Practice🔧Theory⚡Critique
Welcome back! I hope you feel recharged after a fantastic summer 🦜
Feverish preparations are underway for the upcoming Art+Critique course, which begins in a couple of weeks. The cohort is once again shaping up to be a fantastic group of artists and I’m bursting with anticipation Continue reading Practice🔧Theory⚡Critique →
🥧 ‘More pie, more sky pls’* 🚀
This year whizzed by, it’s been a while since I posted an update and there’s a bunch of news to share, so here goes! Continue reading 🥧 ‘More pie, more sky pls’* 🚀 →
📌 Artquest One to One 🍒 Art+Critique Summer 2022
As we await the arrival of summer the pandemic appears to be at bay, but only by giving way to new fronts of crisis, disinformation, struggle and resistance. Artists have been particularly impacted in the last two years and still reeling as we emerge into the new dystopian normal, so you’re not alone. Book a free advice session with Artquest One to One to discuss your practice and plans for the future – new dates in late May and early June will be posted soon. Continue reading 📌 Artquest One to One 🍒 Art+Critique Summer 2022 →
📢 Outpost Online & Art+Critique 🍒🚀
It’s been a long hard slog but things are starting to look up with the easing of restrictions and a potential end in sight for Covid. In the meantime, if you’re feeling stuck or want to hatch some plans sign up for a free advice session with Artquest Outpost Online. Continue reading 📢 Outpost Online & Art+Critique 🍒🚀 →
Reader, further reading & resources
The reader texts are organised chronologically for each lecture/seminar or workshop, and are available for download via the links below. Further reading and resources are not required reading/viewing; they are intended as a supplement to the reader and to support further research.
- Allow 1-2 hours to familiarise yourself with the set reading in preparation for each seminar
- Make notes of questions and comments that you want to address
- Please make sure you have access to the set texts in print or on screen during sessions
- In some cases you are requested to read an excerpt (note the page numbers)
- Page numbers are the ones printed on the pages, not those displayed in your PDF reader
22 Oct 2. CREATIVE PRACTICE: PRACTICE & THEORY WORKSHOP
- Duchamp, Marcel (1975/1957). The Creative Act. In The Essential Writings of Marcel Duchamp. London: Thames & Hudson, pp. 138-140. AUDIO
Further reading & resources
- Barthes, Roland (1977/1969). The Death of the Author. In Image Music Text, Trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana, pp. 142-148.
- Foucault, Michel (1977). What is an Author? In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Trans. Sherry Simon and Donald F. Bouchard ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 113-138.
- Duve, Thierry de (1990). Authorship Stripped Bare, Even. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics No. 19/20 (1990/1991), pp. 234-241. VIDEO
- Eliot, T.S. (1921). Tradition and the Individual Talent. In The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
- Haladyn, Julian Jason (2015). On ‘The Creative Act’. Toutfait, 1 (Apr 2015).
- Wilde, Oscar (1891). The Critic as Artist. In Intentions. London: Methuen.
- Baldwin, James (1962). The Creative Process. In Creative America. New York: Ridge Press.
- Hertz, Garnet (2012). Critical Making. conceptlab.com.
- Roberts, John (2007). Preface. The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art after the Readymade. Variant 41 (Spring 2011), pp. 43-47.
- Raunig, Gerald, Gene Ray and Ulf Wuggenig eds. (2011). Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’. London: Mayfly Books.
- O’Doherty, Brian (2008). Studio and the Cube: On the Relationship Between Where Art is Made and Where Art is Displayed. New York: Columbia University.
- Koestler, Arthur (1975). The Act of Creation. London: Picador, pp. 27-38.
- Bergson, Henri (1911). Creative Evolution, trans Arthur Mitchell. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
- Deleuze, Gilles (2006/1987). What is the Creative Act? In Two Regimes of Madness, David Lapoujade ed. Trans Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina. Cambridge, MA: MIT/Semiotext(e).
- Deleuze, Gilles (1994). Difference and Repetition. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Blanchot, Maurice (1982/1955). The Gaze of Orpheus. In The Space of Literature. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.
