Ways and Means: A five-part meditation on writing about the arts
What You See Is Not The Same As How You See It
If you’ve ever read one of Deborah Jowitt’s reviews in The Village Voice, then you’ll have a pretty good idea about the style of arts criticism that I’m calling non-evaluative. You know, the kind of review that–albeit with academic authority and thoughtful reflection–basically describes what happened during the performance, but leaves out that final layer of traditional criticism, which is to summarize the worth, or value, of the work in question. Think of it as “showing” rather than “telling.”
Although, if this kind of criticism consistently appears in a newspaper, as it does in The Voice with each review Deborah Jowitt submits, there runs a risk of fostering an environment where the sheer appearance of a work in a review amounts to a de facto endorsement of its value, contradicting the noble attempt at neutrality.
I understand that an attempt at such neutrality probably comes from the desire to advocate for the art in question; in this case, dance. I believe Deborah Jowitt has a long history with the dance community that, at one point, may have involved being a dancer. And if, indeed, the contemporary arts need a public defense, I can understand how criticism that is solely “descriptive” might seem like a good way to go. But I am of the opinion that critics can only advocate for the arts, not by avoiding evaluation, but by being rigorously critical in a manner that has the welfare of the arts in its best interest.
The best thing critics can do is to help cultivate a vital and relevant artistic culture by maintaining a rigorous level of criticism that both accurately situates the work in a proper context (historically, aesthetically, contemporarily) and also offers a frank opinion about the merits or deficiencies of the work. It’s a balancing act, but one that I feel is imperative to good criticism. I would imagine that every critic will find his/her own balance, but all the critics I like to read, in one way or another, achieve the balance.
A more illusive goal, but still necessary, is, as a critic, to remain open to the possibility of being moved in new ways. A good critic will have a strong belief system, but will also be willing, at any given performance, to consider the way in which a new work is attempting to communicate.
I have quoted this line before, but I will do it here again. In the film “Mona Lisa Smile,” a guilty pleasure of mine, but one that has offered the world at least this one nugget of wisdom. Julia Roberts’s character has taken a class of myopic 1950s Ivy League girls, who have been hopelessly pre-programmed to discriminate against anything they don’t immediately understand, to a warehouse in Greenwich Village where an art-world buddy of hers opens a sealed crate to reveal an enormous painting by Jackson Pollock. The set-up is melodramatic, yes, but thrilling. When one of the girls whines and asks if they have to like the painting, Ms. Roberts diplomatically and poignantly replies, “You don’t have to like it. But you do have to consider it.”
In this very way, new criticism should favor new work. That is not to say that critics should pretend to like everything that is new. Rather, in addition to being covered far more that it is, new work should be appreciated with the understanding that newness is essential to healthy culture. But unfamiliarity has a way of freaking people out. It is safer to laud the old, to revere the classics, to reassert the genius of the time-proven geniuses. What is perhaps more difficult to do is to recognize a worthy effort of a new artist/performer, and to honor the attempts to work is making, even if failed, to communicate in new ways.
But this requires willingness on the part of the critic to be present, and to risk being unexpectedly moved by art. A host of problem’s arise if a critic’s point of view is always from the recesses of his or her imagination of the past, whether it be a preference for the classics or simply their own memory of past performances. There runs a strain in criticism that can be almost profane in its disregard for new work. This kind of criticism is the victim of laziness really, a closed-circuit of references compounded by time and dissatisfaction. It is easier to say Giant Artist X is better than No Name Y than it is to risk putting one’s neck out and saying, You know, there could be something to this new thing. [1] And writing from that angle merely confirms a latent distrust of contemporaneity. The goal of a critic should not be solely to defend the innocent public from the ruse of contemporary art, which is sometimes necessary, but rather, should function dully to warn the public of crap, and also, by writing, to provide a rationale for the public to consider new work they may not readily understand; to facilitate appreciation.
Non-evaluative criticism, on the other hand can only perform the latter task.
Back in 2005, Jonah Bokaer, one of the co-founders of Chez Bushwick, approached me about writing essays for Chez Bushwick after he had read an article I had written about Moving Theater Company that was published on culturebot.org. The essays were to document The Shtudio Show, a performance showcase co-curated by the then crew of Chez Bushwick, which, along with Bokaer, included Miguel Gutierrez, Jeremy Wade and Loren Dempster.
