‘Bad Reviews’ Give Artists the Last Laugh – ARTnews.com

The word BAD hangs down the back of the book – BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD – and the cover wears a one star rating out of five. Is this what bad reviews look like? Sometimes only. eds Bad reviews They knock on it, reveling in the ruthless aesthetic judge stereotype, as when critic Brian Druitcore (former associate editor of AiA.) started Ranking galleries on Yelp. Ideally, the truth is more nuanced – even browsing this book is for sure.

Bad reviews It contains replicas of more than 150 reviews chosen by 150 artists, many of them very famous (Lawrence Weiner, Cindy Sherman, Marilyn Minter), who were solicited through a series of invitations initiated by artist Alexandra Mir. The impulse was to pick a “bad review” they received, whatever word “bad” was to them – badly written, glib, misleading, wrong, negative, and all of the above. There are examples of each from a whole range of outlets, from the gallery’s tours The New York Times To pan on the online record collection site Discogs. Aggregated reviews are often complex responses to sometimes complex artwork – and are mostly given in good faith. writes Tim Griffin, project co-editor and president artforum From 2003 to 2010: “A commentary can be as bad in many ways as the artworks it criticizes.”

This is a review too—not bad, not good. Like many reviews, this is an attempt to find out what I really think, how I really feel. To be clear, I am not objective. I’m a critic, and (although Roberta Smith claims the crown at 10 signs) I’m featured in Bad reviews Twice – for one online interview of choosing a show I didn’t like and one review in the back of the book for a show I did. The table of contents is organized by year, then by artist. If I were in charge, I would have included the critics—in smaller font, perhaps—but Bad reviews It’s less about the critics than about the artists and the vindictive things they’ve carried in their thick skins for as long as half a century.

idea Bad reviews It originated in 2015, although you have to wonder if the germ wasn’t planted in 2006 when Waldemar Januszczak was in London Sunday times Meer collected in “a generation of happy-knowledgeables who grew up on hamburgers and pornography, a talentless flower from post-pop trailer trash.” The oldest entry, from 1963, is the first mention of the outstanding artist in The New York Times“Karoly Schneemann’s combos are unforgivable,” John Canaday wrote. (Schneemann foolishly calls him the “then-famous critic” in a note accompanying her submission.) Some artists make their bad reviews like mic drops—art history has done the job of disavowing skeptics. Ed Ruscha contributes a 1963 rejection letter from the Library of Congress, which refused to accept a copy of his fine art book Twentysix petrol stations.

The best criticism can point out errors or blind spots in the artist’s work—though, since all of these revisions are voluntary by their subjects, there isn’t much of that here. The general feeling conveyed is that the artists disagreed with or enjoyed their bad opinions, not that they took them seriously. If you publish a review of the tone of the old guard critics and actually describe the work as “bad”, Bad reviews keeps it up for the pill – as in 2004, Los Angeles Times “It’s about as bad as art these days,” critic Christopher Knight wrote of the Danish artist’s Superflex collection.

Book design can be dismissive, bordering on disingenuous. Editors post quotes like “don’t go” and “my voice is intolerant” via Arlene Croce’s lengthy, thoughtful, and witty review of Bill T. Jones in The New Yorker. topic in question? A performance piece depicting people with terminal illnesses, around which the author wrestles with the relevant ethical question of how or whether to engage what she calls “victim art”.

Bad reviews It cannot be purchased. It was framed as an art project, and only 400 copies were distributed to participating artists and institutions. Mir says this is to avoid copyright issues. I think it’s also a way of sidestepping the expectation that the book is making some kind of connection—A to rule—About bad feedback status. On this point, the written contributions from the editors are contradictory. Mir thanks lovers and haters with equal liveliness. Griffin is more ambiguous, praising the bad review as a fading style of rhetoric, a direct “response” rather than a negative forward or retweet, but falls short of yearning for an age when some people are paid a living wage for their bald opinions.

If editors used the phrase “bad review” with a wink, not all participants would take the book’s introduction lightly. As Meer writes, some artists (and their galleries, she speculates, out of fear for their prices) have refused to participate, perhaps because they’d rather pretend their bad reviews never happened. Sure, some of the reviews I’ve written in the past aren’t listed in the subject’s bio. And it’s a shame. Even negative or unflattering writing usually comes from the general devotion to art and artists that compels writers’ revisions.

Defining “quality” in terms of good or bad may be a useful way of evaluating clothing, wine, or other goods, but it is completely useless for art. A “poor quality” artwork can still be conceptually, emotionally, or beautifully “good”—just as a “bad” review can still be valid. When it comes to art, certainty is rhetorical. This unresolved contradiction is what I and many others find exciting about art. Likewise, this book fulfills the paradox around the idea of ​​”bad reviews” making good art.