- Foster, Sesshu (2015). How is the artist or writer to function (survive and produce) in the community, outside of institutions? East Los Angeles Dirigible Transport Lines (Jul 2015).
- Weintraub, Linda (2003). In the Making: Creative Options in Contemporary Art. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, D.A.P.
29 Oct 3. LECTURE 1. THE CRITICAL FUNCTION OF ART
Further reading & resources
- Ray, Gene (2014/2009). Towards a Critical Art Theory. In The Idea of the Avant Garde – And What It Means Today, Marc James Leger ed. Manchester University Press, pp. 131-137.
- Prolapsarian (2013). A Letter to Goldsmiths art students on capitalism, art and pseudo-critique. Prolapsarian (Jul 2013).
- Ranciere, Jacques (2009). The Misadventures of Critical Thought. In The Emancipated Spectator. Trans. Gregory Elliott. London: Verso.
- Davis, Ben (2016). Connoisseurship and Critique. e-flux Journal, Issue #72 (Apr 2016). Republished in Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022). Haymarket Books.
- Fontaine, Claire (2016). Our Common Critical Condition. e-flux Journal #73 (May 2016).
- Butler, Judith (2002). What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault’s Virtue. In The Political, David Ingram ed. Boston: Blackwell, pp. 212-228.
- Foucault, Michel (2007/1979). What is Critique? In The Politics of Truth, intro John Rajchman, Sylvere Lotringer ed. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), pp. 41-81.
- Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1984/1979). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Jameson, Fredric (1984). Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New Left Review no. 146 (Jul-Aug), pp. 59-92.
- Latour, Bruno (2004). Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 30/2 (Winter 2004), pp. 225–247.
- Foster, Hal (2012). Post-Critical. October 139 (Jan 2012), pp. 3-8. VIDEO
- Roberts, John (2000). After Adorno: Art, Autonomy, and Critique. Historical Materialism Vol. 7/1, pp. 221-239.
- Roberts, John (2000). On autonomy and the avant-garde. Radical Philosophy 103 (Sep/Oct 2000), pp. 25-28.
- Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood and Jason Gaiger ed. (1992). Art in Theory 1900-2000: An anthology of changing ideas. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Books.
- Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing, Episode 1: Photography. BBC TV Series.
- Harvey, David (2007). Reading Marx’s Capital Vol. I. davidharvey.org.
- Buchanan, Ian (2010). A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Jeffries, Stuart (2017). Frankfurt School: A Timeline. (Sep 29, 2017).
5 Nov 4. LECTURE 2.1 THE POLITICS OF ART
Further reading & resources
- Adorno, Theodor and Brian O’Connor ed. (2000).The Autonomy of Art. In The Adorno Reader. Oxford and Malden: Blackwell, pp. 239-243.
- Adorno, Theodor (2002/1970). Aesthetic Theory. Trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum.
- Ranciere, Jacques (2009). Problems and Transformations of Critical Art. In Aesthetics and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 45-60.
- Benjamin, Walter (1998/1934). The Author as Producer. In Understanding Brecht. Trans Anna Bostock, intro. Stanley Mitchell. London: Verso, pp. 85-103.
- Mouffe, Chantal (2001). Every Form of Art Has a Political Dimension. Chantal Mouffe interviewed by Rosalyn Deutsche, Branden W. Joseph and Thomas Keenan. Grey Room 02, Winter 2001, pp. 98-125.
- Kenning, Dean and Margareta Kern (2013). Art & Politics: Which side is art on. Art Monthly, Issue 369 (Sep 2013), pp. 1-4.
- Beuys, Joseph (1973). I Am Searching for Field Character. In Art into Society, Society into Art, Christos Joachimides and Norman Rosenthal ed. London: Institute of Contemporary Art, p. 48.
- Olufemi, Lola (2020). Art for Art’s Sake? In Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power. Pluto Press, pp. 82-94.
- Kester, Grant H. (2023). Introduction. In The Sovereign Self: Aesthetic Autonomy from the Enlightenment to the Avant-Garde. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 1-16.
- Rafie, Kaveh (2023). The Sovereign Self: Aesthetic Autonomy from the Enlightenment to the Avant-Garde – An interview with Grant H. Kester. New Books Network (Oct 2023).
