the other foot.
00:13:49But, but I think one thing that happened with this collection was
00:13:58many artists did what I did, which was to pick a review where the reviewer is really dorky. And,
00:14:05you know, so it's negative, but also it's like a kind of vindication, like, well, look at what they're
00:14:10writing, you know, can you believe this. So there were many reviews with that tenor. And it's, it's
00:14:19funny, because ordinarily, I don't follow Roberta, Roberta Smith's reviews so closely, but she was one
00:14:29of the reviewers who came off writing like a better bad review. She kind of stood out that it was,
00:14:36there was always like a point of interest in what she was writing about. And it wasn't just,
00:14:43you know, kind of like quasi moralistic dismissal or something.
00:14:49Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting that Roberta's work in general takes a major, there's
00:14:54many reviews in the book itself that are of Roberta's reviews. Yeah, you can think about it. I mean,
00:15:01there's sort of two angles to it. One is, as a, you know, as a quite a well known staff writer,
00:15:07she also had kind of like the an opportunity, and it had was well positioned to make these arguments
00:15:13without fearing, let's say, social repercussions, professional repercussions, which now the situation
00:15:20feels like it's quite different. But it's also seems to me somehow important that those role those
00:15:25people, those jobs are in existence, or maybe were in existence. Yeah. Well, speaking of repercussions,
00:15:34at one point, I was the US contributing editor for Artscribe International, which was a precursor to
00:15:42Freeze. And I had written a, I don't remember the artist's name, but I had reviewed
00:15:49someone whose work was based on serial killers. And I, I panned it, I thought it was kind of
00:15:59exploitative. And shortly after the review appeared, I got a telephone call. And it was just,
00:16:08hello, is this John Miller? And I said, yes. And then a very sardonic artist critic,
00:16:16and then just hanging up. And I think it was from that guy. I don't know for sure. But the timing led
00:16:24me to believe that.
00:16:28I think Tim just raised his hand to say something or?
00:16:31I tend to do. I should hang up. How do I follow up a serial killer anecdote? I don't know.
00:16:36I don't know what to say. Maybe I should just be quiet.
00:16:41I do think when it comes to just following up on like Roberta Smith and The Times, it's interesting.
00:16:51And I'm not speaking specifically to her, but how there is something that is a role here is,
00:16:56again, the power of the platform, which obviously then has a kind of impact on those on the receiving
00:17:04end of the words. But then I think it's interesting from an editorial standpoint,
00:17:10and I'm sure you have had this experience, where there are reviews that are complex,
00:17:16but then there are others that, or there are plenty that read like no plays, where if you're
00:17:22deep inside the game, you can actually see what are the forces that are prompting this sentence,
00:17:28or that, this caveat, you know, that framing, you know, where, you know, there's, it's a little
00:17:36bit too nuanced to view, but, you know, there are definitely even bad reviews. Yeah, I love complexity,
00:17:45but sometimes, you know, there can be a lack of directness in some of the other things that we read.
00:17:51Yeah, for sure. One question I actually had for you, Maureen, before we kind of continue on the
00:17:57topic more generally, is whether you've ever experienced in your curatorial career
00:18:02a bad review at an institution you worked with, or beforehand?
00:18:08I think nowadays, for me at least, the worst review is the absence of any review. We have experienced that
00:18:20in my term at the Kunstverein when it came to, I would say, the most complex projects we undertook. One
00:18:30of them was a sort of longer research project with the artist Bea Schlingerhof, that was both intervening
00:18:38in the bylaws of the Kunstverein, as well as working with and around the sort of historical
00:18:46material perspective of the building of the Kunstverein, which was the place that staged a
00:18:54degenerate art exhibition. And it's sort of, I think, both the massive amount of research that went into
00:19:00that. And the complex political situation in which Bea decided to invite all of the 1,300 members at that
00:19:10time to be a part of that project made it, at least in the beginning, when we opened the show in the first
00:19:18sort of few weeks, we were really surprised how there was such a lack of engagement with it, in terms of
00:19:28we were just longing for someone to actually, you know, like an, I think a good review in a sense is
00:19:35that this is always also a proof that someone has actually seen the show and tried to understand
00:19:44it to its best of its ability. And it came later. But I think we're right now at a point where, at least
00:19:53in my opinion, criticism hasn't lost sort of its edge, but it's a blade that's very much blunted with
00:20:06so many dependencies. And it hasn't disappeared. But it's sort of been partially, I think, outsourced
00:20:13also to social media, where we can often see that critique is more sort of a place where affirmation
00:20:20is, you know, the default position. And I think it has a lot to do with precarity that makes refusal feel
00:20:29in a way too expensive or luxury. And I think that's very sad, because I like complexity. And I love a
00:20:38good bad review. But as I mean, there was this t shirt circulating a couple of years ago that said
00:20:44they don't build statues for critics, being married to a critic that, you know, it haunted me, but I wish
00:20:53they, they would build statues for critics.
00:20:56I can definitely second that we had a lot of reactions from younger artists, who were like,
00:21:03I love this book, but I have nothing to offer you. And that was really heartbreaking. You know,
00:21:08that there was really, you know, worse than being told to fuck off from people thought it was a stupid
00:21:13project was the fact that there were people who wanted to be in it and had nothing to offer. And so, you know,
00:21:19the conclusion was that there are good and bad reviews, but the worst reviews are no reviews. And
00:21:24hopefully, this is some celebration of criticism that we wanted to uplift, we saw it disappearing,
00:21:30we saw the space, the space, the physical space in the physical papers vanish. And artists need to be
00:21:40criticized, you know, they need to be acknowledged. And good or bad is kind of besides the point,
00:21:45actually, when it comes to, you know, just like you said, and a proof of somebody having been there.
00:21:53I think that's what most are actually yearning for.
