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Re: [BKARTS] Artistsbooks Online
Dear Judy,
I'm sorry that you took my criticism of the state of artist books
personally. It wasn't aimed at your site, your collection (and
certainly not you). Just seeing the THEMES listed on
artistsbooks.slq.qld.gov.au really hit home for me - and got me to
express my frustrations for artist books in general - ie: "sadly
telling of the book arts world." I think it's very nice that you have a
collection, a site and are interested in the education. My "somewhat
negative comments" (what ever happened to ART CRITICISM?) were
reflective of the state of what is produced my most of the book artists
that I have seen the last 12 years that I have been taking the medium
seriously. Maybe I was just raised in a world of MTV quick-cut editing
and bright and shiny colors, but in art - I want something NEW.
Something exciting, something that I haven't seen before and will make
me think about things differently. Michael Andrews' point is well taken
(by me), "A clever binding utilizing a passport that refers to
immigration issues is not a substitute for dealing with the issue."
I think it would be useful for book artists and other members of this
list to read the critic Jerry Saltz's excellent column on art ciritcism
(from this month - bold emphasis is mine) :
SEEING OUT LOUD
by Jerry Saltz
This month is my seven-year anniversary at the Village Voice, so I
thought I'd use Frieze magazine's recent queries to me about the
"de-skilling of art criticism" and "our post-critical era" as a way to
write about what I think I'm trying to do here. First, I fretted I was
the kind of "de-skilled" critic Frieze was referring to. I have no
degrees. I started out as an artist, stopped painting, and became a
long-distance truck driver. My CB handle was "the Jewish Cowboy":
Shalom, partner. I didn't begin writing criticism until I was almost
40. All I knew was I loved art and had to be in the art world. The
truth is, I wasn't sure what Frieze meant by "de-skilled." It sounded
vaguely bad. But to me de-skilled means unlearning other people's ideas
of skill. All great contemporary artists, schooled or not, are
essentially self-taught and are de-skilling like crazy. I don't look
for skill in art; I look for originality, surprise, obsession, energy,
experimentation, something visionary, and a willingness to embarrass
oneself in public. Skill has nothing to do with technical proficiency;
it has to do with being flexible and creative. I'm interested in people
who rethink skill, who redefine or reimagine it: an engineer, say, who
builds rockets from rocks.
The best critics look for the same things in contemporary criticism
that they look for in contemporary art. But they also have an eye.
Having an eye in criticism is as important as having an ear in music.
It means discerning the original from the derivative, the inspired from
the smart, the remarkable from the common, and not looking at art in
narrow, academic, or "objective" ways. It means engaging uncertainty
and contingency, suspending disbelief and trying to create a place for
doubt, unpredictability, curiosity and openness.
Dishearteningly, many critics have ideas but no eye. They rarely work
outside their comfort zone, are always trying to reign art in, turn it
into a seminar or a clique, or write cerebral, unreadable texts on
mediocre work. There's nothing wrong with writing about weak art as
long as you acknowledge the work's shortcomings. Seeing as much art as
you can is how you learn to see. Listening very carefully to how you
see, gauging the levels of perception, perplexity, conjecture,
emotional and intellectual response, and psychic effect, is how you
learn to see better.
Art is a way of thinking, a way of knowing yourself. Opinions are tools
for listening in on your thinking and expanding consciousness. Many
writers treat the juiciest part of criticism, judgment, as if it were
tainted or beneath them. The most interesting critics make their
opinions known. Yet in most reviews there's no way to know what the
writer thinks, or you have to scour the second-to-last paragraph for
one negative adjective to detect a hint of disinclination. This is
no-risk non-criticism. Being "post-critical" isn't possible. Everyone
is judging all the time. Critics who tell you they're not judging or
that they're being objective are either lying or delusional. Being
critical of art is a way of showing it respect. Being subjective is
being human.
Yet people regularly say, "You shouldn't write on things you don't
like." This breaks my heart. No one says this to theater critics, film
reviewers, restaurant critics, or sports writers. No one says, "Just
say all the food was good." Nowadays, many see criticism mainly as a
sales tool or a rah-rah device. Too many critics enthuse over
everything they see or merely write descriptively. This sells everyone
short and is creating a real disconnect. People report not liking 80
percent of the shows they see, yet 80 percent of reviews are positive
or just descriptive.
Obviously, critics can't just hysterically love or hate things, or
assert that certain types of art or media are inherently bad (e.g., no
one has actually believed that painting is dead since the Nixon
administration, yet writers regularly beat this dead horse). Critics
must connect their opinions to a larger set of circumstances; present
cogent arguments; show how work does or doesn't seem relevant, is or
isn't derivative; explain why an artist is or isn't growing. As with
Melville's ideas about art, criticism should have: "Humility -- yet
pride and scorn/Instinct and study; love and hate/Audacity and
reverence." Good criticism should be vulnerable, chancy, candid, and
nervy. It should give permission, have attitude, maybe a touch of
rebellion, never be sanctimonious or dull, and be written in a
distinctive, readable way. Good critics should be willing to go on
intuition and be unafraid to write from parts of themselves they don't
really know they have.
If criticism is in trouble, as many say, it's because too many critics
write in a dreary hip metaphysical jargon that no one understands
except other dreary hip metaphysicians who speak this dead language.
They praise everything they see, or only describe. These critics are
like the pet owner who sews up the cat to stop it from fouling the
sofa: Tbhey keep the couch clean but kill the cat.
©2005 Jerry Salt/ Village Voice
Best-
-Scott
On Dec 31, 2005, at 8:46 PM, Judy & Jim Barrass wrote:
Scott Teplin wrote:
I'm just saddened that most of the time, when I see a book arts show -
its with artists
books that are so painfully lacking in ideas.......
Having brought the artistsbooks online site to the attention of the
list I feel I must reply to Scotts's somewhat negative comments:.
The State Libarary of Queensland has been a leader in collecting and
promoting the genre of artist books in Australia and has contributed
much to make a place for artist books within what Scott refers to as
the 'established art world'. As a major step in this direction
earlier this year, to celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage in
Queensland, the library commissioned a number of Queensland artists
to produce artist books for its collection. The somewhat controversial
results of that commissioning process were certainly not 'painfully
lacking in ideas'. In Australia the artist book field has not been so
dominated by explorations of the book form as it has recently in the
US - printmaking has played a large part in its development, as has
the involvement of many recognised artists from other genres and some
of our major teaching institutions
Having seen a small part of the over 500 books in the SLQ collection I
can assure Scott that the books in this important collection are not
lacking in content or ideas. Nor are they intended for a limited
audience of the intitiated. The SLQ plays an important role, not only
in collecting the work of artists and promoting artist books to the
art world, but also in making art accessible to all through its
collection. The website is evdience that the library is interested in
working at grass roots level within the education system to have
quality artist books units included in the school curriculum, and it
seems this is the major goal in the artistsbooks online project:
" which is designed to closely link to the school curriculum and
promote artists books as a valuable learning resource for teachers and
students throughout Queensland. The Artists’ books in the State
Library’s collection have always been popular for tours by student
groups and our digitisation project is a great way to give rural and
regional students access to this wonderful collection."
The website is very new, and some fine tuning may be necessary, but I
do think congratulations are more appropriate than criticism.
Regards
Judy Barrass
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Scott Teplin
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For all your subscription questions, go to the
Book_Arts-L FAQ and Archive.
See <http://www.philobiblon.com> for full information
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