Reader, I have a confession. Though I often write reviews and wish people to read them in advance of heading out to the galleries, truth is that I often find reviews most interesting after I've experienced the show/movie/book/album myself.
That is, I often don't read a review, or at least seek one out, or at least really really read them thoroughly until I've experienced the thing being reviewed. I love reading reviews as a form of mental conversation, of getting all the angles, of comparing and contrasting to one's own point of view, or honing same.
Case in point: This weekend I went to see the film A Serious Man. Now I had read some reviews in advance (these were hard to avoid, in fact, given the film's premiere at TIFF earlier this fall). But only after seeing the movie, being perplexed by it, and chatting about it with my partner did I go home and load up Rotten Tomatoes, where, as I'm sure you know, reviews from media across North America, from writers both big and small, are compiled for most major-release films. (Wouldn't it be great if the art world had something like this? At least for Venice and other shows seen and reviewed as widely as a single major-release movie?)
Via the roster Rotten Tomatoes had compiled for A Serious Man, I think I read about seven to ten reviews of the film--some positive, some negative. It was great to read some of these pointed opinions and know exactly what aspects they were referring to in the film as they asserted them. Whether I agreed with the reviewer or not, their review invariably made a lot more sense to me--and provided more that was at stake for me--because I had seen the film myself.
I guess what this post has ended up being, really, is a little rumination on the function of reviews, which tend to break down like this:
1) Service to the reader A -- primary -- "Why, IMHO, this book/show/movie/album is worth your time and money, or not."
2) Service to the reader B -- primary -- "If you can't get to this thing yourself, here's the broad strokes of what it's all about, IMHO."
3) Service to the reader C -- typically regarded as tertiary, but for me (and likely others) often primary -- "Hey, if you actually did experience this thing yourself, here's a foil/back-pat for your thoughts on the matter."
Of course, there is at least one other important function of reviews in most media contexts, which would be 4) Service to the publisher -- "Some editorial to accompany related advertising." But that's another post/total fact of writing for any media outlet.
Okay, one more "of course"--some critics are just damn fun to read no matter what they're writing about. So sometimes reviews are there just to give a good writer something to dance around, or, in terms of service to the reader, to give good writing.
Overall, I am very happy to live in the age of the interwebs when so many reviews can be accessed online from different critics, at least for some arts genres. It makes being a blatantly belated review reader a hella lot more fun.
Image from A Serious Man from the fansite Coenesque
Monday, November 16, 2009
Confessions of a Blantantly Belated Review Reader
Saturday, November 14, 2009
On Liking what you Like when you Like it: Or, why Art needs a dose of Literature sometimes
The longer I write journalistic art criticism, the more apparent it becomes to me that our response to art is often be highly temporal and situational—that is, we like what we like when we like it. Responses to, engagement with and affection for a given artwork are highly subject to change over time.
I mention this in part because I see this truth acknowledged a lot more often in literary circles than in more visually artistic ones. In particular, I found this passage from Michael Chabon helpful. It's excerpted from an essay where he describes being in his early 20s and how he started writing his novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh:
I went back out to my room and shambled irritably back and forth from the door that led to the hot tub to the door that went upstairs, mapping out the confines of my skull like the bear at the Pittsburgh Zoo. And my eye lighted on a relic of my stepfather's time at Boston University: The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby had been the favorite novel of one of those aforementioned friends whom I had decided that, for reasons of emotional grandeur and self-poignance, I was doomed never to meet up with again in this vale of tears. At his urging I had read it a couple of years earlier, without incident or effect. Now I had the sudden intuition that if I read it again, right now, this minute, something important might result: it might change my life. Or maybe there would be something in it that I could steal.
I lay on the bed, opened the book's cracked paper cover—it was an old Scribner trade paperback, the edition whose cover looked like it might have been one of old Ralph's wood shop projects—and this time The Great Gatsby read me. The mythographic cast of my mind in that era, the ideas of friendship and self-invention and problematic women, the sense, invoked so thrillingly in the book's closing paragraphs, that the small, at times tawdry love-sex-and-violence story of a few people could rehearse the entire history of the United States of America from its founding vision to the Black Sox scandal—The Great Gatsby did what every necessary piece of fiction does as you pass through that fruitful phase of your writing life: it made me want to do something just like it.
In a less wordy, less poetic vein on the topic of changing assessments of books, art and other things, op-ed columnist Rex Murphy is quoted in today's Globe as saying "[I have] long since parted with the delusion that my opinions, because they are mine, are less hostage to fallibility or walk nearer with truth than those of many others."
I don't know if these types of expressions on the changeability of judgment and artistic experience are more common in the writing world because one can always--or at least often--revisit books and text in a way we cannot revisit individual pieces of art.
In any case, this truth is something I'm glad to see acknowledged, and one I'm going to try and remember--even as I hammer out my own critical opinions, positive and negative, as well as I can at a given time.
Image from Bookdaddy
Friday, November 13, 2009
Commemoration & Scholarship to Honour Gerald Ferguson
As a follow-up to the sad news of Gerald Ferguson's death last month, NSCAD has announced that friends, colleagues and family are establishing a scholarship in his name to honour his long artistic and teaching career. Donations can be sent to NSCAD University via the Ferguson Scholarship page that the college has set up.
On a related note, I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Globe's Sarah Milroy for her obit of Ferguson, which was published after my obit roundup. Milroy does a good job of capturing what Ferguson meant to many people--and also is one of the few media to confirm that Ferguson took his own life.