00:21:56How, how do you conceive of or how do you conceptualize
00:22:01nowadays, this more recent phenomenon on social media of like the anonymous bad review? So let's say
00:22:07social media pages, there's, there's tons of them in different scenes, there can be one in New York City,
00:22:12LA, Berlin, all over, where it's clearly a member of the, of the community at large, who kind of takes to
00:22:21making comments, making, yeah, a kind of criticism about shows, short form for social media, I would
00:22:26say, but where there is no name. So there's no like addressee, the person is, is a person, maybe you
00:22:32discover who it is, but that you don't, that you don't name yourself. How, what are the politics of
00:22:37this in your mind? Can I add something? I find it in this context really interesting that you have
00:22:42these five stars here, which is also like the way that people are rating on the internet is already
00:22:48like part of your cover, which I found very interesting, because I mean, most of them,
00:22:52well, there's a lot of online reviews, like the newer ones are from online magazines too, I think.
00:22:59But most of them, I mean, it starts in the 60s, I think. So most of them are still
00:23:03like traditional print reviews, more or less. But this rating systems, and this comes back to what
00:23:10you're saying, Michaela, it's like, it normally happens on the pseudonym, on the like, yeah, I
00:23:15don't know, profiles that, yeah, you don't really know. There's no accountability. And how important
00:23:20is accountability? That comes back to what, what you've been saying. And are we losing it to a certain
00:23:26point? Well, it's funny to think about this, in terms of online goods and services in general,
00:23:37because, you know, you go to your dentist, and then, you know, you get home, and there's like a
00:23:43leave feedback. And, you know, you can pick between one and five stars, and, you know, say more if you
00:23:50want, or how did, how was your flight with United Airlines, and, and then those are
00:23:58maybe used to evaluate the company's performance, or things like that. But also, I think, as
00:24:06advertising, or it's used for monetization. So there's, like, an example where, you know, these
00:24:12truncated, digitalized responses, yes or no, do carry a real impact, maybe not in the way we would
00:24:22like, it's sort of automated. And I guess it's a cybernetic relationship. But I don't think that
00:24:34our criticism is, can completely divorce itself from this development.
00:24:40I think, in a sense, what you said about anonymity, is that accountability is sort of what distinguishes
00:24:57a critic from a troll. And I think we're living in a time when we sort of live in this tension of
00:25:05visibility without accountability, which would be social media, and accountability without visibility,
00:25:14which is maybe, unfortunately, legacy media, or, like, serious reviews with small readerships, which,
00:25:24you know, like, yeah, Berlin Review and all these, like, also amazing new magazines that are happening.
00:25:31And in preparation of this talk today, I was picking up the phone to call Stefan Zillig, who's the
00:25:42co-writer of the, well, former anonymous blog titled Donnerstack's Blog, which made, I mean,
00:25:49everybody was talking about that in 2014. And they published one of the greatest bad reviews about
00:25:57a show in Friderziadum called Speculations on Anonymous Materials, and a couple of other brilliant
00:26:08anonymous reviews. And then they had a public performance, which was titled The Death of an Art
00:26:15Critic at the Kunsthalle Bern, where they talk about, yeah, that the idea was really behind Donnerstack's
00:26:22block to have to insist on the difference between good art and bad art. And it's sort of, and the love
00:26:31for that craft. And they say that it's far more dangerous and sort of authoritarian and anti-democratic
00:26:42to sort of deny the public the act of judgment. Essentially, they closed, they decided to stop it
00:26:50because, well, to quote him on that, he said they had the feeling that it made no difference
00:26:57beyond the sort of bubble that was, you know, excited and talking about it. But I think it filled a gap at
00:27:04that time. And I've been, I've been looking for a voice so nuanced, and also witty and fun, you know, ever since.
00:27:20Was he was his persona, like, was it revealed that it was him or he?
00:27:25Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's, he, they, when they did the performance day. Yeah, it was essentially two people.
00:27:36Tim?
00:27:37I say something just to depart and try to pick up on that a little bit, which I was excited to hear about.
00:27:44You know, this is going to be too brief, but I would be curious to compare tactics and voice when it
00:27:55comes to the anonymous and the, you know, signed, your review, as it were, at this juncture. And in
00:28:03that regard, I begin to, I'll just say, you know, to what degree are the actual movements and behaviors
00:28:10somewhat similar. And in that regard, and I know I'm saying this while parting, I'm tempted to dial
00:28:16out to your other political questions that aren't necessarily directly involved in the artistic field,
00:28:23you know, as such, where if you look at polemicists on the left and the right, who would also perhaps
00:28:33call themselves influencers, there's even been a kind of expression of jealousy, one or the other,
00:28:38regarding their relative success. So even though they have very different positions, the moves that
00:28:45they make in order to build followings, while ostensibly espousing a specific political position,
00:28:53you have a kind of mirroring, you know, that is unfolding. And so one wonders, and this is more of a
00:29:01question than an assertion, yet, to what extent, to what extent do we see a transition in terms of
00:29:09the posture of the critic, you know, themselves, in terms of not only voicing, you know, what language
00:29:17they use, but how that language, you know, then intersects with behavior in real space,
00:29:23which actually more in your point, you know, sort of the fact that there were performances around this,
00:29:27you know, also become, you're kind of interesting to me. And it becomes about building kinds of
00:29:32following. And the following is as important as the discursive field itself.
00:29:41With that, I'm going to depart, and I hope that's not, now you can totally trash what I said.
00:29:45Will do. Okay. Thanks for joining us, Tim. Thank you so much.
00:29:50Thank you. Bye-bye.
00:29:56I think, yeah, Maureen, if you want to pick up on that.
