Looking Down
Nesting Instinct
From my latest review:
Taking a look around “Garden: Delights and Detritus” – a show of artist’s books, drawings and mixed-media prints by Ithaca College professor Susan Weisand – one is immediately struck by their visual eclecticism. Weisand’s work uses a wide spectrum of techniques and materials, typically combining several to create a single image. Similarly, she arranges, layers and re-uses different motifs and styles in a collage-like manner, giving her seemingly timeless natural subjects a distinctly contemporary feel.
More here.
I would appreciate any feedback on my artwriting.
Arthur,
The first thing I can tell you is your artwriting makes me want to see the show. You accomplish that without actually pitching the show but with a straightforwardness of perception, so it has integrity.
At various times, I’ve followed the work of various art reviewers; most recently, in Los Angeles with the writings of the their Times art critic Donald Knight. After some months, I finally figured out that he tended only to give favorable reviews to art which reminded him of the time in his life in which he considered himself at his most virile — the late sixties and early seventies op/pop scene. I rather tended to discount him thereafter. You do not make this error; your review and your writing do not seem to be simply a secret agenda to talk about your glory days but here, now, in the scene, utterly immersed.
Your style is very fluid. Your movement from one picture to another has very much the quality of feeling of an interested viewer moving around in a gallery to look at pictures. Again, that here and now quality. Highly skilled. You are an excellent artist with your medium. Better at it than me. I don’t feel well qualified to judge beyond that because I am quite sure I could do no better, and certainly far worse.
Deliberately, I’ve avoided talking about the art because that is not your question, but after checking out the links, I found I could easily find no more pictures in the show that I knew were in the show than just the one. Weisand’s site puts her CV, show numbers, and awards right up front rather than buried in the fine print where such data belongs.
That’s always a red flag with me indicating she’s trying to impress other artists and education professionals rather than give of her soul to the larger world, but your review humanizes her and makes me willing to forgive her insecurity.
Arthur, thanks to the link to your review. Your writing is strong, but I do have a few bits of feedback.
First of all, saying something feels contemporary doesn’t mean much to me, unless the work was done a hundred years ago but looks like it was done this year.
Your descriptions of the artwork are detailed, and that’s good, but I think I’d like to see a bit more interpretation on your part. She uses various means to portray fragments of imagery together – how do you personally read that? Also, maybe a quote from the artist or her statement, or some history about her, to give some insight to what her thoughts are about what she’s doing?
I know this isn’t probably your call but the publication’s, but I’d rather see a few good reproductions and your commentary, than a tiny almost invisible picture on the Times website and having to rely on your descriptions to imagine what the work looks like (I did visit her site, but that’s separate).
Also, saying “one would like to see” seems to imply an allknowing authority, whereas I’d rather have you personally say what you would like to see.
The review is overall very well-written, and I like her work so thanks for providing the link.
Rex, your comment about her site would be appropriate if it were her personal website, but it’s her page on a faculty site for the school. She may not have any control over the format.
Arthur,
I think your art writing is good. You give me a sense of the work even though I don’t see it (I read the review without loading any images).
One point is that some writers suggest doing away with adverbs. I’m not sure this is a good idea, but the result of this advocacy is that I notice all your adverbs and wonder if they are necessary.
Another point: is it necessary to provide your explicit evaluation of the works (e.g., this is the best work in the show, etc…)? What information does this convey? If the work is worth looking at, you should convey this in your description (and I think you do). If the work is not worth looking at, but still worth writing about, then write about it. The personal judgement about the quality is not out of place in a review, I suppose. We could delete each of these direct judgments and see if the review loses anything. My feeling is that it doesn’t.
Arthur,
You do a nice job of describing the works in the show, and commenting on their technique. As Rex said, your sentences flow smoothly. But I’m left missing two big things: what is the project or concept or motivation of the artist, and what did you think of the show overall? I didn’t find any kind of statement by Weisend, and can only guess at why she creates these works, what she is trying to do or say. Is it a celebration of backyard nature, a meditation on metamorphoses and change (egg to nest to flight), or simply playful compositions with found themes in her garden? If there’s no clear statement and you can’t tell or want to be sure yourself, I’d give the artist a call and ask a few questions.