- Burgin, Victor and Hilde Van Gelder (2010). Art and politics: A reappraisal. A Prior Magazine No. 20 (2010), pp. 92-121.
- Steyerl, Hito (2010). The Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy. New York: e-flux.
- Berry, Josephine (2019). Between Kitchen Semiotics and the Privatised Public: How is the Personal Political in Art Today? Private Life Symposium. Edinburgh University (Jun 2019).
- Beveridge, Karl and Ian Burn (1975). Don Judd. The Fox 2 (1975), pp. 128-142.
- Charlesworth, J.J. (2019). Keep politics out of art. The Spectator (Mar 9, 2019).
12 Nov 5. LECTURE 2.2 POLITICS & THE INSTITUTION OF ART
Further reading & resources
- Andrea Fraser [1989] Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk (excerpt). Single-channel digital video, transferred from U-Matic tape, colour, sound, 29min.
- Davis, Ben (2010). Beyond the Art World. Artnet Magazine (Nov 2010).
- Steyerl, Hito (2009). The Institution of Critique. In Art and Contemporary Critical Practice: Reinventing Institutional Critique. London: MayFlyBooks, pp. 13-19.
- Haacke, Hans (2009). Lessons Learned. Tate Papers, Landmark Exhibitions Issue 12 (Autumn 2009).
- Muhammad, Zarina (2020). Ideas for a new art world. The White Pube (Apr 3, 2020).
- Quaintance, Morgan (2017). The New Conservatism: Complicity and the UK Art World’s Performance of Progression. e-flux Conversations.
- Athanasiou, Athena (2021/2016). Performing the Institution, ‘as if it were Possible’. In Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989, Maria Hlavajova and Simon Sheikh eds. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Republished in Instituting, New Alphabet School. Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Jun 2021).
- Haiven, Max (2018). Art after money. Open Democracy (Oct 10, 2018).
- Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing, Episode 3: Oil Paint. BBC TV Series.
- Searle, John (2006/2005). What is an Institution? In Institutional Critique and After. Zurich: JRP/Ringier, pp. 21-51.
- O’Doherty, Brian (1999/1976). Context as Content. In Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space. California: University of California Press, pp. 65-86.
- Bourdieu, Pierre and Hans Haacke (2005). Free Exchange. Cambridge Polity Press.
- Bourdieu, Pierre (1996). The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Trans. Susan Emanuel. Cambridge: Polity Press, extract pp. 227-231.
- Duncan, Carol (1995). Civilizing Rituals: Inside public art museums. London and New York: Routledge.
16 Nov 6. OFF-SITE VISITS & EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Further reading & resources
- Kahneman, Daniel (2011). The Characters of the Story. In Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pp. 19-26.
- Beech, Dave (2016). On Critique: Looking and Writing. Art Monthly 393 (Feb 2016), pp. 5-8.
- Puente, Gabrielle de la (2019). Keith Haring @ Tate Liverpool. The White Pube, 16/06/19.
- Groys, Boris and Brian Dillon (2009). Who Do You Think You’re Talking To? Boris Groys in Conversation with Brian Dillon Frieze no. 121 (Mar 2009), pp. 126-131.
- Fusco, Maria (2010). Say Who I Am / Or a Broad Private Wink. In Judgment and contemporary art criticism. Vancouver: Artspeak and Fillip, pp. 45-55.
- Lutticken, Sven (2010). A Tale of Two Criticisms. In Judgment and contemporary art criticism. Vancouver: Artspeak and Fillip, pp. 45-55.
- Barrett, Terry (1994). Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary. Mountain View: Mayfield.
19 Nov 7. GROUP TUTORIALS & STUDIO BRIEF
Further reading & resources
- Goldstein, Mitch (2018). How to crit. howtocrit.com.
- Leemann, Judith (2017). Pragmatics of Studio Critique. In Beyond Critique: Contemporary Art in Theory, Practice, and Instruction, Pamela Fraser and Roger Rothman ed. New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 181-194.
- Leemann, Judith (2004). Observations on forms and patterns of critique. Time, Material, and the Everyday, SAIC.
