Futures of Criticism: Clancco at 2010 CAA Conference

A bit of shameless self-promotion. Lane Relyea, Associate Professor of Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University, asked me to participate on his panel, Futures of Criticism, at the 2010 CAA Conference in Chicago. I am extremely honored to have been asked to participate on this panel concerning art criticism with other distinguished presenters (see below for more info).  Please let me know if you’ll be attending. I look forward to seeing you.

Here’s an abstract on what I’ll be speaking about at the Conference.

Who Needs an Art Critic:  Law and the Space of Writing

Art critics currently employ an incestuous language (anti-capitalist, leftist, politically correct) which has become not only irrelevant to cultural analysis, but also deleterious to the relevance of art and art criticism.

Artists and art critics have always looked outside their disciplines for “alternative” ideologies and discourses to inform – and mirror – their own productions.  Sadly, these discourses have become stale, predictable and impotent.  In a glaring example of adherence to a tired dialogue, classic leftists and art critics alike profess to abhor law and its structures, yet hypocritically embrace those structures when politically and culturally convenient.      

This paper will cover three topics:  law as its own artistic space; how textualist legal writings and interpretations can breathe life into a dying art criticism; and how the impact of law on cultural production and reception provides a fresh and relevant mode of art criticism.

Futures of Criticism

Thursday, February 11, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM
Grand B, Gold Level, East Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago

Chair: Lane Relyea, Northwestern University

Criticality, Critique, Critical Practice
Gail Day, University of Leeds

The Critique of the Incitement to Discourse and the Basic Problems of Phenomenology: Two or Three Critical Models in/around Tino Sehgal
David Lewis, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Who Needs an Art Critic: Law and the Space of Writing
Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, Clancco: Art and Law

Historicizing Contemporary Art: The Living, the Dead, and the Undead
Simone Osthoff, Pennsylvania State University

Criticisms, Publics, Communities
Frazer Ward, Smith College

Tags: art criticism, art history, CAA, CAA chicago 2010, criticism, lane relyea, law