And then there’s the problematical question of your reaction, which for a variety of reasons you may want to soft-pedal, but it should still be possible for a reader to figure out. Hopefully you can find a way to state your opinion while also suggesting reasons for different opinions. Perhaps I just don’t know your writing well enough to pick up signals, but I really can’t tell whether you enjoyed the show. The general flat feeling leaves me suspecting you didn’t. But I would actually be more interested in seeing the show if I knew you didn’t like it for some particular reasons. I could then go and judge for myself.
I hope that’s helpful and doesn’t seem too critical. I definitely liked reading the piece. I realize there may be constraints on your review articles that I’m not appreciating fully. It would be interesting to hear about anything like that you had in mind while writing this one.
Rex,
Glad you liked it. Your comment about the writing’s fluidity was particularly apt. I try to re-create the experience of walking through the show. This can be hard to do sitting in another room in front of a computer, working from note cards. So there are elements of fiction that creep in.
David is almost surely right about the site design. Its a professor’s site more than an artist’s.
David,
Yes, more interpretation would have been good. But I was reaching towards the upper limit of length (750 words) and felt that the descriptions were too important. Perhaps I was wrong about this. The articles that I’ve written for Big Red & Shiny have no word limits and are perhaps too wordy and meandering.
As for the image on the Times’ site (“Nesting Instinct”), I think its only real function is break up the monotony of rows of text. The printed version isn’t even in color.
I should do a better job of getting images up online (starting with asking permission for these thing in advance). But arranging for such things tends to give me a headache. Of course, the article is aimed at a local audience, whom I would encourage to just go see the work in person.
Karl,
I’m wary of explicitly lumping things into categories of good and bad–unless the unevenness is truly blatant, as with many group shows. I’d rather let my judgments remain implicit in the descriptions the way you suggest. Writing for a broad audience, it seems important however to occasionally be blunt. Otherwise, people might not get the idea that its important to make value judgements
Steve,
Yes, you’re right; I should have called up the artist. Other things that I’ve written have been much more interpretive. Here I had trouble piecing a large-scale theme together from the little bits. I was also waylaid by lack of familiarity with some of the print mediums being used. I was distracted from meaning as I tried to figure how all of the various marks were made.
As for my reaction, let me say that I was moderately pleased with the show. My customary strategy up until now has been to write a concluding paragraph saying whether the show overall was good or bad or mediocre. This seemed overly formulaic and predictable, so I simply left the last paragraph out as an experiment.
And did I mention the word limit?
Arthur, good/bad/mediocre might be formulaic, but it would still be good to get some idea what your personal response was to the work. Also, regarding the word limit, I’d maybe cut down on the description and add more interpretation, as well as any insight you could provide about the artist’s background and conceptual framework. And if you were able to upload images that would be a huge improvement.
PS – I probably should add that I have trouble reading most art writing (except by some artists, Eno being the best), especially reviews in the LA Times and in the big art magazines. For the most part it puts me to sleep. The one notable exception to this is Dave Hickey, whose writing I love. I know he pisses some people off, but his writing is both insightful and entertaining. Some of his views are pretty outrageous, but not gratuitously so. He always makes a good argument for his opinions. His essays challenge my preconceptions and make me look at things in a new way.
I’ve also enjoyed Lawrence Weschler’s (I’ve probably misspelled his name) writings about Robert Irwin, but those are books.
David and Arthur,
About the site design — OK. It is not fair to judge a site out of context.
Ms. Weisand, if you’re reading this, I apologize.
David,
Where (Brian) Eno’s art writing?
A Year With Swollen Appendices: The Diary of Brian Eno
Arthur, I almost hesitate to recommend this, because I see on Amazon that it’s out of print, and used copies of the paperback are selling for $81.28! A friend of mine lent it to me years ago, and I later bought my own copy when I heard Eno and Danny Hillis speak here in Los Angeles. It’s not exactly art writing, it’s a diary w/ essays in the back, but he’s one of my favorite artists of any sort, and he talks a lot about his artistic (including musical) process as well as his ideas on various aspects of art and culture. If he ever comes around Ithaca or NYC for a talk I highly recommend going to hear him, and maybe they’ll have some copies of the book for sale at a reasonable price. I got mine for $10.