- Lerman, Liz and John Borstel (2003). Liz Lerman’s critical response process: a method for getting useful feedback on anything you make, from dance to dessert. Takoma Park: Dance Exchange.
- Callahan, Mark (2012). Feedback: Liz Lerman and John Borstel. Ideas for Creative Exploration Conversation, Episode 6. University of Georgia.
- Buster, Kendall and Paula Crawford (2007). Critique Handbook: A Sourcebook and Survival Guide. New Jersey: Pearson.
- Pourzal, Kristopher et al (2018). Studies Project: An ethics of (talking about) watching. New York: Movement Research (May 2018). ADDITIONAL AUDIO LINKS
3 Dec 9. WRITING WORKSHOP: EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Further reading & resources
- Edmondson, Emma (2019). Practice Mountain. emmaedmondson.com.
- Nengudi, Senga (2023). Senga Nengudi’s Lesser-known Writing Practice. Frieze Issue 236 (Jun-Aug 2023).
- Vierkant, Artie (2010). The Image Object Post-Internet. artievierkant.com.
- Buren, Daniel (1982). Why Write. Art Journal (Summer 1982).
- John Russell [2015] SQRRL. Dynamic hypertext fiction.
- Russell, John (2014). Bruce Willis, Irigaray, and the Aesthetics of Space Travel. Metamute (Dec 2014).
- Palmer, Katrina (2010). The Dark Object. London: Book Works.
- Ashbee, Brian (1999). A Beginner’s Guide to Art Bollocks and How to Be a Critic. Art Review (Apr 1999), pp. 14-15.
- 500 Letters (2012). Generate your artist biography. 500Letters.org.
- 10 Gallon (2000). Patented Artist Statement Generator. 10gallon.com.
- Kyle Clements (2011). Artist Statement Generator. kyleclements.com.
- Ross, David James and Joke De Winter (2011). Instant artist statement: Arty Bollocks Generator. artybollocks.com.
14 Jan 10. LECTURE 3. SPECTACLE & THE EVERYDAY
Further reading & resources
- Kaprow, Allan (1996/1986). Art which can’t be art. In Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 219-222.
- Kaprow, Allan (1993/1971). Education of the Un-Artist Part 1. In Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, Jeff Kelley ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 97-109.
- Lefebvre, Henri (1987). The Everyday and Everydayness. Yale French Studies No. 73, pp. 7-11.
- Lefebvre, Henri (1991). The Critique of Everyday Life. New York: Verso.
- Lefebvre, Henri (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Certeau, Michel de (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Debord, Guy (2014/1967). The Society of the Spectacle.
- Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets.
- Wark, McKenzie (2011). The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International. London and New York: Verso Books.
- Arendt, Hannah (1998/1958). The Human Condition: Second Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Debord, Guy (1956). Theory of the Dérive. Translated by Ken Knabb. Situationist International Online.
- Groys, Boris (2009). Comrades of Time. e-flux journal #11 (Dec 2009).
- Papastergiadis, Nikos (2010). Spatial Aesthetics: Art, Place and the Everyday. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
- Plant, Sadie (1992). The most radical gesture: the Situationist International in a postmodern age. London: Routledge.
- Benjamin, Walter (1999/1939). Paris, Capital of the 19th Century. In The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, Rolf Tiedemann ed. Cambridge MA: Belknap, Harvard University Press, pp. 15-26.
- Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing, Episode 4: Advertising. BBC TV.
21 Jan 11. RESEARCH: PRACTICE & THEORY WORKSHOP
Further reading & resources
- Feyerabend, Paul (1993/1975). Against Method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge. London: Verso.
- Kosuth, Joseph (1991). Artist as Anthropologist. In Art After Philosophy and After: Selected Wrtings 1966-1990. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
- Birrell, Ross (2008). Jacques Ranciere and The (Re)Distribution of the Sensible: Five Lessons in Artistic Research. Art & Research: A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods. Vol. 2, No. 1 (Summer 2008).
- Barrett, Estelle (2007). Introduction: Art as the production of knowledge. In Practice as research: approaches to creative arts enquiry, Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt ed. London: I.B Tauris, pp.1-13.
