Michael Workman

In the midst of Chicago Artist's Month, it's worth turning away from the artist for a moment in order to train our attention on those who constitute art's system of critical reception. Specifically, those who write the first draft of an artwork's history. By what means do the critics qualify their assessment? In recent years, art critics have been described more as philosophers than guardians of artistic merit, a crowd whose analysis of new art once had the potential to make or break the possibility of artistic success but who now merely offer observances. At the risk of entering into a tediously closed system of self-reference, it's worth asking the question: have art critics become obsolete? Not likely, but according to James Elkins, the practice of art criticism and its practitioners should struggle to recover what he refers to as the "exigencies of judgment."

On Monday and Tuesday, October 10 and 11, the Visiting Artist Program (VAP) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago takes up the challenge with a slew of presentations, roundtables and panels on the "States of Art Criticism." Note the plural--what's under investigation here are the "various practices of art criticism," a subject under analysis by everyone from "the specialist to the journalist--historians and theoreticians." Sound mind-numbingly dull? Rest assured, art crit's not all grammar rules and usage requirements: it's a chance to really suck the marrow of current thought across these disciplines. While sure to draw an audience of those with an intellectual stake in the subject like artists and other critics, we can only hope that the general public will take an interest as well. After all, raising the bar on our artistic standards can only be to the greater good. It's rare, moreover, that the curtains of the art-critical establishment are presented so nakedly onstage, though it's a symposium clearly, with the exception of Dave Hickey, more theoretical than applied in its approach.

This SAIC conference is actually the second in a two-part salvo organized by Elkins, who hosted the first at the Burren College of Art in Ireland. Documentation from those events remains online at www.burrencollege.com/events/event_artcrit.htm. Elkins will crack the champagne bottle on the Chicago installment with an address on Monday from noon to 1pm on the "Conditions of Art Criticism." From there, it's a full schedule, all of which is available online at www.artic.edu/saic/art/vap or by calling the VAP directly at (312)443-4799. Keynote addresses on both days come from art-crit heavies such as French playwright/critic/fiction writer and theorist Hélène Cixous (also a founder of the Université de Paris VIII), and Hickey, whose book "Air Guitar" was a blood-churning event for this writer. Cixous opens with a keynote address on the "Arts of Escaping: Simon Hantai, Roni Horn and Other Writers" in the School's Ballroom on Monday at 6pm. Hickey closes on Tuesday at 6pm with a keynote address on the subject of "Art After Criticism." Between them, a seminar by James Panero on "Why Critics Are Not Your Friends" and a public roundtable discussion on the subject of the symposium. Plans for a book titled the "States of Art Criticism" to come out from Routledge will combine the Burren College and SAIC sides, and include taped questions from the audience and panelist responses at the roundtable.

If all this documentation's somehow not enough, Elkins has also launched a blog at www.jimelkins.blogspot.com, "a place to share questions, thoughts, and discussions concerning the upcoming VAP Symposium," and where, once the symposium's complete, a place to "continue to address important topics in both Art Criticism and the larger artistic world."

Luxury goods

At the other end of the art-world spectrum, as part of Chicago Artist's Month programming, Howard Tullman, currently the president of Kendall College, will open an exhibition of works collected over a twenty-year period. Information about Tullman's eclectic range of interests is available online at www.tullman.com. Included in the show are new art by M. Ivan Cherry, profiled in this issue. Tullman has compiled his list of interests in the visual arts, along with images and artist's statements on individual pieces--mostly figurative work--into a blog titled "HindSight" at http://tullman.blogspot.com. Part of a series for Chicago Artist's Month on the "Art of Collecting," Tullman's show's meant to serve as instruction as to how collectors "start, what they collect and how collections evolve" that also includes a glimpse into the private collections of the Podmajersky family and corporate collections of LaSalle Bank and Playboy Enterprises.

"The Tullman Collection of Contemporary Art" shows at 754 North Milwaukee Avenue, (312)286-0005 on October 8, 10am-12pm.

(2005-10-04)

Also by Michael Workman

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