Tag Archives: critique

Cohn: Representation and Critique

[SYMPOSIUM] BOOK CLUB
#24 Cohn: Representation and Critique

Friday, 9 February 2018, 6:30pm-9pm
LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
Closest stations: Whitechapel / Aldgate East
Facilitated by
Aristotelis Nikolaidis
Suggested donation £2, booking via Eventbrite
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The Crisis of Critique

The Crisis of Critique

George Orwell (1956). 1984. Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 171.
George Orwell (1956). 1984. Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 171.

Thanks to everyone who came along and contributed to an excellent discussion on Adam Curtis’ film Hypernormalisation. A very special thanks to Neil Lamont for facilitating! We watched a 13 minute excerpt of the film and the discussion revolved around consciousness and complicity. Neil handed out copies from George Orwell’s 1984 and read the passage on doublethink, comparing it to the concept of hypernormalisation, which Curtis borrows from Alexei Yurchak, a term he coined to describe the culture of resignation to the simulacrum of normality in 1980s Soviet Russia.

In February we’re joining Aris Nikolaidis to discuss The Fate of Representation, the Fate of Critique, chapter six in Jesse Cohn’s 2006 book Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation: Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, Politics. What would a radical anti-representational aesthetic look like today, beyond the binary opposition between autonomy and popular culture?

If you ever wanted to join the Critical Theory in Contemporary Art Practice course this is the time! We’re running the first independent [ART&CRITIQUE] course in April 2018 and we’re inviting submissions for a Fee-waiver Award. To apply please download the application form and return it by 5pm on Friday, 23 February 2018. For more information please follow the links below.

Enrico Baj [1972] The Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli. Textured offset colour print, 75 x 68 cm. Edition 200.[SYMPOSIUM] BOOK CLUB
Cohn: Representation and Critique
Friday, 9 February 2018, 6:30pm-9pm
LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
Facilitated by Aris Nikolaidis
Suggested donation £2, booking via Eventbrite

Patrick Mimran [2004] Billboard Project, New York. Photo Sophia Kosmaoglou.[ART&CRITIQUE] COURSE
Critical Theory in Contemporary Art Practice

19 April – 14 June 2018, 6:30-9pm + 5 May 2018, 2:30-5pm
Kupfer Arch 213, Ponsford Street, London E9 6JU
Tutor Sophia Kosmaoglou
£250 via Eventbrite or apply for the Fee-waiver Award

Announcements & Opportunities[OPPORTUNITIES & ANNOUNCEMENTS]
February 2018
The list of opportunities, open calls, deadlines, announcements & vacancies is updated regularly.
If you would like to post your listing for open calls, opportunities or vacancies on the list please send us the details.

IMAGE CREDITS
George Orwell (1956). 1984. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, p. 171.
Enrico Baj [1972] The Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli. Textured offset colour print, 75 x 68 cm. Edition 200.

ART&CRITIQUE (2015-2019)

A&C_banner-2015-2019

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.

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Badiou, Autonomy, Dissidents

On Friday, 14 October we’re reading the first chapter of Alain Badiou‘s Handbook of Inaesthetics with Badiou scholar Kerry W. Purcell at [SYMPOSIUM] book club. Note that this event is fully booked, please follow the link to join the waiting list and we will be in touch if there are cancellations. On Saturday, 15 October we’re discussing Autonomy & Critique with Dasha Loyko at the next Studio Crit, please follow the link to book your place. In October the Gallery Crawl is heading to south east London, for more details please read on.

Dissident Island Radio stickers.
Dissident Island Radio stickers.

Last month we saw  Mike Kelley‘s 1999 installation Framed and Frame at Hauser & Wirth, well worth  a visit to see this complex installation with a fascinating archive of preparatory drawings, photos and documents at. If you plan to visit Shez Dawood‘s show at Timothy Taylor don’t forget to book…

On the 2nd of September 2016 we were invited to a interview on alternative art education at Dissident Island Radio. Sophia and Johanna joined James from Squash Campaign, Andy from LDMG and the Dissident Island crew for a live broadcast at their LARC studio in Whitechapel. The podcast is available to listen to or download from Dissident Island or the Internet Archive.

