Athena Chow, Chapter Dos

I found Chapter 2 of the Critique Handbook to be very interesting for its various definitions of ‘meaning’ and how they could be applied to critiquing art.

At the beginning of the chapter, Buster and Crawford stated how meaning is never infinite or stable. “Meaning can always change due to the work aging over time, misconceived intentions from the artist, earlier works from the artist, materials and processes of how the artist created his or her piece, art history references, and political and controversial events occurring.”

Meaning can also be influenced by who is giving voice to the piece and how it is delivered. The gender, ethnicity, culture, and age of the artist are all roles that come into play when a message is perceived by a viewer. For example, if the artwork was a painting depicting Asian females serving tea at a teahouse, this might be a referential to a viewer, in which the painting is depicting Chinese or Japanese culture. If it were Asian males depicted in the same scenario, this may bring up a controversy of whether there is intended sexual orientation or cultural references given by the artist. This could then offend those in the represented culture, and also cause notorious spotlight on the artist who created it in the first place. Having the artist’s gender identified for creating this kind of artwork could then allude to the artist’s personal background and inspiration.

Chapter 2 also gave insight when certain content can become too ‘loaded with a message’ and can cause uncomfortableness during a critique. If for instance a series of artwork revealed the bruises and wounds of a girl’s past abusive life, viewers may be hesitant in critiquing her work, for fear of being offensive or touching upon such a sensitive and personal issue. When works carry a more serious connotation to its meaning, such as large socio-political messages, critiquing the work of a piece can be much more difficult.

One particular part of the reading that I especially enjoyed was reading about the critique of a painting. A more experienced artist can tell if the surface of a painting was hesitant in its strokes or whether it was done smoothly in confidently. This can be taken into account for when critiquing the qualities of the form of an art piece.
I also learned that meaning can be broken down into two main parts. Meaning is first denoted, referring to what the form looks like, and then connoted, which refers to the artwork’s actual content.

I liked that the chapter went in depth over how color can be symbolic in meaning and can be self-referential in itself or provide further emotional meaning. I also appreciated learning how placement of an object can make a great deal on what the artist intended. For instance, is this object hiding in this corner or is it shamelessly protruding.

I overall enjoyed reading Chapter 2 and hope to apply many of its insights to my own upcoming project. Thinking about how a myriad of elements can affect the meaning of work, I’m going to especially pay particular attention to what materials I use and what constructed gestures I can capture within my used materials.