- Hannula, Mika, Juha Suoranta and Tere Vaden (2005). Artistic Research: Theories, Methods and Practices. Helsinki: Academy of Fine Arts.
- Sullivan, Graeme (2005). Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
- Whiteley, Nigel, Rebecca Fortnum, Ian Heywood (2003). Visual Intelligence Research Project. Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University.
- Barrett, Estelle (2006). Foucault’s What is an Author: Towards a critical discourse of practice as research. Working Papers in Art and Design, 4.
28 Jan 12. LECTURE 4. THE ABJECT, IDENTITY & PROCESS
Further reading & resources
- Morris, Robert (1968). Anti Form. Artforum 6, April 1968, pp. 33-37. Republished in Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris (1995). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- Sollins, Susan and Catherine Tatge (2013). Richard Serra: Tools & Strategies. Art21, Episode #170 (Jan 2013).
- Bataille, Georges (1993/1934). Abjection and Miserable Forms. In More & Less #2. Cambridge: Semiotext(e), p. 9.
- Bois, Yves-Alain and Rosalind Krauss eds. (1997). Formless: A User’s Guide. New York: Zone Books.
- Barnett, Pennina (1998). Materiality, Subjectivity & Abjection in the Work of Chohreh Feyzdjou, Nina Saunders and Cathy de Monchaux. n.paradoxa no.7 (Jul 1998), pp. 4-11.
- Hennefeld, Maggie and Nicholas Sammond (2020). Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the politics of pleasure and violence. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Foster, Hal (1993). Compulsive Beauty. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
- Butler, Judith (1999). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge, pp. 163-190.
- Butler, Judith (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York: Routledge.
- Butler, Judith (1999). Performativity’s Social Magic. In Bourdieu: A critical reader. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 115.
- Sartre, Jean Paul (1958). The Look. In Being and Nothingness. New London: Methuen, pp. 252-302.
- Kelley, Mike (2004). The Uncanny. Cologne: Walther Konig.
18 Feb 15. LECTURE 5. PARTICIPATION, DIALOGUE & THE GIFT ECONOMY
Further reading & resources
- Bishop, Claire (2006). The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents. Artforum Vol. 44/6 (Feb 2006), pp. 178-183.
- Jackson, Shannon (2011). Quality Time: Social Practice Debates in Contemporary Art. In Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics. New York: Routledge, pp. 43-74.
- Ranciere, Jacques (2007). The Emancipated Spectator. Artforum 45/7 (March 2007), pp. 271-280.
- Kester, Grant. (2005). Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art. In Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985, Zoya Kucor and Simon Leung ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 76-88.
- Dunn, Peter and Loraine Leeson (2017). Interview with Peter Dunn and Lorainne Leeson. The Things That Make You Sick: East London Health Campaigning, 1977-1980. Londion: ICA.
- Bourriaud, Nicolas (2002). Introduction, Relational Form. In Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les presses du reel, pp. 7-24.
- Beech, Dave (2008). Include me out! Art Monthly 315 (Apr 2008).
- Nancy, Jean-Luc (1991/1986). The Inoperative Community. Trans Peter Connor, Lisa Garbus, Michael Holland and Simona Sawhney. Foreword Christopher Fynsk; Peter Connor ed. Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press.
- Kenning, Dean (2010). Artist as Artist. Art Monthly 337 (Jun 2010), pp. 7-10.
- Groys, Boris (2009). Comrades of Time. e-flux journal #11 (Dec 2009).
- Serafini, Paula (2018). Performance Action: The Politics of Art Activism. New York: Routledge Studies in Political Sociology.
ART&CRITIQUE was a peer-led and volunteer-run alternative art education network dedicated to critical engagement with art practice, theory and research. It was founded in November 2015 and based at The Field and LARC. We employed collaborative, co-operative and collective models of pedagogy and organisation and fostered alternative models of art education in a series of public events. Looking for the Art+Critique course instead?
Continue reading ART&CRITIQUE (2015-2019) →
ART CRAWL
The art crawl was a series of tours organised by ART&CRITIQUE, on the last Saturday of the month we would head out to visit exhibitions and have a critical discussion on route. The itineraries were curated by members and contributors, supported with tools and guides available in the infosheet. Continue reading ART CRAWL →