Alain Badiou and Kerry W. Purcell have lunch in 2015.[SYMPOSIUM] BOOK CLUB
Badiou: Art & Philosophy
Friday, 14 October 2016, 6:00-8:30pm
The Field, 385 Queens Road, London SE14 5HD
Chaired by Kerry W. Purcell
Free, waiting list only

Dasha Loyko [2016] Tips For Designing Your Dream Bathroom (maquette of central fragment).[ART&CRITIQUE] STUDIO CRIT
Dasha Loyko: Autonomy and Critique
Saturday, 15 October 2016
3:00pm – 5:00pm
The Field, 385 Queens Road, New Cross, London SE14 5HD
Free, please book your place

[GALLERYCRAWL] #8[ART&CRITIQUE] GALLERY CRAWL
From Camberwell to Peckham
Saturday 29 October 2016, 2:00-5:00pm
Roman Ondak SLG Amalia Ulman Arcadia Missa Emma Charles South Kiosk
Please visit the website for the details & a map of the route
Free, booking not required

IMAGE CREDITS
Alain Badiou and Kerry W. Purcell have lunch in 2015.

Dasha Loyko [2016] Tips For Designing Your Dream Bathroom (maquette of central fragment).

Critiquing the Crit

Critiquing the Crit
A Workshop with Sophie Barr

Saturday, 19 November 2016, 1pm – 4pm
The Field 385 Queens Road, London SE14 5HD
Rail/Overground: New Cross Gate, Queens Road Peckham

This three-hour workshop is designed to help you to get the most out of your group critique by taking ownership of your feedback. During the workshop you will consider the most important aspects of giving and receiving feedback/criticism and you will have the opportunity to design and test your own crit model for future use. Continue reading Critiquing the Crit

Reading and/or Looking

Reading and/or Looking

[BOOKCLUB]#4 Barthes The Death of the Author, 12 Feb 2016, The Field New Cross.
[BOOKCLUB]#4 Barthes The Death of the Author, 12 Feb 2016, The Field New Cross.

In February’s [SYMPOSIUM] we discussed Roland Barthes’ influential essay The Death of the Author (1977). Many thanks to everyone for their contributions to a very productive event. It was great to see everyone again and to welcome some new faces. A special thanks to Henrietta Ross for leading, chairing and summarising the discussion.

Henrietta got us off to a great start by suggesting three broad thematic approaches with the questions: What is an author? What is a text? and What is a reader? She also suggested that we address the question: What does the text mean? Adding that we might want to contest the terms of this question in light of Barthes’ own resistance to fixed meaning. And finally, she suggested that we might want to discuss the roles of the critic, of ideology and of literature.

We addressed all of these issues, maintaining some consistency with each term but also skipping back and forth between them. We questioned the difference between an author, a writer and a scriptor in Barthes’ terms, and came to the conclusion that beyond the “authority” of the Author, and the “performance” of the narrator, there was ambiguity around these terms. We also briefly alluded to the “author function”, which Barthes introduces in Authors and Writers (1960) and Foucault takes up in What is an Author? (1969). We adhered to a structuralist definition of a text as any cultural artefact that can be “read” and interpreted, we therefore discussed artworks as texts and stopped to ponder whether a scientific article could also be considered a text in this light, or whether Barthes was only referring to literary texts. We discussed Barthes’ premise that readers bring the text to life by reading it “here and now” as Johanna pointed out, thereby interpreting the text in a multitude and variety of different ways, and we were left with the vivid image of tiny reader-maggots feasting on the Author’s dead body. We didn’t address the question of how we construct meaning per se, and we might want to come back to this in the future. We also discussed the role of the maligned critic, who fixes or determines the meaning of a text authoritatively in public forums, referring to exhibition display texts as examples. We will have a chance to return to this subject when we discuss Brian Sewell’s review Tate Triennial 3 (2006), which will be led by Richard Lloyd-Jones in May.

[SYMPOSIUM] #4 Barthes: The Death of the Author, 12 February 2016 at The Field. Photo by Maria Christoforatou.
[SYMPOSIUM] #4 Barthes: The Death of the Author, 12 February 2016 at The Field. Photo by Maria Christoforatou.

We briefly addressed the question of ideology by considering the question of whether there is a need for a determinate meaning, and why, despite the influence and verity of Barthes’ premise that meaning is constructed subjectively and constantly shifting, there is nevertheless a general consensus on the meaning of texts? We posited peer pressure and the natural social tendency we have for consensus or sameness.

