Page 1 The State of Art Criticism Art criticism is spurned by universities, but widely produced and read. It is seldom theorized, and its history has hardly been investigated. The State of Art Criticism presents an international conversation among art historians and critics that considers the relation between criticism and art history, and poses the question of whether criticism may become a university subject. Participants include Dave Hickey, James Panero, Stephen Melville, Lynne Cook, Michael Newman, Whitney Davis, Irit Rogoff, Guy Brett, and Boris Groys. James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His many books include Pictures and Tears, How to Use Your Eyes, and What Painting Is, all published by Routledge. Michael Newman teaches in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is Professor of Art Writing at Goldsmiths College in the University of London. His publications include the books Richard Prince: Untitled (couple) and Jeff Wall, and he is co-editor with Jon Bird of Rewriting Conceptual Art. 08:52:27:10:07 Page 1 Page 2 The Art Seminar Volume 1 Art History versus Aesthetics Volume 2 Photography Theory Volume 3 Is Art History Global? Volume 4 The State of Art Criticism Volume 5 The Renaissance Volume 6 Landscape Theory Volume 7 Re-Enchantment Sponsored by the University College Cork, Ireland; the Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Ireland; and the School of the Art Institute, Chicago. 08:52:27:10:07 Page 2 Page 3 The State of Art Criticism EDITED BY JAMES ELKINS AND MICHAEL NEWMAN 08:52:27:10:07 Page 3 Page 4 First published 2008 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identi fication and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The state of art criticism / edited by Michael Newman and James Elkins.—1st ed. p. cm.—(The art seminar ; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–415–97787–6 (pbk.)—ISBN 978–0–415–97786–9 (hardback) 1. Art criticism—Congresses. 2. Art—Historiography—Congresses. I. Newman, Michael, 1954– II. Elkins, James, 1955– N7475.S73 2007 701′.18—dc22 2007028043 ISBN 0-203-47930-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–97786–X (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–97787–8 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–47930–0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0-415–97786–9 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0-415–97787–6 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0-203–47930–8 (ebk) 08:52:27:10:07 Page 4 Page 5 Table of Contents Series Preface vii James Elkins SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION 1 The Recovery of Criticism 3 Michael Schreyach SECTION 2 STARTING POINTS 27 The Specificity of Criticism and Its Need for Philosophy 29 Michael Newman Critical Reflections 61 Boris Groys On the Absence of Judgment in Art Criticism 71 James Elkins What is a Theorist? 97 Irit Rogoff Is This Anything? or, Criticism in the University 111 Stephen Melville SECTION 3 THE ART SEMINARS 127 First seminar participants: Guy Brett, Whitney Davis, James Elkins, Jean Fisher, Boris Groys, Timothy Emlyn Jones, Irit Rogoff, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Gemma Tipton 129 Second seminar participants: Dave Hickey, Lynne Cooke, James Panero, Ariella Budick, James Elkins, Gaylen Gerber, Stephen Melville, Michael Newman 181 v 11:35:29:10:07 Page 5 Page 6 vi The State of Art Criticism SECTION 4 ASSESSMENTS 233 András Szántó 235 Katy Deepwell 237 Daniel A. Siedell 242 Sheila Farr 245 Pier Dominguez 247 Lane Relyea 255 Peter Plagens 259 Blake Gopnik 261 Saul Ostrow 264 Darby English 275 Olu Oguibe 280 Matthew Bowman 289 Margaret Hawkins 295 Elaine O’Brien 298 Maja Naef 301 Victoria Musvik 302 Mark Bauerlein 308 Robert Enright 312 Felipe Chaimovich 317 Sue Spaid 318 Kim Levin 325 Róisín Kennedy 326 Matthew Jesse Jackson 328 Alexander Alberro 331 Julian Stallabrass 334 Jeffrey Skoller and Jim Elkins 336 Jan Verwoert 342 Joseph Masheck 348 SECTION 5 AFTERWORDS 361 The States of Art Criticism 363 James Elkins and Michael Newman The State of Art Criticism, Reviewed 373 Maja Naef Notes on Contributors 381 Index 395 08:52:27:10:07 Page 6 Page 7 Series Preface James Elkins It has been said and said that there is too much theorizing in the visual arts. Contemporary writing seems like a trackless thicket, tan- gled with with unanswered questions. Yet it is not a wilderness; in fact it is