00:29:58I think sort of picking up on what Tim just said, in terms of thinking about performance or
00:30:06performativity, I was thinking about the Crit Club that was recently sort of founded in Berlin,
00:30:14which is sort of both an artwork and a performance by Cem A, which I came across first when he was an
00:30:22intern at Documenta 13 a couple of years ago. And he went on to sort of start the Crit Club, which is
00:30:30a sort of club where you come together on a stage and you debate a hypothetical and very unrealistic
00:30:41problem. And the sort of the exaggeration of the problem becomes, in a way, embodied by,
00:30:50could be two people or four. And then in the middle of each debate, there's an actual sport
00:30:55fight. So to the Crit Club I went, it was a boxing match. So people are like actually seriously
00:31:00boxing. And then 30 minutes of debating. And it's sort of, Cem said that in a sort of
00:31:09moment where the climate, where disagreement sort of increasingly feels risky, the Crit Club sort of
00:31:18creates a space for critical play. And I think that's, could be maybe an interesting model moving,
00:31:26moving forward. Yeah. We actually collaborated with them. We had a, like for our sports issue,
00:31:34I'm not sure if you've seen that. Or, yeah, that was American football in that case, like the sport.
00:31:40But yeah, I think this performative aspect is really interesting. And also when it comes, I mean,
00:31:46like the whole anonymity thing is also that has a tradition in art writing as well, right? If you,
00:31:52if we think about like, or the person, creating a perform, the persona that performs the critique,
00:31:58for example, in Tillman and Madame Realism, or like there's heaps of examples. And I think we talked
00:32:04about like these different approaches to criticism and to, to reviews in particular, where it becomes a
00:32:12bit more subjective in a sense that it feels to be inspired also by Orton's theory and like forms of
00:32:18writing that, that are popular or have been popular for a while. And yeah, I would just,
00:32:26I would like to ask you what you think of these different approaches and how you, I mean, what,
00:32:31what does a review have to deliver in terms of also objectivity and how playful can it be? And should it be maybe?
00:32:39Well, I started out with my personal criteria for what I thought I knew a review was, and,
00:32:48you know, having included 150 opinions on the matter, obviously, I had to expand my,
00:32:53my understanding. And, you know, one of my criterias, I would second you again, saying that,
00:32:59you know, a troll and a critic are separate things, just like criticism and hate are separate things.
00:33:04I would, I would very much like to keep that distinction. And, and sort of mainly to encourage
00:33:10people to, to appreciate the review, you know, the negative review. Otherwise, if it just blurs
00:33:16into hate, then obviously, it's not desirable, because, but, you know, having said that in the
00:33:21book, we accepted anything that artists decided was bad review for them. And we have a death threat,
00:33:27and they're an anonymous Twitter death threat. So, you know, I had to expand my notion of, of,
00:33:33of what a review can be today and accept that for a generation, this might be it, that's, that's might
00:33:40be the only feedback they get. And that's the tragedy of the situation. So, you know, I would
00:33:46really like to encourage the writing on, on whatever, you know, opinion, you know, that the substantial
00:33:53writing with a signature for me would be the way to go. And in parallel, and sturdy artists,
00:34:00you know, personalities that that are not, you know, children, you know, emotional babies,
00:34:06they need to be coddled, but they can handle criticism, and like substantial good criticism,
00:34:11and appreciate it as a part of the dialogue that they're in, by putting the work into public space.
00:34:16You know, I, I was teaching a class at the Royal, the RCA here in London, at the same time I was
00:34:24editing the book. And I was, I wanted to infuse my students with this idea and see what they,
00:34:29what they could make out of it. They haven't even started showing, they're very young,
00:34:33they're extremely fragile. And they're, they're very, very, very sort of beyond fragile of what I
00:34:39think my generation was when we started. But, you know, at the end of the semester, I had them write
00:34:44bad reviews of each other, you know, so everybody had to basically write a bad review of somebody
00:34:49else. And it was hilarious. And they were laughing. And they, you know, I could see their confidence
00:34:53growing in the process of being able to engage with criticism, you know, properly, and sort of
00:34:59formulate one argument. Why, why do you don't, what's wrong with this? The color is wrong. Fine.
00:35:06Great. You've formulated an argument, sign your name, thanks. But with it, with, you know,
00:35:12with online hate, I don't really know where, where to put it. But it's still in the book. So there you go.
00:35:23John, Lauren, something you want to add?
00:35:29Well, I guess I was just thinking about,
00:35:32there's been a kind of dialogue about the, the waning influence of art critics going on since
00:35:44at least the 1980s. I remember one time taking part in an October panel where, at that point,
00:35:53people were worried that the collectors were taking over and that the critics had no effect
00:35:59on the market. And I don't know if that's, you know, whether critics occupy an important position
00:36:10in the market or not is so important. And partly the way I think about the question too is
00:36:20is, from my side of it, when I'm, when I'm writing criticism, where I don't know everything ahead of time
00:36:31before I start writing. So the process of writing a review opens a workup to me and, and, you know,
00:36:41I remember more about something if I've written about it. I see things differently if I've written about it.
