Sunday Open Mike: Those Piquant Microcritiques

The other day I mentioned a comment by friend Kim Kirkpatrick made years and years ago that was so right that it has stuck with me ever since. The comment was "he edits out all his best ones!" That whole issue—the danger of not seeing your best "hits" and mistaking them for "misses"—has been in my consciousness ever since then.

It points up an interesting thing about criticism that I've noticed consistently through my life: little comments can be very vivid when they're right on.

Many years ago, when David Letterman was on NBC, another friend was commenting about what a good musician Paul Shaffer is. I demurred, saying I thought he was a facile musician rather than a good one. Facility isn't creativity. About the band, I said I thought it was "rock and roll Muzak." That friend said that comment always kept coming back to him whenever he watched the show. Little "almost-asides" like that is what I'm talking about. When they land, they last.

Connecting or cutting off
Criticism isn't a central art in our culture. Often, it's a chess-move, another aspect of game-playing. Its purpose is to make covert claims that are separate from whatever its overt purpose seems to be. Often, now, criticism is intended to be armor, to protect claims of value. It can mean to cut you off from the art: it says "you can't understand this, so your reactions or objections don't count." The classic goals of criticism—to explain and enlighten, to clarify rather than obfuscate—are thought to be somewhat quaint, even middlebrow.

But in my alternate reality, truth still matters in criticism. That is, criticism is better when it's right. And you can sometimes tell it's right because the critique really does stay with you. Even if it's just a comment.

I've written down many of these over the years. Of course then I lose them, so they only come up when something brings them up.

Commodious criticism
Over the years I've built up a sort of mental list of good criticism from various fields—writings that "pop" for me because of real insight and actual truth (rather than their facility and meta-functioning). I'll give just one example: one of the writers I follow, media critic Mark Crispin Miller, wrote an essay about Stanley Kubrick's film "Barry Lyndon" called Barry Lyndon Reconsidered* that really opened up that movie for me. It's an example of commodious criticism, criticism that helps. I've re-read it several times.

Back on the level of day-to-day reality, those little observations occasionally do have the power to stick. Be on the lookout for when they do. They can come from any source and they can be about anything you care about, whether it's car racing or a video game or whatever. When something like that won't go out of your head, it could be the Universe trying to tell you something. Pay attention.

Mike
(Thanks to KK)

*The online version linked here, possibly the product of early OCR software, contains lots of typos.

"Open Mike" is Yr. Hmbl. Ed.'s weekly aimless meander.

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Newman: "Re 'he edits out all his best ones!', why is this the case? Apparently the creator has different criteria than other evaluators. Is this that the creator finds some output meets the intent better, but the intent isn't communicated to other folk? Or is there some other issue? Or is there even any consistent factor involved?

Mike replies: It's not always the case, of course. Maybe not even often the case. The idea that it expresses, as you say, is just that people edit differently. By applying one set of criteria and going after one type of picture, the editor (who might be the photographer) might exclude pictures from the set that other people would value the most. That possibility is both a good cautionary for editors as they work, as well as a reminder that editing is an essential part of the accomplishment in photographic work.

Scott Johnston: "See 'Young Minds in Critical Condition,' by Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth, in the New York Times for additional interesting thoughts on criticism."

Joe Holmes: "I think I know exactly what you're talking about, though it happened to me in a slightly different context, so I may be off topic. I drew a lucky straw and had Alec Soth as my portfolio reviewer one year, and at the time I was on a misguided streak where I was influenced by that whole German school led by Bernd and Hilda Becher—not that they weren't amazing photographers, but my particular shyness had latched onto their architectual typology as a way to avoid dealing with people.

"And after I showed Alec my portfolio and explained my German School influences, he was silent for a moment and then he looked me in the eye and said, 'You don't seem very German to me.' He convinced me that I had the social tools to be good at portraits, and he turned out to be right, turning my practice around and opening up a much more satisfying set of projects in the long run. Actually maybe this story is right on point after all. His way of putting it was so gentle that it barely felt like a criticism of my work. Alec is a sweetheart in any case."

