Critical Response
Posted by Catherine Rousseau on Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The critical response method, which we used for our Pecha Kucha presentations was useful in several ways, but also restrictive in others.
My experience of critiquing work as always been from an "art crit" point of view. In an art crit, one never uses opening statements such as "i like", or "i don't like". The key to the crit is to outline what you see and how you interpret it - then, to ask question on the artists choice of form, line, color, etc.
When it came to the critical response in class, I found that it was much more difficult to focus on a clear opinion of the work. Most of the time we used in class was on the form of the critique rather than of the critique itself. This, I know, is not the fault of the form, but that the form requires orientation and practice. It was not completely organic. The form was methodical and planned.
Despite the difficulty of the understanding of 'rules' which the form presented, the stricktness of it allowed for a constant flow of conversation. In many art crits, the difficulty comes when viewers don't know how to say something, and the artist doesn't know how their work is being received. By using the Critical Response method, there was always a constant flow of conversation. I wish more than anything that our class time had been longer, so that way we could have continued with many of the fantastic conversations that began to blossom.
Overall, I liked learning the Critical Response Method, and will most likely use it in the future, as it is a well organized method of critique.
My experience of critiquing work as always been from an "art crit" point of view. In an art crit, one never uses opening statements such as "i like", or "i don't like". The key to the crit is to outline what you see and how you interpret it - then, to ask question on the artists choice of form, line, color, etc.
When it came to the critical response in class, I found that it was much more difficult to focus on a clear opinion of the work. Most of the time we used in class was on the form of the critique rather than of the critique itself. This, I know, is not the fault of the form, but that the form requires orientation and practice. It was not completely organic. The form was methodical and planned.
Despite the difficulty of the understanding of 'rules' which the form presented, the stricktness of it allowed for a constant flow of conversation. In many art crits, the difficulty comes when viewers don't know how to say something, and the artist doesn't know how their work is being received. By using the Critical Response method, there was always a constant flow of conversation. I wish more than anything that our class time had been longer, so that way we could have continued with many of the fantastic conversations that began to blossom.
Overall, I liked learning the Critical Response Method, and will most likely use it in the future, as it is a well organized method of critique.