00:36:49So it's a, it's a transformative process. And I think that that's important,
00:36:58even if it's only the critic we're talking about, but usually there's, you know, some people who,
00:37:04who read it. And yeah, I don't know if, in terms of like what's going on with the market, I mean,
00:37:13right now the market seems to be very depressed for whatever reason, that there's not much art being
00:37:20bought and sold. So, you know, how do we square this question of influence from critics with,
00:37:29um, you know, fairly subdued market? Um, those are some thoughts I have on
00:37:35Yeah. Indeed. I think it's interesting what you say. It's true. I think like writing is a,
00:37:40such an important process because it's a way of like thinking through something that you
00:37:44haven't completely arrived at yet. So you're all process of, I mean, I think very few people,
00:37:50unless it's very a specific thing, know how they're going to end or conclude a review,
00:37:56an essay, a thought when they begin. One of the things even like in, in the lead up to this panel,
00:38:02that I was thinking a lot about is kind of the state of criticism, I guess, or when you have
00:38:08like these press texts for galleries that kind of get regurgitated in some form into this format of
00:38:14the review, right? So it's like those things are coextensive to one another, almost like you need
00:38:18one for the other, but they're both like beneficial to the gallery from a market perspective, because
00:38:24you can produce material then to show your collectors that also kind of can influence maybe
00:38:30someone's desire to buy work, etc. And then even ahead of this conversation, we were talking about
00:38:35magazines like Ursula, for example, that's done by Hauser & Wirth or like Gagosian Quarterly, these
00:38:40very obviously positive, I mean, I mean, it would be surprising if not, but these kind of like these
00:38:46forms of PR, let's call them that are that are extensions engines of these galleries that are quite
00:38:53fashionable to that are also, you know, they pay artists and writers quite well to be featured in
00:38:58their magazine. So it would be quite challenging to, if you were in a situation of financial
00:39:05precarity to say no, and also also what the conditions attached to your authorship there.
00:39:10So the conditions attached to writing for these kinds of magazines, put the idea of criticism
00:39:15into a funny place, you think, okay, do they want to know the full story of maybe some some of the
00:39:21real thinking behind if something is working or not? Or is there a space for that? Or is that the space
00:39:26for that? I would imagine none of those publications feature bad reviews.
00:39:37I would imagine not.
00:39:38I would like to come back to something that you said, John, with the like, the process of writing,
00:39:46which really helps you to really find out what you think about a certain show. And I think the process
00:39:52of editing plays a major part in that too. I mean, we, in our experience as editors of reviews,
00:39:58we are often in this position where you develop an argument together because there is none when the
00:40:05text arrives and you get the sense of, okay, I'm not exactly sure what this person is trying to
00:40:11communicate, but let's find out. And then this process starts together as a dialogue. And I think
00:40:17that's important. The dialogue aspect is super important, not only in writing the review, but
00:40:23also when it comes to the reception of reviews. And that was something that you mentioned, Alexandra,
00:40:28this dialogue, like between the students, for example, but then also, and I think that's a
00:40:33major difference. Like when we look at the online sphere and the legacy media that normally things
00:40:40happen in a certain context and there should be a dialogue. So the review is a starting point,
00:40:44and then it feeds into something else and it also builds on something. And that's maybe not there
00:40:51as much, or hopefully it will be at some point, but on the internet, it's different. No, I mean,
00:40:57I would say it's often, or in social media, for example, where you have these ratings, thumbs up,
00:41:04thumbs down, you don't have, there's no sense of, of community really, even though it's called social
00:41:11media. And you don't have this reverberance, which really means a lot in the, yeah, when you're
00:41:18writing reviews, or at least to me.
00:41:22I would also like to challenge the idea that criticism comes after the art, because, you know,
00:41:29it's easy to sit here, you know, at my age at this expert panel and be like, so well informed,
00:41:35we all have been through so much, and we've seen so much, and we have our language. But, you know,
00:41:39when I started, I walked into the School of Visual Arts, I got off a plane, walked,
00:41:44arrived to New York City, walked into the School of Visual Arts in 1989. I didn't know what contemporary
00:41:49art was, I had been interested in graphic art, and I was thinking of becoming a graphic designer,
00:41:55I had seen the Impressionists in Paris, and I walked into this world that would become my world,
00:42:00you know, but I didn't know, I know at that point that I would become an artist, or I didn't have a
00:42:05language or even information to think about art. And the first thing that met me in the lobby of the
00:42:11school was a stand of Village Voice, free Village Voices, to the students. Every single week, I could
00:42:16pick up this newspaper, and there would be a full page of criticism, and there would be film criticism,
00:42:24and there would be art criticism, and lots of other stuff that I could read freely. And Amy Taubin was
00:42:31writing about avant-garde cinema, and she was also my teacher in the same school. And Jay Hoberman was
00:42:37writing about film. Peter Shadal, an incredibly beautiful critic, was writing about art. And so,
00:42:44as a young student, I learned to talk about art by these people, by the critics. And the critics
00:42:50educated me into how to think, and, you know, slowly you would go into exhibitions, and go to openings,
00:42:56and you start to have conversations with your peer, and you would use their, literally, you would start
00:43:01to sample them, you know, in your opinion making, and you grow like that. And I'm very, very grateful
00:43:06that I had them as my sort of mentors, instructors, in a way, to say, this is an area that we behave like
00:43:13this, and we talk like this, and we can disagree, but these are the words and concepts that we use.
00:43:19I don't know what a student today, you know, starting off on social media, how they would
00:43:24formulate a process like that today. It's lost on me. I'm too old for that. But I'm really,
00:43:31really grateful that I had it. And so I think criticism is extremely important, because it's
00:43:37a conversation about the thing that we can't really talk about. And somebody's made effort to tell us how
00:43:42we can use language. And that can be, you know, that can be multiplied, and conveyed. And so I would,
00:43:50you know, I feel that critics are our endangered species today, the ones that make the effort,
00:43:55and have the space.
00:43:57Coming back also to what you were mentioning, do you think, do you think it's true that reviews of
00:44:03all kinds, even though they respond to, let's say, an exhibition, a text, whatever, that they are
00:44:08fundamentally, like, in-of-themselves monologues? So they respond to something, but then they're ends
00:44:13within themselves. Or do you see them, or can they be a way where a review, let's say, is, like,
00:44:19is sort of, like, lobbed back to the reviewer? Do you know what I mean? Where somebody gets to respond
00:44:24to something that's, that is said, let's say it's negative, let's say, let's say it's more likely
00:44:28negative than positive, because people very rarely respond to compliments in a long-form way.