John Leathwick: "I recall reading long ago a comment by one of the leaders of the Venetian renaissance who was asked what had enabled them to pioneer such creativity when surrounded by almost universal artistic mediocrity. His reply—'We have learned the art of constructive criticism.' It is stuck in my mind ever since."

tax andrews: "Please let me share two beauties that have stayed with me for more 25 years.

"The first is about your own (or others') work. It was said to me by one of my professors in grad school: 'Don't let the technique get in the way of the work.' What's wonderful about this is that it cuts both ways. It was said to me while I was obsessing about craft issues in my work, but it can also be used to get someone to understand that they must tighten up on their craft. Superb advice.

"The other is about criticism itself, and its validity or lack thereof. It was something said in a seminar on Greek tregedy I was auditing with another professor, the rest of the class made up of some of the brighter students at the college where I was teaching in the '80s to early '90s. The man who said it was doing a visiting professor stint for a semester at the behest of a former student, now professor. I forget the man's name, but he was the dramaturg at Yale at the time, and incredibly erudite and wise man. I unfortunately have to paraphrase: 'Criticism is only valid if it is critical within the terms of the object of the criticism.' Crudely, then, don't criticize comedy for being insufficiently serious. You can immediately understand how this can clarify even some of the densest criticism. A superb observation, very pithy."

Mike replies: That second one also gets at a lot of why so much art is dismissed by the establishment. The artist isn't working within the criticial context and doesn't even understand the conversation, so of course they can't understand how their work functions within the critical context. Outsider art is almost like someone showing up at a party who speaks Mongolian but expects to be understood.

Ernest Zarate: "This is very much the advice I give my photo students: show your work to a lot of people. If for no other reason than to give the work the chance to see the light of day. As these people look at your work, pay close attention to them—the person, not the work. What do they linger over? What do they skip by? If one is fortunate enough to get a viewer who offers more than platitudes, listen carefully to what they say. A lot of it will be useless....but if you're lucky, every once in awhile, someone will say something that rings true! It will ring true because you already knew it, at some level. Their comment, even if it's a tossed off aside, if it rings true for you...that is a real gift. Cherish it. But the only way to get such gifts is to take that first step and show your work. No one said art was easy, or fun."

Mike replies: I'd say that cuts the other way, too. So many viewers of shows don't have any notion that that artist might like to hear what they think, when, in my experience, many artists actually do want to hear from people. I've had some good experiences over the years taking the time or trouble to contact artists whose work I have a reaction to.

Comments

[Tom Passin]

I just read an interesting piece on (book) criticism. Part of its point was that, since most reviews have to review work of little merit, the review itself should be good literature -

"The point is not to be constructive but to construct something of lasting value in the little space and little time you’re granted. "

See http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/absent-friends-lean-years-of-plenty/

[G Dan Mitchell]

And into this thread you dropped one of your own: " Often, now, criticism is intended to be armor, to protect claims of value."

Indeed. I think I'll be able to use that!

Dan

[mike plews]

Thank you for the Mark Crispin Miller piece. It made my day. Barry Lyndon is one of my favorite films. It is a challenging piece of work but if you calm down and accept the deliberate pace it will reward you with a wonderful film.

My initial interest in was because of the photography. Kubrick and John Alcott did some groundbreaking stuff using super high speed lenses allowing them to shoot by candle light.
You can read more about it here if you like.

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/bl/page1.htm

It's interesting to see how as you get older you find new things in works that moved you when you were younger.

Thanks Mike

[Tom Robbins]

It's not unusual for artists, especially writers, to desire the destruction of vast swaths of work at the end of their years. Could this be the result of a lifetime of effort colliding with a lifetime of criticism?

[Jeff]

Paul Shaffer is the same guy who turned down Jerry Seinfeld's offer to play the role of George Costanza.

He did compose the Late Show theme, and has done many other things musically and otherwise.

