Critics, Analysts, Reviewers...Experts?

We are all critics.

We are all analysts. 

We are all reviewers of art.

It is free thought; we are all entitled to our own opinion. Sure there are those who are “experts” at reviewing and critiquing art because they know the format and how to properly type up a review but you don’t need to know the technicalities to think on your own.

There is always a lot of negativity in reviewing anything and I honestly think sometimes the reviewer purposely looks for the bad instead of finding the good and seeing if one could out weigh the other. There are many forms of art and they can be interpreted differently. One reading we had this semester was a reading by John Berger where he said, “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe,” and I agree with him. As an artist I make what I know and there are people who will view my art and it will not make sense to them because they do not know, but it is up to them to make their own connection and interpretation regardless of what the artist’s intention was. There are too many instances where the reviewer over looks the art so much to the point that the art he is reviewing no long makes sense him and there for is disregarded, but as a reviewer sometimes you need to look beyond an image to find the symbolism/meaning of it or read between the lines to properly make an assessment. The creator of that art most likely had an intention and it is up to you to relate to that intention or come up with your own, either you like it or you don’t and state why.

Taking this class I learned the format and how to breakdown what I am reviewing and I use it as an equation. If there is more good than bad than what I am reviewing will most likely get a positive review, but if the bad out weighs the good I will have to be honest and write a negative review. For me as a reviewer it is hard to totally disregard the art because of the bad, I try to look beyond that so I can have a clearer mind to understand the art. There was an intention for making this, there is a meaning, and to me what is it and does it, as a whole, make sense?

And that my friends is reviewing the arts, think for yourself, be a free thinker, be open minded, and perhaps in some cases look beyond the negative to find the good of someone else’s art because it might not be something you know and you have to think about it to understand it.