00:44:34But I was thinking kind of about, recently, about different publications, also these, like, letters,
00:44:39you know, the letters to the editor section, which can be quite interesting in magazines. They provide
00:44:43this opportunity for people to, people, but also writers themselves, to respond to what's been written
00:44:48about something, to also correct a record if they feel like it's wrong. I mean, the readership of those
00:44:53things maybe is, you know, high or low, I couldn't say, but I thought that that format, like, that way
00:44:58of kind of, like, eventually being able to kind of, like, serve the ball back, also is kind of special
00:45:04somehow, but, like, it keeps something in motion. It's not about ending something, it's about continuing
00:45:09a conversation. So then, with the bad review, or even this kind of, like, you know, these mic drops,
00:45:14even these, you know, recent reviews of certain things which are negative, feel like they can,
00:45:18they're ending somehow, to me. I don't know how you see it.
00:45:23Well, this is kind of a historical example, but I don't know if anyone's familiar with the book
00:45:30Challenging Art by Amy Newman, and it's a oral history of Art Forum, but she talks about how
00:45:41Art Forum was a kind of bastion of Greenbergian aesthetics, and how Robert Smithson
00:45:49basically took over the magazine and changed its orientation to, you know, a more postmodern outlook,
00:46:00and that principally happened when Smithson responded through, he published a series of essays, but he also
00:46:13specifically responded to Michael Freed's Art and Objecthood, where he just trashed Freed, and
00:46:23eventually won out, but it was really like a, you know, a battle of wills, and
00:46:27I don't know if something would, you know, unfold like that now, because it was maybe like the, what
00:46:38allowed something like that to happen was like the simplicity of Greenberg's argument allowed it to
00:46:44function as an armature for debate or something.
00:46:46Yeah, also I think this idea sometimes in modernism that, you know, you have to fundamentally prove
00:46:55everybody else but yourself right, like, you know, the project is that you are correct, and logic and
00:47:00reason will be the bastions that kind of like bring you there, fundamentally, so then everybody else will
00:47:05agree with you, because, of course, your project is correct.
00:47:09Sorry, I've got to move. I've got a low battery. I mean, I always saw the review as a starting point
00:47:25for a conversation, because, you know, it's published, so a lot of people can read it and
00:47:31then take that review into the public space and discuss it with each other, you know, so it was like
00:47:38a rink's on the water. An impactful review would have, you know, an impact in the community, and
00:47:47people would take the conversation wherever they wanted to take it, but that's how I always saw the
00:47:53review as the beginning of something that can be expanded upon and disagreed upon, whatever, it doesn't
00:47:57matter. What matters is that it's, it starts conversations.
00:48:03Well, I would like to respond to that, because I think in an ideal world it does, but whenever I have
00:48:10taught in the last years, I've been sort of uncannily reminded of the conflict is not abuse slogan by
00:48:20Sarah Schumann, and I look at, or the debates I'm having with the students is very much informed by the
00:48:28idea that any sort of conflict at this point is abuse, and that there's very little space and
00:48:34capacity to hold moments of complexity, ambiguity, and nuanced opinions. When you told the example about
00:48:44having your students write bad reviews, I'm like, that's an, yeah, that's such a good idea,
00:48:48um, and I'm, um, kudos to you that you were able to sort of both initiate and then hold the space for
00:48:56that to happen, um, and everything it sort of brings up, but I think, um, in the times that we're living in,
00:49:02um, we're both sort of, um, primed for conflict, um, and we're not, not sort of, um, ready to,
00:49:14to hold the space to actually have these conversations offline in a space. We're definitely,
00:49:21um, uh, Stefan Zillig said this when we were talking over the phone, he was like,
00:49:26we scream more, we don't debate more, um, and, um, that sort of stayed with me.
00:49:36Yeah, I agree. And I think, yeah, Alexandra, the way that you work with your students with the
00:49:41bad reviews, I really, I love it. And I would be curious if this could, like, many people should
00:49:47pick up on that because it's really such an important skill. Also in the editorial process,
00:49:52I think, for authors who are writing these reviews, like, even there you get to, or I have
00:49:58the sense that it gets difficult to criticize or to ask people to really develop their argument
00:50:06because even they feel offended oftentimes. It's really hard to, to, like, the editorial,
00:50:12editorial process should be something that, and most people appreciate it, but it's getting,
00:50:17like, so rare that people really make the effort in, in magazines or there's not the capacity to do it.
00:50:26Um, that you take, like, all these rounds and, and really, yeah, dig into it and see what,
00:50:32is it really tenable what you're saying? And then, like, this process ought to, to really appreciate
00:50:38that instead of being like, okay, no, I want to get this off my table and that's it. I think this
00:50:43is also something that, uh, yeah, is super important when it comes to reviewing, like, questioning your
00:50:48own argument in the process and having, have it being questioned by others and to work with it
00:50:54in a productive way.
00:50:55We, we had an interesting phenomena in the editorial process of the book because, you know, some,
00:51:02a lot of people sent us many reviews. They were like, okay, here's, here's my whole folder.
00:51:06Choose what you want. Or here's one. I have more. Or we would go out and research once they said,
00:51:11yes, I want to be in this book. So we would come back and dig things out. And, uh, I think we have
00:51:16ten contributions by, uh, from artists that were criticized by Roberta Smith negatively.