Henrietta summed up the discussion elegantly with a prescient observation on the topic of ideology, in her own words:

“…while I found the discussion of the role of the author in the production of texts such as works of art interesting, for me what is most engaging about Barthes’, and wider post-structuralist ideas, is their implications for ideologies. And the possibility of considering ideologies, alongside ‘image, music, [art]’ etc, as ‘texts’. In Mythologies Barthes discussed a wide range of activities: from drinking wine to wrestling, as cultural texts which have a role in creating ideologies. The ideas he discusses with regard to authorship in The death of the author suggest that the reader might not just be key to the understanding or the creation of meaning in writing (for example) but also ideologies. This suggests a concept of ideologies or hegemonies not as top-down, one-way or imposed narratives, but something that a wide variety of actors are involved and complicit in establishing and sustaining. While this might be a concept that is discussed or suggested by a variety of social theorists or philosophers I think the way in which Barthes and other post-structuralists come to this position through the consideration of linguistic theory and semiotics is interesting.” (Ross, 2016)

[SYMPOSIUM] #4 Barthes: The Death of the Author, 12 Feb 2016 at The Field. Photo by Maria Christoforatou.
[SYMPOSIUM] #4 Barthes: The Death of the Author, 12 Feb 2016 at The Field. Photo by Maria Christoforatou.

The jury is out on whether we would like to come back to the subject of ideology in the future. We could approach it via Louis Althusser’s “state apparatuses”, Antonio Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony” or a range of other approaches.

A feature by Dave Beech titled On Critique in the February 2016 issue of Art Monthly is relevant to the discussion we had about whether artworks can in fact be “read” and creates a link between Barthes and the texts by Marcel Duchamp and Brian Sewell that we will be discussing in April and May.

Beech begins by addressing his early critical writing and goes on to discuss the tension between looking at and reading about art. Beech shares the discomfort that many artists have with the idea of “reading” artworks, he sees it as a “misreading of CS Pierce or a misapplication of Ferdinand Saussure’s linguistics to non-linguistic material” (Beech, 2016, p. 7). I am similarly resistant to the idea that an artwork can be broken down to a code or a set of rules, like a language. Language is not merely a series of words that must be deciphered, language is governed by syntactical and grammatical rules. Although poets might play around with these rules, artists’ materials are not primarily linguistic. Artists may indeed think in linguistic terms about their work but they also think in terms of images, shapes, colours, pressures, textures, qualities, quantities, equivalences, oppositions and so on. All these values are governed by diverse and conflicting rules once we free them from narrowly aesthetic definitions. Do artists always think in narrowly aesthetic or art-historical categories? Do viewers approach art from narrowly aesthetic or art-historical perspectives? Artists, viewers and critics bring all kinds of other approaches and discourses into their engagement with art (personal experience, science, mysticism, critical theory, etc). Wittgenstein claimed that we cannot conceive of something that we do not have the language to describe:

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” (Wittgenstein, 1922, p. 74)

This is true to an extent; the structure of our language (its ideology) limits the kinds of thoughts we can have – to come full circle to what Henrietta said about ideology. When Derrida refers to language as a structure that both makes possible and limits play (Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, 1966), he is talking about language as ideology. The concept of ideology in Marxist thought articulates the relation between culture and political economy. Ideology is a naturalised framework of assumptions about the world that we internalise. In Althusser’s words, ideology does not constitute “the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals”, it constitutes the “imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live” (Althusser, 1971, p. 165). For Althusser, ideological state apparatuses are the material manifestations of ideology in practices and institutions. Language is arguably the primary social institution, it makes possible but limits the freedom of those who use it.

But I disagree with Wittgenstein, because if we could express everything that we conceive, perceive and feel in words, then we would have no need for art. Wittgenstein’s assertion also suggests that we can think of nothing that someone else has not thought of and named already. But we evidently can and do have original and unique thoughts and we don’t use language for all of them (how we articulate them and whether we reject them out of habit are different questions, Arthur Koestler goes into this in The Act of Creation, 1964).

I am reluctant to admit that artworks follow rules but, apart from rare exceptions, they generally do and this has grave consequences for my argument against Wittgenstein above and my faith in the liberating power of art. Wittgenstein says that if we change the rules of a game, we change the game (Wittgenstein, 1968). When an artist breaks the rules, art is redefined in the process. But evidently that doesn’t happen very often, instead there’s a fashionable shift now and then in the general sameness that is paraded in galleries and museums all over the world, until the next novelty comes along to promote a different kind of sameness.

