A collection of provocative, often insightful essays on the
endangered state of contemporary arts criticism. Alarmed by
critics' failure to act as "aesthetic mentors" to difficult new
work, editor Berger, a senior fellow at the New School's Vera List
Center for Art and Politics, has selected a diverse range of essays
that speak to the challenges critics now face. Berger's
contributors, Homi Bhabha, Arlene Croce, bell hooks, Joyce Carol
Oates, and Wayne Koestenbaum, among others, all harbor profoundly
different opinions on critics' responsibilities, and Berger
highlights those contrasts by launching his collection with a
now-infamous article by Croce. The dance critic for the New Yorker
refused to see Bill T. Jones's "Still/Here," about AIDS, and yet
savaged it anyway, calling the piece a prime example of "victim
art." Jones, who is black, gay, and HIV-positive, had committed the
apparently unpardonable act of including gravely ill performers; as
a result, Croce considered his work to be "undiscussable." And yet
her dismissal provides the grounds for lively debate: Joyce Carol
Oates and Homi Bhabha rebut Croce's points with verve and clarity.
The collection benefits from such momentum; unfortunately, it isn't
uniformly sustained-as when the subject changes to fashion, for
example. On the whole, however, Berger has chosen contributors
fearless enough to question the role of the critic in a society
that has become increasingly hostile toward artists and their work
and brave enough to implicate themselves in the failing of much art
criticism. As he surely intended, their honesty supports his own
argument for criticism that "breaks through the constraints of
adjectives to inspire, move, and incite the reader." Although
Berger's outlook is grim, his collection offers the undeniable
pleasure of reading intellectually stimulating arguments about the
role of contemporary criticism. (Kirkus Reviews)
Almost more than artists, art "critics "today form an elite
class that legislates cultural tastes. "The Crisis of Criticism" is
a collection of brilliantly argued, provocative essays that address
the problematic nature of the critic's authority and
responsibilities. In it, today's leading critics, curators, and
artists address the questions at the heart of criticism. Do critics
grant cultural permission or is their work merely descriptive? Is
there such a thing as critical activism? How can critics bridge the
gap between a sometimes hermetic art community and the public? Are
critics consumer advocates, sycophants, or artists in their own
right? Maurice Berger assembles the top critics in each field to
address the problematic nature of the critic's authority and
responsibilities. Contributors include Richard Martin, bell hooks,
Jim Hoberman, Arlene Croce, Wayne Koestenbaum, Joyce Carol Oates,
and others.
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