a bad piece of art writing can generally be dismissed as "mere description." a shopping list that describes the art and exhibition, sometimes with a few badly researched art historical references thrown in.*
yet sometimes it is delightful to read a review of a show that one hasn't seen, because then one can somehow feel that one has experienced it. particularly when reading reviews that occur in other cities it is sometimes wonderful to read description as well as interpretation and critique of an exhibition that one will only get to see in images. there is an art to the balance of description and technique... good art writing lives on when the exhibition is over, the works dispersed throughout the wide world... a document or witness to an event that once happened. art writing as a testimony?
*there is also another kind, where a seasoned and puffed-up reviewer begins with a little homily of his very own.
yet sometimes it is delightful to read a review of a show that one hasn't seen, because then one can somehow feel that one has experienced it. particularly when reading reviews that occur in other cities it is sometimes wonderful to read description as well as interpretation and critique of an exhibition that one will only get to see in images. there is an art to the balance of description and technique... good art writing lives on when the exhibition is over, the works dispersed throughout the wide world... a document or witness to an event that once happened. art writing as a testimony?
*there is also another kind, where a seasoned and puffed-up reviewer begins with a little homily of his very own.
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