The other reason that Beech offers for taking issue with “reading” artworks involves what he calls a “process of prolonged looking”, which he finds “inadequate for the works that engaged [him] the most” (Beech, 2016, p. 7). He finds that thinking and reading about these artworks in their absence is a better way to understand them. This is the main crux of his argument and I thought it might be interesting to debate it because looking and observing is generally considered a cornerstone in art education. I reckon that thinking and reading about artworks in their absence is certainly a good way of learning new things and generating ideas of your own – which brings us back full circle to the death of the author. Beech uses artworks as an inspiration and starting point for his own writing – so maybe this article is about how to generate critique and not about how to look at art after all, something he admits in his introduction:

“When I began writing, reviewing exhibitions in London in the 1990s, I was immediately struck by the contrast between my initial impressions of an exhibition and what I came to say about the work. Not always, but often enough to cause concern, in the time it took me to write about art my response shifted from enjoyment to disapproval. The practice of writing turned me from a consumer into a judge.” (Beech, 2016, p. 5)

Bibliography

Althusser, Louis (1971). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. In Lenin and Philosophy. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 128-194.

Barthes, Roland (1977). The Death of the Author. In Image Music Text, trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana, pp. 142-148.

Barthes, Roland (1993). Authors and Writers. In A Barthes Reader, Susan Sontag ed. New York: Vintage, pp. 185-193.

Beech, Dave (2016). On Critique. Art Monthly, February 2016, pp. 5-8.

Derrida, Jacques (2005/1996). Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences. In Writing and Difference. London: Routlege, pp. 353-354.

Foucault, Michel (1977). What is an Author? In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Donald F. Bouchard ed. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, pp. 113-138.

Koestler, Arthur (1975). The Act of Creation. London: Picador.

Ross, Henrietta (2016). Personal communication, 16 Feb 2016.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922). Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. London: Kegan.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1968). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

STUDIO CRITIQUE

STUDIO CRITIQUE

The STUDIO CRIT was an opportunity for artists, curators, designers, film-makers and other producers to present their work to an audience of peers for discussion and feedback. These events were free and open to everyone. Please scroll down for the guidelines and event archive.

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Food for Thought

First page of An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment by Immanuel Kant, Berlinische Monatsschrift. Dec 1784, pp. 481-494.
First page of An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment by Immanuel Kant, Berlinische Monatsschrift. Dec 1784, pp. 481-494.

We launched the [SYMPOSIUM] book club on 13 November 2015 with a discussion of Immanuel Kant’s 1784 essay An Answer to the Question What Is Enlightenment? We considered Kant’s early modernist utopian ideas, recognising that they are built into the fabric of our everyday lives; from the institution of free speech, the conventions of professional practice and public discussion, to the role of critique and the responsibilities of the individual in society. Using Kant’s criteria, we addressed the question: Do we live in an Enlightened society? Considering the wars, atrocities and escalating violence since 1784, we asked whether Enlightenment ideals have had a regressive effect on modern individuals and social structures, a question that Adorno and Horkheimer take up in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). We skirted a question regarding the consequences of Kant’s thesis for art education, and we might want to come back to this question later.

Also in our first meeting, we began a discussion about how the group will function and we made a number of decisions. We found a name for the club and we decided that we would meet on every second Friday of each month from 6pm – 8:30pm. We also selected the text for our next meeting.

Omar Joseph Nasser Khoury [2011] Silk Thread Martyrs. Ccollection of 22 garments, each unique. Embroidered, fabric, coloured and dyed by hand using natural materials (indigo, tea).
Omar Joseph Nasser Khoury [2011] Silk Thread Martyrs. Ccollection of 22 garments, each unique. Embroidered, fabric, coloured and dyed by hand using natural materials (indigo, tea).

[SYMPOSIUM] #2 took place on 11 December 2015 with Writing against Culture (1991) by feminist anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod. This discussion was led by designer Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury who is currently studying for an MA in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths. Abu-Lughod couples feminism with post-colonialism to address the pitfalls of anthropological methods of research and analysis, which often construct generalised and over-simplified assumptions based on cultural difference. Abu-Lughod proposes strategies of “writing against culture” to counter ethnographic accounts which present culture as something that is static, discrete, homogeneous and coherent, ignoring the cross-over between societies, social and cultural change, subjectivity and everyday contradictions. Omar provided an introduction to the text and a context for us to think through these ideas by discussing his collaboration with a group of Palestinian refugee embroiderers at INAASH, Beirut. Despite (or because) of this grounding, the text proved quite challenging due to the sheer breadth, complexity and slipperiness of the concepts that Abu-Lughod extracts and skilfully connects. Once again we came to the conclusion that what we agree on in theory is very difficult to apply in practice, and that we have a long way to go before we can align intentions and outcomes – largely due to broader social, economic and political circumstances. In this case, it might be helpful to consider the recent surge of projects that privilege cooperative ways of working, alternative economies, and ethical sourcing of raw materials or energy (Transition Network, Remakery, Institute of Network Cultures). Socially-engaged or participatory projects initiated by artists and collectives such as Suzanne Lacy, Ellie Harrison, Wochenklausur and Assemble have also developed collaborative models for social change. Grant Kester’s Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art (2005) provides a theoretical perspective on this together with a discussion of case studies. There are also various forms of institutional support and funding for these projects (Situations, Robin Hood Coop and Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund, which will generate funding for activist art through renewable energy).

