Grab-Bag 5: "Alexa, Meet Lauren"
Turning attention today to the sort of stuff that usually gets the 'art'/'fine art' label (as opposed to 'movies', 'shows', 'books', 'architecture' — which typically get called exactly those things).
It's kind of unnerving walking through a lot of official art review spaces, because many seem to operate much like 'nice' Midwestern towns (or Southern, or Mormon, or take your pick of aggressively polite little cultures). As compared to the constant dogpiles of gleefully vicious reviews that e.g. movies often get, reviews for 'art' can seem obnoxiously Stepford — so much emphasis on what's working, what appeals, what's 'transcendent' or 'ethereal' or whatever else have you. One can imagine this has a lot to do with the differences in pipelines that create artists/art in different fields, the limited room available to discuss fine art, the relative abstraction and ambiguity of most 'fine art' that makes it more difficult to dissect in the first place, not to mention the financial realities surrounding it all, but bottom line is that art that isn't seen as good often just doesn't get reviewed (or reviewed as much) in the first place.
So that loosely in mind, one of my favorite places to scan reviews of contemporary work is actually the Art Review section from the L.A. Times newspaper/digital publication. Keeping emphasis on one stomping ground (even if it's admittedly a big one) allows for more small projects to get a moment in the spotlight, and breeds a sense of familiarity and comfort in engaging with the works, which in turn allows more discussion of what perhaps doesn't work in addition to what does. Fwiw, the whole encompassing Arts & Entertainment section is also worth a look.
Sample recent art review piece from the LA Times, by Sharon Mizota:
It's kind of unnerving walking through a lot of official art review spaces, because many seem to operate much like 'nice' Midwestern towns (or Southern, or Mormon, or take your pick of aggressively polite little cultures). As compared to the constant dogpiles of gleefully vicious reviews that e.g. movies often get, reviews for 'art' can seem obnoxiously Stepford — so much emphasis on what's working, what appeals, what's 'transcendent' or 'ethereal' or whatever else have you. One can imagine this has a lot to do with the differences in pipelines that create artists/art in different fields, the limited room available to discuss fine art, the relative abstraction and ambiguity of most 'fine art' that makes it more difficult to dissect in the first place, not to mention the financial realities surrounding it all, but bottom line is that art that isn't seen as good often just doesn't get reviewed (or reviewed as much) in the first place.
So that loosely in mind, one of my favorite places to scan reviews of contemporary work is actually the Art Review section from the L.A. Times newspaper/digital publication. Keeping emphasis on one stomping ground (even if it's admittedly a big one) allows for more small projects to get a moment in the spotlight, and breeds a sense of familiarity and comfort in engaging with the works, which in turn allows more discussion of what perhaps doesn't work in addition to what does. Fwiw, the whole encompassing Arts & Entertainment section is also worth a look.
Sample recent art review piece from the LA Times, by Sharon Mizota: