Art Critiques: A Guide

Abstract

Art Critiques: A Guide Elkins, J. (2014). Art Critiques: A Guide (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, LLC. 237 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9906939-2-5.Generally considered to be the signature pedagogy of our field, critiques are a ubiquitous part of nearly every studio course, serving as a forum for dialogue, a tool for assessment, a venue for giving and receiving feedback, and an opportunity for students to observe how faculty behave and articulate themselves as professionals in their field. Yet, despite the goals to which the critique is ascribed, there seems to be a vast gulf lying between the theoretical strengths of the critique and the way it is actually practiced and perceived. Indeed, critiques have a strong cultural lore of being vague, unstructured, emotionally charged, and highly subjective -all for a wide variety of reasons. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that articles dealing with the critique are few and far between, and books on the subject rarer still.In 2001, art historian and theoretician James Elkins examined the problem of the critique in two chapters of his polemic book, Why Art Cannot Be Taught. In it, Elkins delivered a scathing critique of the critique, concluding,The fact that there is no good theory about art critiques does not bode well for the possibility of understanding what actually happens in art classes. There is no model, no classical text that might help guide us. That is the first reason why critiques are so hard to understand. (p. 119)A decade later, the author further elaborated on this subject in the first edition of Art Critiques: A Guide with a subsequent, expanded edition released the following year. Finally, in late 2014, a new and definitive edition was published, greatly revised and expanded, including many new chapters, color photographs, and a general reorganization of the topics.Ostensibly, this volume is meant as a guide for students to help them get the most out of their critiques. However, there is no doubt that studio art instructors from all backgrounds and at all levels will find a great deal to take from this work. Elkins's descriptions and analysis are interspersed with practical suggestions for what students and instructors can say or do in order to get their audience (and themselves) to avoid generalized pronouncements and delve deeper than their first impressions of work. Anything, as Elkins puts it, to throw the panelists off balance just a little, and keep their minds open a bit longer (p. 48).Assembled under five general headings (The Basics: BFA Issues; MFA Issues; Theories; Projects; and PhD Issues), Art Critiques: A Guide covers a wide range of factors that affect how a critique takes place, from the purely practical (class sizes are too large for each student's work to be properly critiqued) and the personal (instructors can be biased against particular art forms) to the more technical (judicative versus descriptive critiques).Within its over four dozen chapters are a multitude of accounts and examples taken from the author's personal experiences at teaching institutions across the United States as well as over a dozen other countries. These are generously augmented with further anecdotes sent to the author via a number of call outs made on his Facebook page and website. Such are the number and variety of problems related to critiques that Elkins manages to assemble over 50 chapters in the space of just over 200 pages. The brevity of many of these chapters (the majority are less than five pages in length) is undoubtedly due to the fact that Elkins does not try to find answers to every problem-indeed, if such answers existed, critiques would be much simpler to navigate, and a book such as this one would not have been necessary.But despite Elkins's free-flowing, unaffected writing, Art Critiques: A Guide can be surprisingly disjointed and difficult to read; it certainly does not lend itself to long periods of uninterrupted study as its fractured, disjointed quality and brief chapters can have a jarring effect for anyone not suffering from a short attention span. …