Sherrie Levine [1980] Untitled (After Edward Weston). Gelatin silver print.
Sherrie Levine [1980] Untitled (After Edward Weston). Gelatin silver print.

Continuing with with similar themes, [SYMPOSIUM] #3 took place on 8 January 2016 with The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism (1983) by Craig Owens. Owens explores the intersection of the feminist critique of patriarchy and the postmodernist critique of representation, in search for a way to conceive difference without opposition. His starting point is a definition of postmodernism as a crisis of the cultural hegemony of the west. For Owens postmodern cultural production is characterised by pluralism and indifference, with consequences for our sense of cultural identity. Owens considers the absence of discussions of sexual difference from postmodern texts alongside corresponding feminist and artistic critiques of representation. From the outset we encountered in practice what Craig Owens means by The Discourse of Others, as our situated identities informed our nuanced interpretations of the text. We read some passages closely, stopping to discuss definitions and examples of the various concepts that Owens weaves into his argument (postmodernsim, pluralism). We focused on his insistence that critics ought to address (sexual) difference, and we evaluated the dilemmas he sets up in the reading and interpretation of art. We examined the possibility that if we consider the artists’ (sexual, ethnic, class) identity as a defining element in our reading of the work, this may produce another kind of master discourse or essentialist reading of the work. We came to the conclusion that all these different perspectives can coexist simultaneously, sometimes giving way to others as subsequent experiences modify our viewpoint.

[BOOKCLUB] #4 Barthes: The Death of the Author Friday, 12 February 2016, 6:00-8:30pm.This sets us up for The Death of the Author (1977) by Roland Barthes at [SYMPOSIUM] #04 on 12 February 2016. Led by Henrietta Ross, this session will consider the reader, context, authority and authenticity, focusing on the essays’ influence on a contemporary understanding of cultural production and the role of the individual with in it. For more details please visit the [SYMPOSIUM] page.

There were no new proposals, which is a relief as we already have 7 pages of them and we ran out of time before we could discuss Studio Crits and Gallery Tours. We will address these topics and select texts for April-June at next month’s meeting.

THE FIELD KITCHEN

Ratatouille and pasta with wine at the Field Kitchen, 20 Jan 2016. Photo by Maria Christoforatou.
Ratatouille and pasta with wine at the Field Kitchen, 20 Jan 2016. Photo by Maria Christoforatou.

In December 2015 and January 2016 we helped out at the Field Kitchen, a collaborative meal prepared every Wednesday evening at The Field. Richard cooked a delicious ratatouille with pasta. Highlights included Toby’s squash and apricot tagine with pomegranate seeds, Florence’s red veggie curry with rose shortcake for dessert, Dales’ fiery bean and sweet potato chili and Isobel’s subtle squash curry with aromatic rice.

If you’re free and hungry on a Wednesday evening pop into The Field for a home-cooked meal and good company. Food is served at 7:30pm, it’s pay what you can and the income goes towards expenses for the running and maintenance of the Field. If you would like to help out, setup is from 6pm and there’s always something to do until everything is cleared up at the end of the evening. You can also volunteer to cook by adding your name to the list on the wall.

ART CRAWL

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

[SYMPOSIUM] BOOK CLUB

[SYMPOSIUM] BOOK CLUB

The SYMPOSIUM book club was a monthly open-access reading group for artists, researchers and anyone interested in the intersections between art practice and critical theory. Everyone was welcome to propose a text and facilitate the reading group.

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Critical Theory in Contemporary Art Practice

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Critical Theory in Contemporary Art Practice

This course maps the theories and discourses that inform the production and reception of contemporary art, providing a supportive environment to develop your practice and articulate your ideas on the production, exhibition and interpretation of art.

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