15. The Art Review

Media:

• art magazines, newspapers of regional, national, international circulation
• journals devoted to different art forms
• radio + television broadcasts
• the Internet (including blogs)

Audience:

• the general public; educated, experienced readers, not necessarily art connoisseurs; people who are interested in art and possess some knowledge and/or intuition about art; people who expect to learn something new about art, or just see art from different perspectives
• the members of the artistic discourse community
• undecided people (as to whether to visit or not an exhibition)
• people who missed the exhibition, or are unable to visit it, because of its distant location or lack of time and who are counting on the intelligent writing of the art reviewer in order to get an idea about a specific art event

Communicative purposes:

• to inform the public about a current, or a just concluded artistic event
• to promote an artist, an exhibition (gallery or museum, why not?)
• to offer the audience an evaluation of the show/exhibition (as personal, but expert opinion)
• to competently describe the most representative works
• to competently interpret the meanings of the works, by offering the necessary evidence to support interpretation (from within and outside the work; iconographic + iconological interpretations) -- the previous purposes are those of art critique
• to convince/persuade the public that the effort of visiting the exhibition is worthwhile, or, on the contrary -- similar to advertorials
• to persuade the readers to become art exhibition goers/expand the art public
• to educate oneself and the audience; develop artistic taste; fight against bad taste -- the last two purposes coincide with art education' purposes

Authors:

• art critics, art historians, professional writers, journalists, philosophers (aestheticians, art theorists), authors of TV and radio series and programs, bloggers, church people, etc.
• must have(s): enough experience to offer reliable evaluations; honesty; analytical, open mind; writing experience (offer that amount of information the audience needs; provide the right amount of scholarly insights without getting into too many boring details; maintain the reader's interest by varied rhetorical devices and discourse strategies); knowledge of the different (artistic) ideologies; knowledge of the art market.

Size: rather short, concise (500-600 words)

Move pattern and discourse strategies:

Move I (WHO + WHEN + WHERE)

1. catching the reader's attention by using the appropriate rhetorical devices (e.g. a rhetorical question, a paradox, a figure of speech)
2. offering specific information about the exhibition (when - the period; where - country, town, gallery, museum)
3. offering some information about the artist(s) (a very short biography)

Move II (WHAT; developing a controlling idea about the exhibition)

1. offering a general picture of the show and a first evaluation
2. different discourse strategies:

• historical approach of the works (chronological)
• an unpopular opinion
• an analogy
• what one expected vs. what one got
• a comparison (between works of the same artist, of different artists, between styles)
• the first impression (initial impact on the viewer)
• the strength/originality of the artist
• a question (either rhetorical or one that will be answered in the following move)

Move III (transition)

• ensuring the coherence of the text
• relating the previous information to the following

Move IV (reviewing works)

• analysing artworks
• offering partial evaluations

1. describing + interpreting +/- evaluating work 1
2. describing + interpreting +/- evaluating work 2, a.s.o.

Note: only the most appealing works are to be taken into consideration (the most representative for the artist/for the show; the ones that the critic liked best, or, on the contrary, disliked)

• partial evaluations of the works are made according to some aesthetic criteria (implicit or explicit)
• are usually positive, or holding some reservations; when the lack of value is quite obvious, evaluations are negative
• rhetorical strategies include: avoiding ambiguity and clearly stating the value (using qualifiers and quantifiers- e.g. overstatements -hyperboles), or, on the contrary, cultivating ambiguity for the sake of politeness (e.g. understatements - litotes = saying too little); irony and rarely sarcasm.

Move V (concluding)

• offering a final, on-the-whole evaluation of the exhibition
• convincing the audience of the value of the show
• persuading the audience to visit the exhibition
• trying to predict the future development of an artist's work, based on the current show (speculating about future developments)
• implicitly persuading collectors to buy/or not some works

Tasks:

1. Follow the link below. Read the text, which is an art review. What kind of a review is it? What do you think about the structure of the text? Comment on the style of the author. Does it make you curious about the exhiibition itself? Do you think it is a well written art review? Why?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PHRYxhu5k5q62ulB_IbqqpTaeCjvTTgKnr877r0qz-k/edit?usp=sharing

2. Read as many art reviews as possible while distinguishing the above moves and steps, rhetorical strategies, a.s.o.
3.Compare the interpretations and evaluations made by the critic with your own appreciation of the same works.
4.Consider an art review on prof. Bogdan Iacob's blog: http://iacobbogdan.wordpress.com/ . Give its title. Do you consider it a positive, or a negative review on the whole? Why? Which are the positive aspects and which are the negative ones? Do you have a clear image of that exhibition, based on this art review? Do the interpretations given to the analyzed works help you understand the artist's themes?

5.Choose an exhibition you have seen and try to write your own art review of that exhibition. (addressed to ITA: DEADLINE May 10, 2020 - sent as Word doc. attachment, NOT PDF! via e-mail, to  be published and counting as your final grade this semester!!!)

 Deadline for 1-4: APRIL 16, 2020)

Share this

Author : admin

Related Posts