[Yes, he's very accomplished and deserves his success. I hear he has a great sense of humor, too. I don't think he qualifies as a great musician judged against the best of his peers, however. --Mike]

[Alexander Brown]

I was watching an episode of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation recently, and the following passage stayed with me, to the extent that I replayed the segment later and wrote it down (I may have parsed or punctuated incorrectly): "The Renaissance historian of art Vasari, when he asked himself why it was in Florence more than elsewhere that men became perfect in the arts, gave as his first answer 'The spirit of criticism, the air of Florence making minds naturally free and not content with mediocrity'. And this harsh, outspoken criticism meant that there was no gap of incomprehension between the intelligent patron and the artist. Our contemporary attitude of pretending to understand works of art in order not to be considered philistines would have seemed absurd to the Florentines. They were a tough lot... Whereas the Athenians loved philosophical argument, the Florentines were chiefly interested in making money and playing appalling practical jokes on stupid men. However, they had a good deal in common with the Greeks. They were curious, they were extremely intelligent, and they had, to a supreme degree, the power of making their thoughts visible."

[Ruby]

How interesting. I've always thought Paul Shaffer found his perfect niche. He's not a great musician, but he makes a good living, has regular hours, and gets to play with absolutely everyone. My goal is to find myself a niche equally as well-fitting and satisfying.

This post has given me much to consider.

[I think it's quite possible he did find the perfect niche. I'm the last guy who would begrudge anyone their perfect niche (he said from his perfect niche [g]).

Still and all, I reserve more respect for Branford Marsalis, who walked away from the same gig at the Tonight Show after two and a half years. Here's his take: "My dad and I had a conversation once I made the decision I was going to leave the show. He said once you leave the show you really can't bitch about anything ever because you've been put in a situation where you could have had a very, very lucrative career without the pressure of the expectations from the music community. Once you decide you want to get back into this, you have to take the bitter with the sweet. I thought about it and he was right. You won't hear any complaining from me and I've mostly kept my word on that." (Quoted in LAweekly)

He decided he'd rather make music. So check out "Four MF's Playin' Tunes." --Mike]

[Alun J. Carr]

As Jerry Cornelius, the protagonist in Michael Moorcock's The Condition of Muzak cynically observes (I paraphrase slightly): 'Kubrick's films have everything but a good director.'

[Wayne]

A critical analysis of criticism........Things must be slow up there is Sconsin. It is amazing the things that come to mind while grilling brats.

[John Camp]

When you say, "Criticism isn't a central art in our culture," I would disagree, especially as it applies to art forms. I think criticism began to move to a central spot in the mid 19th Century in France, when new art forms like Impressionist painting had to be explained to a skeptical public. Criticism became essential with the rise of Cubism and abstract art, which didn't have any obvious pictorial meaning or even decorative value, and this began to seep into the photographic area as photographers began working with abstraction and surrealism.

During none of that time was art criticism as important as it is now. Tom Wolfe wrote an entire book about this ("The Painted Word") in which he portrays himself as suddenly realizing that late 20th Century painting really made no sense outside the words that explained it -- in other words, you had to have a critical theory before you could understand a painting or sculpture, or even make one.

There's a somewhat notorious story about the famous minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, who supposedly as a young man just out of college showed up at a gallery with some rough sketches of a layer of bricks arranged in a simple rectangle on a floor, which he proposed to call a sculpture. The gallery owner turned him down without much thought, and Andre simply left the sketches at the gallery. Some time later, a critic for a major paper or magazine stopped by the gallery, saw the sketches, was captivated by the idea, and wrote a rave review. The gallery owner called Andre, who hastily bought some bricks and took them to the gallery and laid them out of the floor. He literally became a famous minimalist sculptor before he'd even made a sculpture, because of a critic, and his whole career has flowed from that moment.

I may have told this story here before, but I was once at the National Gallery waiting for my wife, looking down on a Richard Serra Core-Ten steel wall-like piece near a lower-level bathroom. I watched over some short period of time as a few dozen people came and went from the bathrooms, and not a single one of them paused to look at the piece, and I don't think a single one of them actually realized that what they were walking past was a sculpture. Without critics, I don't believe this whole internationally famous artistic genre would even be recognized as art.