00:51:23And, um, they all wanted hers. And we were like, okay, this is like creating a weird imbalance in
00:51:29the book because it was so much of Roberta Smith. It's like, but no, I mean, we try, so do you have
00:51:35another one? Can you, no, I want hers because they really trusted her in her opinion, in her negative
00:51:44opinion of them. And there was probably a bit of prestige in that as well. And the quality of it,
00:51:48it, you know, everything was great. So I think you have to decide, are you going to work on
00:51:53elevating the standard of, of criticism and of artists being handled criticism and create these
00:52:00sturdy personalities that can handle debate? Or are you going to go down, you know, and meet
00:52:06people at the lowest denominator where everybody's just like careful and offended. And, uh, you know,
00:52:12I don't want to go down that route because it's boring. So, you know, for my five cents worth that
00:52:18I can do, if I have a semester with students and I can prime them to trust me and they know each
00:52:24other and they know they're going to see each other in the school yard next day, at the very
00:52:28least we can go through a process together of growing. And at the end they can sort of have a
00:52:33laugh and go for a drink and be like, yeah, we can still be friends. You know, even if you don't like
00:52:37my sculpture, it's not the end of the world, you know, it's a conversation. And, um, so, you know,
00:52:44that's for everyone to decide what side, you know, where do you want to take it?
00:52:48Yeah. I mean, it's interesting too, to me, because we, we, you know, we use the word like
00:52:52reviews, bad reviews, but we also kind of somehow, as you were saying, speak about how we speak to one
00:52:57another in community about what each other is doing and the fragilities around that, the fragilities
00:53:02around the community, around our like sense of participating, belonging in a community, participating
00:53:06in a community. But it's this kind of interesting, but necessary ecosystem that also, especially when
00:53:13it's done right, let's say, whatever that looks like. But when it's done, I think with the degree of,
00:53:17I would call it like integrity. So it's interesting to me that, you know, these artists see Roberta
00:53:21Smith as a figure of integrity, because she was sort of given, or she was, her platform for,
00:53:26for many years as a staff writer was one of integrity. I'm sure in a way to have your,
00:53:31to have even your work looked at by such a figure was something to begin with, because it said that
00:53:35it was being dealt with in a way that was serious, that was, you know, that, that wasn't compromising,
00:53:40shall we say. And that also wasn't compromised somehow by social structures, by, you know,
00:53:45these kind of like infrastructures of, I liked actually the way, I can't remember in the round
00:53:50table who said it, but actually it's on the round table. It's in the, it's in the, it's in the piece
00:53:55after the round table, but talking about the art world as like a contact space, like, which is just
00:54:00to say like social, we're all, you know, it's, it's a very specific kind of, kind of infrastructure.
00:54:05And it also sort of leads me to this one kind of more, let's call it like 19th century, but like
00:54:12this, this one development in the review that has been kind of quite salacious, also like a bit
00:54:18seducing somehow is also how gossip has made a way into this format. So like this way in which,
00:54:25like, you know, I don't know how it is for you, but when I read something that's like, like, it's a bit
00:54:3019th century social reportage, shall we say, like, you kind of get this sense that you're reading
00:54:35something that's a bit scathing, the like hairs on your neck stand up, you read it so fast because
00:54:39you're able to process information because there's a kind of like entertainment that's going on in the
00:54:44review too, which maybe isn't the point, but it's an interesting kind of new, I would almost say new-ish
00:54:50development of some bad reviews nowadays. Like you're kind of waiting to watch somebody say
00:54:56something that might be kind of mean and you're also participating somehow in that economy,
00:55:01um, for whatever reason, good, bad, beyond the comfort. But do you think it's new? I'm not sure.
00:55:06Maybe it's not new. I mean, especially like the early ones in your book, Alexandra, I think there's nasty
00:55:11stuff and there's a bit, yeah, gossip is going on there and it's really entertaining. And I think it's,
00:55:17uh, I don't really think it changed so much over time. I'm not sure. It's just, this is my impression,
00:55:25Robin. Um, well, I think my at least favorite sort of gossipy, um, art critique, um, texts are
00:55:36actually historical ones. When I think about like Vasari's anecdotes or even like Peggy Guggenheim's,
00:55:43um, confession of an art addict, um, sort of realize that, realizing that it's always been there,
00:55:49it's just very rarely, um, archived because most of it is, um, by the very nature of it is ephemeral.
00:55:57No, it circulates quickly and then also sort of fades just as fast. Um, and it doesn't create a
00:56:04sort of, or it rarely creates a sort of sustained, um, discourse or a canon. Um, and I think that's what
00:56:12makes the book, um, even more important, um, because, yeah, because of that nature, no? Um,
00:56:22and I also think in a way sort of contradict what I just said is that, um, gossip, at least in my
00:56:29experience of it, um, is that it obviously also creates a sort of counter archive, um, which has been,
00:56:37um, when we've been working, uh, towards the 200 years anniversary of the Kunstverein München
00:56:44in 2023, it's been the most valuable source of information, uh, is going back and talking with
00:56:52people about everything that they never wrote down or were maybe too afraid to ask, not included,
00:56:59edited, or everything that's, um, literally happening in the footnotes. Um, the alliances,
00:57:05the hostilities and, um, the economies of, um, of institution making in history. Um, yeah.
00:57:14Yeah. When it comes to the archive aspect, I think, um, somebody mentioned the Village Voice,
00:57:20for example. I think, uh, reviews in themselves are also, like, there's, like, marginalized practices
00:57:26that have been talked about or discussed in reviews and nowhere else because there were no catalogues,
00:57:32no expensive publications for them. But then there's, like, certain publications who did review
00:57:38these shows. And so also from an archival perspective, it's really, it's really important to have these
00:57:45old reviews now because nobody else really cared to, to deal with certain shows at the, at the time.
00:57:52Right. Also, I think there's a great example, I think. Sorry. Sorry. I just wanted to add that
00:58:00Village Voice is a great example, especially when it comes to queer culture and lots of artists.
00:58:05Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. And, and also, like, with the country in Munich and the Village Voice,
00:58:12those are both, um, sort of localized scenarios, you know, and a particular discourse can happen on that very
00:58:19immediate level. And one thing I think about is, um, I haven't written so many negative reviews lately.
