considering audience and the critic

Posted on September 13, 2009 by pica-blogger

Posted by: Seth Nehil
I headed into T:BA as a blogger thinking about DK Row’s Oregonian article and Tim DuRoch’s response. It had me considering notions of accessibility, difficulty and exclusiveness in contemporary performance. I don’t think DK’s original argument was very productive. I mean, really – how can you begin to compare a collection of dance, theater and performance works (not to mention the concerts, lectures and installations, etc.) to a Trailblazers game? They’re like different worlds and each has its place. But I guess it’s a bitter truth that absurd, ignorant or outrageous postings do generate conversation in a comments section (…well, not exactly conversation, more like a chain of related monologues) while thoughtful or elegant articles are (hopefully) read and appreciated, but tend to lie dormant.
I headed into the act of writing criticism this year feeling very ambivalent about the role of the critic. Is it really our job to influence people’s opinions? I often doubt that minds can be changed at all, and certainly not through the direct consequence of some critic’s loquacity. If DK is really concerned about inviting a broader public into T:BA, then why not write an article which lets a potential audience know about pieces they might best enjoy. Something like an “easy-o-meter” which might guide viewers to works that match their level of interest.
We have to admit that different works are made for different audiences. Audiences don’t necessarily overlap – and that’s ok! We can acknowledge that some work takes training to appreciate. These works might require curiosity, diligence and self-education on the part of the viewer. The reward for this effort is the pleasure of new experience, new ways of seeing, a shift away from habitual modes of understanding.
As I think about writing criticism, I get caught in an epistemological quandary. How do I know that what I know is worth knowing? In response to this problem, I have been thinking about the way criticism might engage a root subjectivity. This would be expressed through a recognition of one’s own subjective experience, while allowing for an infinity of other subjectivities, all co-existing and overlapping. This would mean approaching a work on its own terms, not attacking it for being something it isn’t. It would mean examining one’s own bias, experience and perspective and positioning oneself in complicated relationship to a work, rather than judging based on predetermined conditions and absolute definitions. It’s a difficult or perhaps impossible task, but I think critics owe this to the intelligence of their readers.
Difficult art requires attention. Attention is the gift we give ourselves in approaching and understanding the artist’s intentions, convictions and ideas. Attention is built upon a foundation of basic commitment. We commit ourselves to a work, in an exchange with the artist(s) who commit themselves to an act of communication. I’m becoming more and more convinced that commitment is the key term in the exchange between artist and audience. It is commitment which opens up the possibility of pleasure through attention.
Should critics write about work to which they are not committed? Does a negative review actually help readers? I would be curious to hear other people’s thoughts.

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2 Responses to considering audience and the critic

  1. Dusty Hoesly says:
    September 14, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    Seth,
    I appreciate your eloquent thinking about this topic, and I agree that critics ought to try to discern an artist’s intentions in evaluating a work and use that as a basis for critique. We have to ask: why this piece, why this process, why show this? Hopefully, the artist is trying to communicate something.
    I don’t agree, however, that all art needs to be evaluated absent a coherent set of principles by which you judge art. For example, a moralist might look for whether a work of art instills a sense of right moral action (Hilton Kramer does this at New Criterion, although few of us would agree with his morals). A Marxist might look to see whether a work of art promotes class awareness or solidarity of the working classes. These analyses are not to my taste, but I don’t see why folks can’t use them consistently as they approach art.
    I am interested in how we critique art that refuses to take a position, where the purpose of the artist’s communication is obscure or absent. How do we evaluate art when an impish artist just wants to provoke us and doesn’t care how we respond? What if there is no message because the artist failed to include one, or provided so many that we can’t untangle any single thread? What if the artist’s message is that we shouldn’t look for a message? I don’t quite know how to approach these questions, other than to say I prefer some sort of message in a piece, even if that message reaffirms the multiplicity of interpretations of a work.
    If an artist doesn’t have a message through failure to express a theme or two, then I’d view it more negatively because it doesn’t seem like they took the time to develop their piece fully. If an artist doesn’t have a message because he or she wants to affirm that we shouldn’t look for meanings or narratives in a work, then why make it? Just to monkeywrench our expectations? To liberate us from making meaning of our lives?
    All of this is to say I mostly agree with your approach. Like you, I don’t like flamers who don’t seriously wrestle with the artist’s intentions or who are in over their heads. By reviewing a work, critics should bone up on their art history, the artist, other comments about the show, etc., to know what they’re talking about, and from there make informed comments based on their charitable thinking and personal reactions. But what happens when, after making our commitment to a piece, the artist fails on their end of the commitment? Are you allowing room for bad art that makes it into TBA?
    Thank you again for your insightful and provocative post.
    Dusty Hoesly
    P.S. I highly recommend checking out James Elkins’ What Happened to Art Criticism, part of the Prickly Paradigm Press series.

    Reply
  2. seth nehil says:
    September 21, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    thanks Dusty,
    appreciate your thoughts, have read and enjoyed the Elkins book. Your thoughts about artistic intention are certainly part of the equation, but lately I’ve been thinking that our (the audience) quality of attention, or variance in personal tastes, is the stronger half.
    For example, I personally hated Locust, but the people sitting directly behind me were awestruck, whooping and saying “That was the best performance I’ve ever seen!” How could I go on to write a negative review after that? Artistic intentions are so widely variable, I think any attempt to build “coherent” principles upon which to make judgments.
    Or – I should say – the confounding of all coherent principles is my coherent principle. In that regard, I’m willing to negotiate and perhaps tolerate difficult work, without jumping to ideas of “bad”. In fact, I would try to banish any such general qualitative terms. I could recognize, to use Locust as an example again, that a work might be technically proficient while being entirely uninteresting.
    I would argue that ALL work has a message. It’s impossible to make something without an idea. Whether or not that idea has been considered or actively processed is another question.

    Reply

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