As the showcases typically presented works-in-progress, and always included an interview of a prominent figure in the field of dance (among them, Deborah Hay, Gia Kourlas, and Carla Peterson), the format didn’t lend itself to traditional press criticism, both because it is ethically questionable to review a work that is not the official public rendition sanctioned by the artist, and because the founders of Chez Bushwick wanted to keep the atmosphere of the Shtudio Show broadly permissive. This led to the decision to prohibit the formal press from reviewing the showcases.
Which brings up an important question, and one that undoubtedly provides the impetus for the creation of a body of non-evaluative critical literature for contemporary performance: Should the performing arts leave the responsibility of providing literary accounts of live performance–which can provide vital information that photography and video on their own cannot–to critics?
The short answer is: No.
Now for the long answer.
First and foremost, unlike a purposefully objective photograph or video, a critical review entirely and necessarily subdivides a live performance into positives and negatives. This approach promotes and sustains an intrinsically bifurcated legacy of performance literature: That which is good held above that which is bad. The information provided by critical reviews is virtually always transmitted simultaneously with feelings of approval or disapproval, whereas, if one were observing a photograph, film or video of a performance–other kinds of documents–one would receive information without such accompanying bias. That is, the prerogative to determine value lies first with the viewer, rather than, when reading a review, the critic’s evaluation is essential to the mediated experience of the work, therefore providing a critical viewpoint that preempts and potentially steers the viewer’s feelings.
Along similar lines, the literature of defense provided by artists–the “artist’s statement,” or press materials–is just as problematic in that it leaves a categorically positive, self-affirming literary legacy. To rely solely on an artist’s own rhetoric to ascertain the real quality of their work can be misleading, and not always to the benefit of the artist.
Secondly, the shaky and/or biased oral accounts of history we find cropping up in news reportage and film documentary does not always tell us how things really happened. The old guard has a tendency to reinforce their idea of who they were through anecdote and reminisce, often eschewing any possibility that things were any different from how they are telling you. Tod Haynes’s recent Bob Dylan inspired film, “I’m Not There,” parodies the bio-documentary cliche of the now suburban former legend offering a self-righteous and well worn rote account of the glory days. It’s entertaining, and it gives the viewer a palpable connection to the past, but it isn’t necessarily objective or accurate, and can often only serve fantasy.
And in our age of media immediacy, where access to the latest documentative technologies is facile and widespread (though these are largely and almost exclusively digital), we tend to forget the merits of the literary document, or at the very least, the only literary documents we anticipate are the artist’s statement (which isn’t really a document of an event as much as it is a premonition of an event: the meeting of the art and the viewer) and the review (which isn’t only a document, but is also an opinion). [2]
Ultimately, Chez Bushwick, by commissioning these essays (and I am not the only writer who has been enlisted in this effort), is subverting tradition by creating a body of non-evaluative critical literature for contemporary performance, while, at the same time, facilitating appreciation of new work.
It was actually reading Roselee Goldberg’s “Performance: Live Art, 1909 t0 the Present,” that made me pause to question: Who is writing about what we are doing? The need for a new generation of writing became clear, as did the need for the writing to come from within the community, from someone who may better understand the goals a contemporary artist has and the tools they have to achieve them; or, someone who’s down.
I am doing my best to keep the goals of the three kinds of writing that I have mentioned in this series (critiquing critics, original reviews, and non-evaluative criticism) distinct and rigorous. The reader will be the judge of whether I succeed. The dawn of blogging has, no doubt, caused the press community at large to reevaluate journalism, so it makes sense that arts criticism is also under reexamination. If we are indeed living in a time where there are no obvious answers to our concerns about the new ways of writing, then I think all we can do is write as much as possible; create as much as we can. Any answers will come later.
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[1] On the other hand, making predictions of the next big thing can also prove just as much of a bad idea. Such predictions can do more to reaffirm the ego of the critic than the career of the artist. It can also inject all sorts of unnecessary expectations into a culture that should really maintain an open stance to all new work.
[2] I am excluding here theses and critical essays in published journals because they literally hypothesize the worth or non-worth of art, and though they go into far greater depth than any newspaper review ever could, they still maintain a need to confirm or negate value. They also tend to focus less on recounting immediate experiences with art than they do on accounting for historical experiences with art.