Crit Sessions Vol. 2

The lovely Jennifer Frias came up with an idea now known as Crit Sessions.  Crit Sessions is a project where non-art people (as in those not fluent in art speak) are invited to critique a piece of art for an hour long session.  The purpose of this is allow the artists to receive real world feedback from outside the art world bubble.  It is "an interrogation of the institution" as Jen put it, that is, the institution of Art School specifically and the art world at large. 

The artists chosen are in or recently graduated from a Master's of Fine Art program in the LA metro area.  Volume 1 was conducted at Cal State Fullerton (CSF), and Volume 2 happened at Claremont Graduate University (CGU).  There are plans to expand to Art Center, Cal Arts, UCLA, UC Irvine, LCAD, and others.  There will be 3 artists included from each program.  The artists choose a piece ahead of time, and prepare a one page statement (specifically addressing that piece) to go with it.  During the hour of critique the artist can't say anything (which is typical of a lot of art school critiques) but they have a chance afterward to address any questions or point of discussion that came up.

Crit Sessions came to CGU on June 22, 2013, and the artists included were Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Takeshi Kanemura, and myself.  We got to watch each other's crits as well, which was also informative.  I made a new piece specifically for the crit.  A vagina dentata (my third one).  I found that a lot of what I was going for was received pretty straight on. To me that furthers my belief that a lot of aesthetics and formalism in art is based on an instinctual sensibility.  I'm totally fine with that, and consider it an accomplishment that the people conducting the critique were able to understand my work.  I took pages of notes, and plan to use those to help make some decisions for future pieces.

Though the project wasn't designed in this way, I thought it gave those critiquing a sense of empowerment, and demystified art in a lot of ways.  They as a viewer were validated as part of the process and (with encouragement) their opinions became valid.  When a lot of non-art people discuss art they usually tack on the anti-qualifier: "Well, I don't know much about art, but..."  Though most contemporary art has some reference to art history or other contemporary work, that's not the end all be all.  And I think the participants learned that in their role as critic.