HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Critics should also rise above value judgments and simply appreciate art for art’s sake
Being paid to have ideas about artists and their creations is nice work if you can get it. I’m not one to complain. But there is an occupational hazard: as your critical faculties become more finely honed, your personal preferences slowly dissipate.
Studying a piece of art, watching a play or reading a book, I can share many opinions and viewpoints. I can discuss form and style, pontificate about sociopolitical context, make some historical comparisons, mull over an artist’s intention and offer some thoughts about a work’s "meaning" or reception.
But ask me if I like it ... and I am stumped. The slightly depressing conclusion that I am out of touch with my own tastes was unavoidable as I wandered through the Turbine Art Fair in Newtown last weekend. My wife, au fait with the art history stuff and talking about line and colour and texture like a curator doing a walkabout, was nonetheless able to look at an artwork and say, "I love it" or "Not my kind of thing" or "That’s ugly!" Then we bumped into friends, who asked if we’d seen anything we wanted to buy. Fortunately, the question was purely hypothetical — I might be paid to write about art, but that doesn’t mean I can pay for it — because if I could afford to make an acquisition I wouldn’t know where to start.
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