Lacy Response

In this week's reading artist and writer Suzanna Lacy questioned art critics' approach to today's boundary pushing artists. There are many statements within the piece that struck a chord in me and gave me an opportunity to sit back and think about how I experience art, judge art and expect it to be judged. When she talked about the artist as experiencer, it made me want to tell the critics to learn to be a critic as an experiencer- granted experiencing is only a half of the journey of digesting a piece; the real juicy morsels of discussion, critique and reaction are where we get our money's worth. This is a key fact that I had failed to remember throughout the piece. I thought "Why does she care about critique so much? Just do your work." Then I remembered that the main reason she's making such a big deal about how the public must learn to appropriately "critique" art is because the director of a museum is being charged with obscenity.

This is a major issue. Being offended by a piece of work is one issue, ranting about it all over your blog or newspaper column is another issue, but bringing the law in to justify one's discomfort with the piece at hand is an outrage. The only reason what's "obscene" in the states is obscene is because they go against the grain of our society's cultural norms. The question of reconstructing how art critics critique shouldn't be limited to address only the art world, but our society as a whole, for the issues brought forth in this article are applicable to and are truly meant for the pedestrian patron attempting to makes sense out of a dildo in a lampshade.



Sophia Wang