Katie Murken is a friend of P'unk Avenue. Geoff and Alex worked with her on the
Debtor's Inheritance project two years ago. She is currently the head of 2D Foundations at
Tyler School of Art, leading classes in digital tools and printmaking.
Alex and I met her for some breakfast-for-lunch and continued a conversation about art and criticism begun while ice skating two Fridays ago. I took some rushed short-hand notes, so much of the following is paraphrased and polished to make us sound eloquent.
...
KM: I just got back from the
Millay Colony [Hudson River Valley artist residency program] juries and enjoyed hearing
Chris Stackhouse speak. His writing is really good. He expressed an interest in Philly.
RB: Yeah, I'd like to get in touch with
William Pym and do a gallery tour or something.
[segue into talking about curation as creation]
RB+AG:
But Does It Float is really great, pulling together beautiful editorials of contemporary and historically relevant art and design. Sometimes they are posting photos of the
signage and wall cards from an installation, or the work of a seminal architect with his or her photo.
Jason Kottke is about to give a
lecture at SVA on curating the web. That should be really good.
KM: That sounds interesting. I just walked through one of the "
Notations" shows at the PMA that Carlos Basvaldos curated. This idea of criticism AND creation through curating the permanent collection has become really relevant.
RB: Like the Vic Muniz show at MoMA [appropriately titled
Rebus].
[Rick gets caught up in the theory of theory]
AG: I think you need to get away from the theory of theory.
KM: Yeah, I think slideshows and imagery are going to be necessary at this Junto to give context to the stuff you want to critique.
RB: I agree, definitely. I guess I am fixated on critiquing criticism. It's just that the latest
Art Forum has something like forty pages of writing and more than a hundred pages of ads. [It's become the Vogue of art criticism]
KM: Have you guys seen any of the
Art 21 programming on PBS? [Sadly, no] What about the Biennials? Are they doing anything interesting for you?
RB: I liked the Whitney last year, I hated the 2006 one. I just feel like two hundred years ago the critics had artists wrangled, and it made the work narrow. Now the work is very broad and the critics are at the artists' mercy. We need a
Baudelaire to balance things out.
KM: So you're into this
Clement Greenberg thing? It seems like there's a lack of critical expertise to discuss work that can't be framed within Modernism.
RB: Critics haven't updated their vocabulary. There's almost no frame for this stuff. Going to a New York gallery can be an Emperor's New Clothes experience. We went to art school, but feel stupid there. The wall cards are written by the artists. That feels really inappropriate. Critics need help us synthesize the work into something we can relate. Create an inclusive public vocabulary. A wide audience is going to these
Superstar Retrospective shows, but missing out on all the more difficult work.
KM: I think there is a difficulty in translating something visual to something literate. The interview can be a really good critical tool. Asking questions of the artist can be an opportunity for straight talk.
RB: Yeah, I'm really interested in replacing the audio
tour with the sound experience of replaying a gallery walk with Curator, Artist, Critic. Experiencing the work as you hear their dialog about it.
KM: When reviewing a show, nowadays, there is the curation and presentation of the show. That adds a layer of opacity over the work, it can make critique more difficult.
AG: Is there anything I said in there [gesturing to my notebook]? Damn, no AG's.
