Comments on: Reviving the Stories of Art

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:19:41 +0000

I’ve been meaning to read that book. I loved Kraus’ “I Love DIck”. It’s not art history though…

By: André

André — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:17:18 +0000

I liked Chris Kraus’s Video Green. Definitely passionate and smart in equal parts.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:07:33 +0000

Regarding academia… If you ask me Pamale Lee’s “Chronophobia” is a good example of bad art history writing. Talk about fuzzy and unclear… What a truly annoying book. And contrast Lee’s book with James Meyer’s awesome “Minimalism.”

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:04:04 +0000

Funny you should mention New Yorker! I was going to mention the author Lawrence Weschler in my first comment. “Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder” is a very informative and entertaining book. But then, I started wondering whether he’s an art historian or merely a journalist… These useless distinctions…

By: Hrag Vartanian

Hrag Vartanian — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:34:41 +0000

I think there’s a way to marry them but it usually depends on good writing period, not a formula. I think the New Yorker does it well at times, to name a famous example.

By: André

André — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:12:18 +0000

I think you end up with the same problem that you have in film criticism: newspaper film critics talk about whether they enjoyed the movie and film theorists talk about how the movie works, and the two groups are completely segregated. Even super-snooty film critics like Matt Zoller Seitz won’t bring up serious film theory in a review. While it would probably be good for both professions if there were more integration, there’s no market for that. Theorists read theory, and everyone else reads reviews. Mixing them together gets you something too snooty for the snootiest Village Voice reader, and too personally skewed for an academic.

By: Hrag Vartanian

Hrag Vartanian — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:05:02 +0000

I think that passion is crucial to communicate the power of art to others. In terms of art history, the presence of passion in prose helps others understand the importance of art. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the intellectual study of art, I adore it in fact, but when the pendulum swings to far one way the art suffers. Facts are crucial but in art emotions help you truly understand, at least with great art.

Oy, MFAs are something I only hear about from others, so I can’t really relate. I did art history, so no art practice for me.

By: André

André — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:52:00 +0000

I don’t get why your emotional attachment to art has to have anything to do with art history. If the emotional, the irrational and the intuitive are so important, why go to school in the first place?

I’m partially saying this out of frustration with my current MFA program. Everything bad about art history’s obscurity/irrelevance is doubly harmful when they try to teach it as art practice.

By: Hrag Vartanian

Hrag Vartanian — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:18:56 +0000

I think anyone who has gone through art history grad school can relate. The emotional relationship with art is yanked out of you. It took me two years after my MA just to be able to attend art shows again. There must be a happy median, no?

By: André

André — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:21:47 +0000

The problem with art history is that it’s intellectualized? Not enough emotion? Then just you wait for Julian Schnabel’s new Felix Gonzalez-Torres movie. You’ll crap your pants from all the pathos.

I don’t get how the History Channel’s model of showing “Nostradamus Reveals Hitler’s Sex Life” six times a day is going to work for art history. Maybe they can do something like “Jersey Shore” but in Williamsburg. Or is that Bravo’s domain?