In fact, I think that the whole economic structure of art in our time -- say, since 1945 -- depends on criticism. One of the weaknesses of photography as an art form is that it doesn't have this robust critical structure to support it, to proclaim new artists and new talents, and, not least of all, to suggest to potential buyers that they could make a bundle if they get in early.

[Maggie Osterberg]

This is kind of a random comment, but I love Barry Lyndon and re-watch it ever few years.

In addition to being a teriffic picture, it's taught me a lot about how to make low-light shots look gorgeous and convey emotion.

[jean-louis salvignol]

Two remarks totally uncorrelated (sic).

1 / Self-criticism is the specificity of a single civilization, that of the descendants of Socrates and Plato ... can I say ours?
2 / Negative criticism is sterile, egotistical; it is a waste of time and energy for everyone.

[A. Costa]

Just heard this yesterday, during a portfolio review while attending the last day of a workshop on photographic reportages:
The Author: "As you asked, I'm back with my work and followed your suggestion to edit out what I think are the weaker pictures."
The Critic, after taking a look at the photos:
"You left out all the best ones..."
The point is, he edited out what he thought was not expressing the MEANING of the project - but the critic pointed out exactly the opposite. IMHO, sometimes a less experienced photographer can FEEL subconsciously when a photo had the intended meaning, but when is asked to use the rational part of his mind to evaluate his work, he lacks experience under his belt and discard what otherwise "works well".

[Struan]

"Wagner is the Puccini of music"

[Steve Jacob]

To quote Nietzche: "All things are subject to interpretation. Whatever interpretation prevails at the time is a function of power and not truth".

As a creator, an artists 'best work' is likely to be that which most clearly conveys their intent, which of course is not what the observer is actually judging. However, intent is the only 'truth' in art, even if it can never be adequately or unambiguously expressed. Everything else is subjective, or at least self-referential and subject to fashion.

I am not saying criticism and opinion have no value, just that it is very hard for any of us to see further than our own preconceptions, which were largely instilled in us by our subjective reaction to the very same establishment. It is a loop that is very hard to break out of unless we make a conscious effort to cut the circle.

Artists have a duty to break out of the loop, but in so doing they risk isolation and relative obscurity. Posterity doesn't put food on the table.

[David L.]

I was at a friend's gallery show opening on Saturday. After reading this I will send him my observations and thoughts on his photos, which were really excellent.

[Speed]

The artist edits to express himself. The marketer edits to sell more stuff.

It is the rare artist that can do both.

[KeithB]

Yesterday my teenage daughter said something like: "I should be a food critic, I don't like anything."

[Bron]

"Egregious canard". Is there a universally accepted "standard", or is it opinion? Must have missed that class. Sure hope there is an iPhone app for that, an easily applied standard of good vs bad art, that doesn't require education, thinking, and then having an opinion?

Having an external editor, or critic, changes a personal vision to a collaborative vision; guess I'd rather muddle along with my bad personal vision.

[Hi Bron,

Nobody here said you had bad personal vision.

Someday I will tackle an essay as to why art appreciation is not just "a matter of opinion." It should make for an entertaining rant even if you don't end up agreeing with it. But it will have to wait until the puppy grows up. At the moment, I'm exhausted. --Mike]

[Andre Y]

To John Camp's observation of museum patrons walking by a Serra, there is that famous experiment with Joshua Bell playing as a busker in the DC Metro only to be recognized by 1 person in a full day of playing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

Perhaps some modernist works need some kind of critical framework to appreciate, but more than anything, good art often requires a presence of mind and concentration to appreciate, too.

[Bron]

"Someday I will tackle an essay as to why art appreciation is not just "a matter of opinion." It should make for an entertaining rant even if you don't end up agreeing with it. But it will have to wait until the puppy grows up. At the moment, I'm exhausted. --Mike]"

Looking forward to it!

Bron