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What is Criticism, Now?
by David Levi StraussCritics Page
The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States is a self-inflicted wound that will not heal anytime soon. It will fester and infect other parts of the Social Body for years to come.
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Reparative Criticism
by Kareem EstefanCritics Page
Is it evading the question “what is criticism?” to ask instead what criticism does, what it can do, in 2016?
A Shelter for Shadows
by Sam SwaseyCritics Page
Criticism, like life, but unlike a pear, is too big and too abstract a concept to be easily grasped by hands or intellect. The concept of friendship is possessed of this quality, too.
Critics of the Corners
by Alexandra NicolaidesCritics Page
America was white hot. It seemed that we, the people, couldn’t hold our country. Or, perhaps, the country just couldn’t hold all of us. Misunderstanding, disaffection, recrimination, accusation, bloviating, and lies: a swirling smog of rhetoric cloaked us all. What words could possibly cut through?
Criticism and Civility
by Jessica HolmesCritics Page
Writing in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, the craft of criticism feels more urgent than ever, a skill to continually hone at all costs. When I was first asked the question, “What is criticism?” upon entering the Art Writing MFA program at the School of Visual Arts five years ago, I’d suggested that good criticism, in the context of considering art, is a civility.
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Why I Am Not a Tech Writer
by Will FenstermakerCritics Page
Well, the truth is that I am. At least, I sometimes write about tech. I’m sorry I am, but it pays the bills. I’ve accepted that no one will ever pay me a month’s rent for a day spent looking at and writing about art.
How to Value Criticism?
by Noah DillonCritics Page
I’ve found that Bob Nickas describes criticism best in his recurrent references to “biting the hand that feeds.” I can’t recall admiring a demure piece of criticism.
What is Art Criticism?
by Clay MatlinCritics Page
I was part of the first class to graduate from SVA’s Art Criticism and Writing program. I started a Ph.D. program two years later, a move that split me between the world of criticism and the academy.
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The Promise of Mutability
by Emmanuel IdumaCritics Page
Most recently, I have written for and managed the monthly publication of essays on African art and visual culture in The Trans-African, a publication project by Invisible Borders.
Embracing the Unseen
by Aimee WallestonCritics Page
The art world is, equally, a realm where believing goes beyond seeing: pure, untamed thought is rendered on blank pages and empty gallery walls. That is what makes it brave and exciting.
The Ineluctable Task
by Eric SutphinCritics Page
Since I completed the Art Writing MFA program, the majority of my professional writing has consisted of exhibition reviews. I am also a painter, though I write more than I paint, so I tend to identify myself as a writer who paints, rather than a painter who writes.
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Words as Necessities
by Sabrina MandaniciCritics Page
Pain, whether it is experienced in the body or the mind, often provokes the desire to withdraw, protect, or avoid—to anesthetize rather than discern.
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Art Is Our Last Hope
by Tatiane SchilaroCritics Page
English is not my mother tongue. I arrived at the American field of art criticism like an alien arrives in an idealized land with a sole piece of luggage. I had to invent familiarity with spoken, written, and seen repertoires at the same time that I had to write at ease, as if I were sitting at home on my cozy sofa, so that readers could engage with my language.
Critical Catastrophes
by Amelia RinaCritics Page
This year, it seems, has been an endless stream of events labeled catastrophes. The refugee crisis, Brexit, Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, the failed Colombian peace referendum, Aleppo, Standing Rock, innumerable terrorist attacks across the globe, and now the election of Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States.
Dear Grace & Quinn
by Charles SchultzCritics Page
I want to tell you what criticism is to me, and why I write it. But first I want you to know how I got involved with art criticism. It was not by design; it was a development that grew out of a basic gut level adoration of art.
A Sequence of Coherent Words
by Sara ChristophCritics Page
In these dark, unshakable, post-election days—when terrible contingencies claw at one’s balance—what is an art writer to do? Language feels imperiled, rhetoric thrown about like confetti and calcifying into a divisive wall of apathy.