00:58:28And, um, one, I think one reason is the inevitable globalization of the art world and how do you,
00:58:38you know, there's not, like, the same, uh, local focus, you know, that's being kind of, um,
00:58:46just, I don't know if dispersed is the right word, but it's, it's networked into, you know,
00:58:52a much larger, um, system than it ever has had been before. And, you know, there's no going back.
00:59:00That's, that's the way things are going to be going forward. You know, and how do you, how do you deal
00:59:05with that critically? You know, and I feel like I'm often confronted with that phenomenon, especially with
00:59:14big shows like Documenta or the Berlin Biennial where, um, you know, some of the, or with many
00:59:21of the artists, I don't have much of a cultural context for their work. Many of the artists are,
00:59:27uh, victims of colonialism. Um, and then, um, you know, I, I feel not so qualified to evaluate that.
00:59:37And, and, and then also on top of that, many of these artists, it may be the only time I ever see
00:59:44their work and then they'll disappear. And, you know, so how, how do you orient yourself to that?
00:59:50Um, the other thing that, um, I think has changed is earlier on, I would, um, judge everything
01:00:01against the standard of conceptual art. Uh, but then with conceptualism, as time goes on,
01:00:07it becomes more and more kind of academic category. And, um, I often think of, um, Dan
01:00:14Graham in that respect, because after a certain point, uh, he refused the description conceptualist.
01:00:23And at first I thought he was joking. He just said, all my work has always been about comedy.
01:00:27Um, and, um, and, but he was really like trying to keep the conceptualist kind of academicism away.
01:00:37And looking back at his work done, it, you know, it wasn't just like an idle claim,
01:00:42um, you know, a piece like performer audience mirror, it's a very dry form of standup or something.
01:00:48But, um, but anyway, those, those are like factors that I I'm dealing with. Like, I don't feel now that,
01:00:56um, I want to apply the standards of conceptual art to everything I might review. Um, I don't think
01:01:05it makes sense the way that I want that once did when it was more of a kind of emergent, uh, practice.
01:01:13Maybe that's in a way, um, sort of when you, John spoke about the sort of limits in knowledge or, um, limits
01:01:30in knowledge, um, around the background of the artists. Um, I was thinking about the recently
01:01:36published review of the Berlin Biennial, um, by Pablo Larios, um, that's both witty, sharp, uh,
01:01:45incredible informed, as well as pointing out the limits in his own knowledge while, um, doing something
01:01:54that I felt deeply appreciative of, which is organizing knowledge, structuring discourse,
01:02:01and also clarifying certain political shifts. Um, and he sort of very critically examines, uh,
01:02:09the overwhelming density of trauma, uh, trauma representation as part of that biennial,
01:02:15while at the same time, um, sort of rejecting, um, the sort of Dean Kissick argument of conservatism,
01:02:27um, um, this conservative backlash, I would say. And, um, I'm so thankful when people still take on
01:02:37the task of trying to think through a show like that while making us aware of the limits of what they
01:02:47maybe do not feel, um, capable, um, capable talking about, but still sort of still taking it on.
01:03:05Yeah, I think in the roundtable conversation of Texarkoons for reviews, this was a major question,
01:03:11it seemed like, this idea of who gets to speak about what, what art, basically, who gets to review,
01:03:17who is able to, what are the politics of this kind of presumption that came about
01:03:21at some point, not so long ago, several years ago, but that certain kinds of experience have to be
01:03:27depicted, have to be reviewed, have to be thought, thought of, thought, thought through by individuals
01:03:33who have similar experiences. Then this kind of, the politics that arises with this kind of way of
01:03:38thinking about art in, in also environments like the Berlin Biennial, which then is also, is already kind
01:03:45of a, you know, uh, not an isolated, but like a separate context from where perhaps the beginnings of
01:03:52those practices, ideas, et cetera, come from.
01:03:59Yeah, I think it, oh, Alexandra. I, I wanted to say we have translations from 14 languages in our book,
01:04:06that's why it took seven years to make it, but I was very, very serious because I have a transnational
01:04:12kind of life. I didn't want it just to be in New York because there's, there's a lot of resources in
01:04:17New York and everybody comes to New York and everything's happens in New York still, I think.
01:04:22And, uh, it was very important to me to, to try to reach other places. Now, you know, even there's,
01:04:28there's a huge limitation of, in my network, of course, but yes, we have 14 languages and we're proud of that.
01:04:35And so in a way reflective of 14 different art scenes, local art scenes, there's a great segment
01:04:40on Icelandic art where the critic is like trashing the scene more than an artist is like, you know,
01:04:46why does everything has to be so fucking cute in Iceland? You know, that's his problem, you know,
01:04:50it's not serious enough for him. And this, this is where the anthropologist in me wakes up because
01:04:56I'm really interested in hearing the kind of in between the line arguments that people are making,
01:05:02not necessarily about an artist or, or a piece of art, but about their reality and the bigger
01:05:09reality, you know, that they're in, whether that's capitalism or if it's this like Icelandic geography,
01:05:15you know, that makes everybody like relatives and, and you kind of have to be nice, you know,
01:05:20so nobody can be critical because that's their neighbor. I don't know what the reason was for
01:05:24that, but I'm just speculating. And I think when you start comparing, you know,
01:05:29these different cultural contexts, you, then you see your own. That's the point, really,
01:05:34that you start to see your own biases and the world you're in. And so, yeah, I, I'm all for the
01:05:41local, especially somebody else's local. That's, that's really interesting to me.