It is really, really sad to consider Ferguson's final act, but I'm glad it's been noted--though I'm not sure what Ferguson's particular situation was, I do know that depression and anxiety take too many lives, both in the arts and elsewhere. Gerry would cringe (and probably curse, loudly!) at the thought of becoming a poster boy for any particular "cause" or "issue"--I don't want that to happen either. But cause of death here still resounds very powerfully and sadly, at least for me.
Image of Gerald Ferguson's 600 Metres of Hose from CBC.ca
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Out today: Yves Tessier Q & A
Yves Tessier makes curious, colourful little paintings, often of everyday scenes, that tend to remind me of storybook pictures for grownups. Last week, I got to chat with him on the phone on the occasion of a show of new work at Projex Mtl. Today, the National Post published a condensed version of our exchange. Here's an excerpt:
Q You make your own paints from scratch, which must make the process longer. How and why do you do this?
A When I was younger, I did art restoration as a day job in Montreal, and I helped restore the Notre-Dame Basilica. So I learned ancient techniques like egg tempera. Now, I have a great pigment supplier in New York, where I live, and I work with casein, which is a milk paint. Some of my pigments are ground from semi-precious stones, like malachite. Some were used in the Greco-Roman period, like caput mortuum, which means "dead heads" -- it's an earthy violet that was used a lot in Pompeii. So I do spend time mixing pigment, often in shells. But even if I was working in oils or acrylics, I'd have to spend time mixing colours anyway. I don't have shadows in my paintings -- another tendency from ancient art -- so I need certain colours to show where the light is.
Interestingly, Tessier also told me that one reason he likes to keep his paintings small (max 11 x 17, unless it's a special "enlarging" commission) is so that he can scan them as soon as they are done and send them off to his friends and colleagues. So that's a little more of this era...
Image of Tessier's Cocktail Hour 2009 from Projex Mtl.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Late to the Party: Miranda July's Venice Biennale Sculptures
Over dinner this evening, I got to chat with a friend who had gone to the Venice Biennale this summer. It was great to hear the views of a creative person not ensconced in the art critical realm... I'm always interested in the ways each of us form our judgments of worthwhile art, and the ways those can become homogenized in different critical echelons. In any case, my friend really liked Miranda July's contribution to the Biennale, which, for whatever reason (potentially simply my niche) I hadn't heard about. These "interactive" sculptures do seem to have been a popular hit--which perhaps explains their lack of coverage in the critical press? They do seem a bit cutesy for all them serious thinkers out there. In any case, there's more pics here if you're interested. And it is nice to see people smile with art, you know, for a change.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Review of Fall In/Fall Out @ the Blackwood Gallery
This weekend, the Globe and Mail published my review of Fall In/Fall Out, which is taking place at the Blackwood Gallery to December 13. One thing I didn't get to mention in the article are the extensive resources available on the Blackwood's exhibition website, including responses from a variety of artists and curators to two questions:
"What is the quintessential work about falling?"
and
"What is the quintessential work about jumping?"
Interestingly, House of Pain gets two shout-outs in a row!
What is the quintessential work about falling?
JOHN PAUL RICCO: Genesis 3.
What is the quintessential work about jumping?
JOHN PAUL RICCO: House of Pain’s Jump Around (1992).
--------------------------------------------------------------
What is the quintessential work about falling?
KATIE BETHUNE-LEAMEN: Yves Klein, The Leap into the Void, 1960.
What is the quintessential work about jumping?
KATIE BETHUNE-LEAMEN: That's harder, and I don't like my response:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQbPgouUYo
Take that, Van Halen! Actually, in a strange turn of events, Van Halen is getting their own artistic homage this month at YYZ, where Kathleen Hearn gets local musicians to cover their 1984 chart-topper.
In any case, those responses on the Blackwood site are worth a read if you're looking to poke around on the Interwebs.If you like inter-persons more, Shannon Hoff will give a related talk on November 18 at 7pm.
Image from Simone Jones' film Perfect Vehicle from the Blackwood
Monday, November 9, 2009
Museums and Sustainability: Douglas Worts Talks Tonight @ OISE
Just got a last-minute announcement for what looks like an interesting talk tonight at the University of Toronto Museum Studies Speaker Series:
Douglas Worts: Museums, Cultural Heritage and the Culture of Sustainability
Monday, November 9
5-7 pm
Douglas Worts is a consultant working on sustainability and culture issues and former long-term staff at the Art Gallery of Ontario where he introduced many innovations in public work and visitor research for the museum.
How can humanity create a ‘culture of sustainability’ within our increasingly pluralist, urban communities? Currently, cultural heritage organizations, like museums and art galleries, historic and natural heritage sites, do little to reflect or engage the living cultures of our societies and the environments they inhabit. They have the ability to do so – although it will require a complete reassessment of what these organizations assume are the cultural needs of our communities. New professional competencies and novel approaches to public engagement strategies will have to replace old institutionalized structures and traditional programs if these organizations hope to engage the cultural pulse of our cities.
I'm particularly interested in Worts' studies because I'm the bizarre holder of both a BSc in physical geography/environmental studies and a BFA in fine arts. Most of the time, I think this means I just can't make up my mind about what I'm interested in... other times I do write articles about art and sustainability themes... and other times I just enjoy not being alone in my interest. So there! If you're interested in finding out more, I suggest one of Worts' reports/blogs Museums in the Winds of Change.
Image of the Montreal Biodome from Hotel Europa