You might want to check out EnoWeb, which has links to a bunch of interviews from over the years. I also see he has a new book and DVD set out called 77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno. I haven’t checked it out yet, though I do see there’s a caveat that “This DVD will not play on most DVD players sold in the US or Canada [Region 1]. This item requires a region specific or multi-region DVD player and compatible TV.” We’re thinking about getting a region-free DVD player anyway at some point so we can play the Italian-subtitled Woody Allen DVDs we bought in Italy, so this is an added motivation to do so.
I see it at Alibris.com staring at $35.65. But I’ll probably just steal it from a library or something. I have a few of his CDs around and have read some things by him online. They’re invariably fascinating.
Arthur,
I read your review 3 times and I found you packed a lot of information into a short space (that’s why I had to read it 3 times).
I thought you intermingled description, analysis, interpretation and judgment very well — not too heavy handed on any. I particularly appreciated that describing the pieces which used the same elements in different configurations had to have been challenging. Because this is a review in a local paper, I assumed a general readership that would be interested in what they might be seeing, how you saw it pulling together intellectually, and whether it was egregiously bad or excitingly good — or something like you describe, interesting.
I liked your opening phrase “taking a look around” because that is what the rest of the review does — looks around, describes, makes some astute comments, and some mild critique. I felt like you had completely circled the exhibit, something that is unusual for a critic. I too sort of wanted more visuals, but if you had gotten them, you would have presumably had to cut down on the text — and I think that might have been hard. When I think about what to leave out, I’m hard-pressed to decide on anything.Somehow the fullness of the text leaves us with an image of a full experience, even with what sound like slight (or repetitious) materials.
I would agree with a couple comments here — I never understand what people mean when they say something looks “contemporary.” And I did wonder about an artist statement of some sort. On the other hand, artist’s statements or commments are often so bad that the writer is generous in ignoring them. Bad writers sometimes rely far too heavily on the artist’s own words, and I like it that you didn’t.
I had the sense that the sentences you wrote were very complex, but when I went back and looked, they didn’t seem so. That means to me that you packed them with so much material that they had to be read slowly.
My only semi-serious comment on your writing would be to ask if this is what your audience would have expected or wanted to find in an art review? The answer to that lies in the nature of the paper and the expectations of the audience and only you and your editor can judge whether you hit the mark or not. And of course, you could be pulling your audience to different (higher?) expectations — I’m only saying that you should be thinking consciously about who you are writing for and why. I feel a somewhat sophisticated audience for this particular piece of writing.
Arthur,
THis has a lovely flow, as others have pointed out. And, like others, I would like more visuals (I always want that though). I get a little lost in the details of your descriptions and perhaps would have liked not so much detail and more of an overall sense of the show, the themes, the ideas. I look to reviews for the big picture, your experience of looking at it including the overall tone, your overall reaction, and then I will go and look at the details myself. But that’s just me.
I miss the concluding paragraph you left out. I sensed your luke warm reaction but would have liked it spelled out, especially since I am not familiar with your writing enough to pick up on clues. I am always intersted in the more subjective experiences of the reviewer, since this is just one person’s reaction anyway. And I agree that the use of “one” is too universal sounding, not acknowledging that this is an individual perspective. If you are to make a universal pronouncement (which I think is risky), it shoudl be something that is definitely universal (not easy to figure out), for example, you would not expect these prints to be shown on the ceiling, or upside down, etc — something implicitly surprising, if that is possible in this day and age!
Very enjoyable and rich writing, chock full, maybe too full? Maybe allowing some spacious, open ended sentences to break it up would also be helpful for the “pace” of the piece?
If you click on Susan’s name above, you can find a photo gallery with several works from the show. Reference back and forth is quite easy if you open the site in another window.
June,
I do think about my audience a lot. Obviously, I’m writing for a broad audience and can’t afford to be too obscure (which isn’t my forte anyway). I also try to assume only a minimal familiarity with artists and art history. (This in contrast to the pieces for Big Red & Shiny, a specialized online publication.) At the same time, I have no intention of aiming for the lowest common denominator. It just wouldn’t feel right. The idea at least is that if I approach a review with enthusiasm, people will be willing to make the leap.
This is only the sixth review I’ve done for the IT. I’m still trying to find my voice.
Interesting rundown of various art critics and the scene in general at Always Be Closing.