01:05:46And I think such considerations are maybe like an upside or the positive effect of if we say we have less
01:05:54bad reviews or less harsh value judgments or negative value judgments, maybe that's the good
01:06:00side of it that we are maybe a bit more considerate when it comes to different social contexts to local
01:06:06contexts. And we are a bit more careful to, to come up with the absolute judgment, which, yeah,
01:06:16if, if we want to see it that way. So maybe it's the flip side of this, um, over carefulness that,
01:06:25that is happening a lot, because also because of, um, if I can say that too, the, um, fear of being
01:06:32cancelled out online, which also plays a big role, I think, but it's still important to, to be able to
01:06:39discuss these things and with care though. Um, in the preparation for, um, today, I reread, um, this text
01:06:51by Eddie Frankel, um, have pain, trauma and politics silenced art criticism, which I think also mentions
01:06:58the bad review. Um, and he writes, and I'm, I'm just gonna quickly quote him on that, um, quote,
01:07:07this creates what I call the tyranny of context. We've ushered in a kind of figurative moralism,
01:07:15where to agree with an artwork's politics and empathize with the artist's circumstance is to be
01:07:21good, while to question or even merely overlook this personal context is to be bad. It's not a
01:07:27meaningful way of engaging with art. It's self-centered, self-agricedizing, self-defensive
01:07:33way of using art to tell the world you're not a bad person. And I thought that was a kind of
01:07:39interesting, um, description of the state of critique today. Yeah, it kind of interfaces with
01:07:46this question or this kind of word that a bunch of, that several of you have mentioned, but like
01:07:50nuance and complexity, you know, this, this real question of this fabric of complexity that's, yeah,
01:07:55neither good or bad, but, uh, as a shape that also requires specific kind of tools, I think,
01:08:01to navigate in ways that are kind and caring, but still critical, still curious, I think.
01:08:10Yeah. Oh, no, sorry, John. Oh, go ahead. No, I just wanted to say, like, I've been, um,
01:08:18I've been, um, I mean, up until like, I think the late nineties, the art form had like a
01:08:25best and the worst section, you know, and then they cut out the worst section. And I think that's,
01:08:29uh, it's, uh, it's a shame. I'm all, I'm all here for the worst of them all and the best of
01:08:35everything. Yeah, but it's also super symptomatic, like, for everything that we said, no?
01:08:44Yeah, I just wanted to, picking up on the idea of nuance, thinking about models for criticism and, um,
01:08:50um, one, um, one model that I like is something proposed by Pierre Machere, who wrote theory of
01:09:00literary production. And he talked about, um, the intentionalist fallacy, which is reducing
01:09:08the meaning of an artwork to the artist's intentions versus, um, the prescriptive fallacy,
01:09:17reducing the artwork to the critics, uh, intentions. And, and I think that that, um, throws it out to
01:09:24kind of like a more, a larger, more discursive model, like John Dewey's distinction between the
01:09:32art object and the artwork, where the artwork includes the collective process of reception.
01:09:40So, um, I think the challenge is to write from that standpoint, that realizing that it's
01:09:48not just you, the critic, or you, the artist, but also people more broadly who, uh, look at the artwork.
01:09:59In other words, don't take it personally.
01:10:01It's not about you, even if it's your name on it, it's not about you. You know, I think that's a
01:10:08good lesson.
01:10:10It makes me think of this, uh, Taylor Swift song. Say it's not about me, but what if it is?
01:10:18There you go.
01:10:19There you go.
01:10:19There you go.
01:10:20Way 25 motto, I think.
01:10:23But that is a very interesting distinction, because to be honest, the people are in our
01:10:27book and the people are not in our book. They fall either in one or the other camps.
01:10:32There are people who can handle it not being about them. And then there are people who are so
01:10:37hurt, offended, upset that they can never separate themselves from the written word about them.
01:10:42So, yeah, I think I appreciate that. You're not a bad person. Great quote.
01:10:49You're a bad artist, but not a bad person.
01:10:52Next time, try art, John.
01:10:58Maybe this is also a nice way to end this, or is there anything else you would like to add?
01:11:05Because we're over an hour.
01:11:09I've said my piece.
01:11:12I guess my, maybe my final question would be, do you have advice for, uh, bad review writers and
01:11:22bad review receivers? Finally, to people on both ends of the room.
01:11:28Yeah, I have to move again. Sorry.
01:11:33I don't think I have particular advice, but just to, um,
01:11:37um, to be engaged and to, um, yeah.
01:11:47Maybe for the receivers already, we, it's been mentioned, don't take it personally. Yeah, I guess.
01:11:53Yeah.
01:11:53And, uh, cope with the complexity, maybe, also.
01:11:59Yeah, or maybe to think about it as a dialogue, like, don't think, like,
01:12:03that the publication of a review marks an end of discussion or something.
01:12:07I can speak for the senior, uh, contributors in our book. We have artists that have been working for
01:12:14many decades and they wear their worst reviews, like war medals, badges of honor. Look what I
01:12:22survived. Look how hard it was for us. And we did it still. I mean, any artist that stops making art
01:12:29because of criticism probably wasn't very convinced about the work in the first place. So, you know,
01:12:34an art career is not a Broadway show.
01:12:37Well said. Well said. And also, especially in our attention economy now, it's just,
01:12:43it's so valuable to have somebody actually review your show, as Marvin said in the beginning.
01:12:49It's really the worst thing that can happen is that nobody cares.
01:12:52Exactly.
01:12:53Yeah.
01:12:54Well, Oscar Wilde said major criticism by the inch, right? So.
01:13:01By the inch?
01:13:02Yeah.
01:13:03Nice. Super. Well, thank you so much, uh, for this really thoughtful, fun, interesting,
01:13:12comedic discussion. Really appreciate it. And in your time as well.
01:13:17Yeah. Thanks a lot.
01:13:18Thanks for inviting us.
01:13:20Hey, Sheila. Thank you, Anna, for hosting and bringing us together.
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