Monday, February 28, 2011

Two Points that I Neglected to Mention Re: Art Critique

Hello, all. I hope that we enjoyed moving and shaking today as we reflected upon the borders of our critical and evaluative practices. A couple points that I wanted to bring up:

1. We did not discuss paradigm shifts in art practice. This is an aspect of social and institutional critique: sometimes, formerly-effective art practices no longer 'work' for audiences in the same ways. Ideas and methods of presentation become dated, and new methods are developed. At other moments, 'old' ideas and methods are reintroduced to 'new' publics. Why? I think that these trends are important to observe as keys to the large-scale issues and concerns affecting populations at a certain time and place.

2. In addition to Sara's excellent point about geographic and temporal changes in conceptions of what constitutes 'art,' we should acknowledge that our own tastes are frequently changing, that we like things that we formerly did not, and that we 'outgrow' other ideas and texts that formerly engaged us. This is a crucial part of why hard-and-fast borders of aesthetic appreciation are often counterproductive.

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