Developing a Critical Eye
Jerry Saltz takes contemporary critics to task for being all rationality and no soul. An eye is more essential to being a critic than a bag of theoretical tricks. I noticed as I read through Classic Essays on Photography that the writers began to separate into two camps as I approached the mid-Twentieth Century. In one group was the doers - photographers who also wrote about their craft. The other camp was the thinkers - critics and philosophers who approached photography from a theoretical perspective. The writing quality of the first camp was approachable, straightforward and heart felt. The second camp left me cold, if I could understand what the heck they were talking about at all.
A while back, I talked about my reluctance to write negative reviews. Saltz thinks it's essential.
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.
I hadn't thought about it that way. I tend to scope out shows on the Web first and then only go see stuff that catches my attention, so I don't really see a lot of photography up close that I'm not already predisposed to like. Sometimes I am in a gallery building and see something through a doorway and stop in to check it out, but the times that's led to something interesting have been few. Perhaps I should write more about those oddball shows, anyway.
(via Arts Journal)
UPDATE: Despite some trolling, there is terrific commentary on this article over at Edward Winkleman's blog.
Congrats on being selected by Forbes. I am new to the blogosphere, and haven't got my own spot yet.
I am interested in your poo-poohing of theory, though. And could it be that photography by its flat nature is more disposed to, well, dispoal via the Web, as you describe your romps through cybergalleries?
I am a painter and (more so) a draughtsman. I seldom find I can even get an inkling (pardon the pun) of soemthing done by hand on paper, especially, through the magazine images, let alone on the Net.
In some ways I'll agree that photography is predisposed to looking good on a Web site, though I've commented here before that looking at little Web thumbnails is a particularly poor way of getting to know some artists, specifically those who work in black and white and have a high level of intricate detail in their work. So I agree, magazines and the Web are poor substitutes for seeing the real thing. But I have to start somewhere when I'm not familiar with an artist.
Did I poo-poo theory? I didn't mean to, I read quite a lot of it. But I can do without the more acedemic writing that is ill informed by practice or tends towards insular self-referential thought.