On Writing About Art

What gives someone the right to judge another person’s work? In Philip Weissman’s 1962 “The Psychology of the Critic and Psychological Criticism”, Weissman differentiates the role of an art historian with an art critic by differentiating knowledge from judgement. As someone with perfectionistic tendencies, I have undergone years of therapy to understand my highly critical voice which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, if I stand in front of the classroom and use the word “treatise” rather than “theses” referring to Martin Luthers’ 95 Theses (this actually happened), I will deem myself stupid for days afterwards. On the other hand, this highly critical voice allows me to see intense beauty in unexpected places. I see the broken system of a technologically-addicted world where money and time are scarce when I walk through Town Hall station in Sydney’s CBD. I see people’s eyes glued downwards to their smartphones, Apple Headphones in, consuming a second reality and sidestepping the 20-something year old that has overdosed on the station stairs. This critical voice of mine is a powerful tool which can be used both for and against me. Recently it has come to my attention that if I do not exercise this blessing (and curse), my inner-critic will come out in twisted ways. It has always been necessary for me to express myself, whether that was through writing, art or movement - and as I enter into my working life as a Visual Arts Teacher I realised I wanted to formalise this expressive process.

But the last thing I wanted to do was describe myself as an art critic. As a teacher, criticism is a daily part of life. When rapport and trust is built with students, criticism can be what closes the gaps in learning and when delivered constructively, can increase motivation (especially when it is paired with evidence-based practices such as goal-setting). In saying that, criticism can also be weaponised. Anyone who claims to be a “critic” immediately places themselves in a position of power. I could not imagine how anxiety-inducing it would be for a critic to read my work or evaluate my artworks, and for this judgement to be shared with the world thereafter. I do not think highly of people who leverage their power to ego-centrically assert some kind of dominance. Power, harnessed humbly and in the arms of wisdom, however, is a different story. Considering the pillars of my existence based on Galatians 5:22-23 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control), I held off from writing about art consistently on a public platform for many years because I struggled to reconcile my values with the dynamics of power that come with the act of criticising art. Who was I to judge an artist’s work and what would the social consequences of doing so be? Would I have to put in certain parameters such as refusing to write about works of my artist-friends in order to stay impartial and also maintain healthy relationships? Again, that age-old question of can I separate the art from the artist arises. Yet as ChatGPT becomes the all-time writer of the 21st-century I began to recognise the high value of arts writing in this day and age. Both art criticism and art history require a level of interpretation (despite the objective stance art history is ought to take), and without lived human experience, interpretation remains shallow and lacking in perception. A GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) is fantastic at spitting out information, but it is yet to contribute meaningfully to cultural conversations because it lacks the very thing that makes meaning in the first place; relationships. Anyone who has solo travelled knows that as much as landmarks and scenery can be impactful on our psyche, the memories that stay with us almost always have a relational quality to them. Arts writers don’t just look at a work and describe it, they experience the artwork relationally, considering its medium, context, the creator and the audience. This is reminiscent of Nicolas Bourriad’s theory of Relational Aesthetics (1998) which recognises art as a social act. Personally I believe that art cannot be separated from the systems which surround it. In conversation with my artist-friend Mason, we mused over if a painting has not been seen by anyone other than the creator, does the painting exist at all? If the work exists in a vacuum, does it still have value as an object of creation? All that to say, I have come to the realisation that arts writing is an important part of the artworld. It has become of such high value to me that I am willing and wanting to write more publicly about art in my spare time (paid or unpaid). It is important to have people in society to engage with art in meaningful and (I daresay) critical ways, rather than blindly consuming the next image that is placed in front of them.

To conclude this piece, I will come back to my initial proposition: What gives someone the right to judge another person’s work? Perhaps it is simply the desire to contribute that is enough to qualify someone to judge an artwork. When I heard the word “critic”, I always think of that skinny-beady-eyed-black-turtleneck-wearing food critic from Ratatouille. He says that “the life of an art critic is easy…. we risk very little… but the truth is that the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.” To all the artists that I will inevitably judge, please know that at the bottom of my heart is a deep respect for your devotion to making. My criticism is simply a recorded response- a living proof - that your art shaped the culture of the time.