well-posted with signs and directions. Want to find Lacan? Read him through Macey, Silverman, Borch-Jakobsen, Zˇ izˇek, Nancy, Leclaire, Derrida, Laplanche, Lecercle, or even Klossowski, but not—so it might be said—through Abraham, Miller, Pontalis, Rosaloto, Safouan, Roudinesco, Schneiderman, or Mounin, and of course never through Dalí. People who would rather avoid problems of interpretation, at least in their more difficult forms, have sometimes hoped that “the- ory” would prove to be a passing fad. A simple test shows that is not the case. Figure 1 shows the number of art historical essays that have terms like “psychoanalysis” as keywords, according to the Bibli- ography of the History of Art. The increase is steep after 1980, and in three cases—the gaze, psychoanalysis, and feminism—the rise is exponential. Figure 2 shows that citations of some of the more influential art historians of the mid-twentieth century, writers who came before the current proliferation of theories, are waning. In this second graph there is a slight rise in the number of references to Warburg and Riegl, reflecting the interest they have had for the current generation of art historians: but the graph’s surprise is the precipitous decline in citations of Panofsky and Gombrich. vii 08:52:27:10:07 Page 7 Page 8 viii The State of Art Criticism Figure 1 Theory in art history, 1940–2000. Most of art history is not driven by named theories or individual historians, and these graphs are also limited by the terms that can be meaningfully searched in the Bibliography of the History of Art. Even so, the graphs suggest that the landscape of interpretive strategies is changing rapidly. Many subjects crucial to the interpretation of art are too new, ill-theorized, or unfocused to be addressed in mono- graphs or textbooks. The purpose of The Art Seminar is to address some of the most challenging subjects in current writing on art: those that are not unencompassably large (such as the state of painting), or not yet adequately posed (such as the space between the aesthetic and the anti-aesthetic), or so well known that they can be written up in critical dictionaries (the theory of deconstruction). The subjects chosen for The Art Seminar are poised, ready to be articulated and argued. Each volume in the series began as a roundtable conversation, held in front of an audience at one of the three sponsoring institutions—the University College Cork, the Burren College of Art 08:52:27:10:07 Page 8 Page 9 Series Preface ix Figure 2 Rise and fall of an older art history, 1930–2000: Citations of selected writers. (both in Ireland), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The conversations were then transcribed, and edited by the participants. The idea was to edit in such a way as to minimize the correctable faults of grammar, repetitions, and lapses that mark any conversation, while preserving the momentary disagreements, confusions, and dead-ends that could be attributed to the articulation of the subject itself. In each volume of The Art Seminar, the conversation itself is preceded by a general introduction to the subject and one or more “Starting Points,” previously published essays that were distributed to participants before the roundtable. Together the Introductions and “Starting Points” are meant to provide the essential background for the conversation. A number of scholars who did not attend the events were then asked to write “Assessments”; their brief was to consider 08:52:27:10:07 Page 9 Page 10 x The State of Art Criticism the conversation from a distance, noting its strengths and its blind spots. The “Assessments” vary widely in style and length: some are highly structured, and others are impressionistic; some are under a page, and others the length of a commissioned essay. Contributors were just asked to let their form fit their content, with no limitations. Each volume then concludes with one or more “Afterwords,” longer critical essays written by scholars who had access to all the material including the “Assessments.” The Art Seminar attempts to cast as wide, as fine, and as strong a net as possible, to capture the limit of theorizing on each subject. Perhaps in the future the ideas discussed here will be colonized, and become part of the standard pedagogy of art: but by that time they may be on the downward slide, away from the centers of conversation and into the history of disciplines.