Theoretical Orientations in Cultural Criticism - Essay Example

?Introduction Art has been in existence for almost as long as human culture and civilization have, correspondingly art criticism has also inevitably followed with different critics analyzing the various genres as they came and went. With time, the nature scope and context of art have gradually changed and this has resulted in a transformation in the perception of the audience owing to emerging of new knowledge and social political developments (John 2012, p.5). Bearing in mind the important role that art plays in the global social cultural theory, the study of contemporary art theory and criticism is invaluable for one to carry out art research. It provides insight into the role or artist during their own time and as well as comparisons between them contemporary artists. In addition, the role of artist is explored and their significance and contribution to the cultural space can be critically analyzed, at some point every consumer of art engages in criticism whether formally or informally (James 1994, p.13). Through criticism, artist can learn from their mistakes and get honest if blunt feedback from critics which will inspire them to improve their output thus generally building up the quality of art produced in the long run. Art criticism has been defined in a variety of ways, Arthur Danto, defines it as the process of analyzing the structure significance and problems in a given work of art by making external and internal comparison to come up with an evaluation of the art. The primary intention of the endeavour has been in the past, and remains to provide rational grounds for the appreciation of artistic works. The exact origin of formal artistic criticism as a genre can be traced back to the 18th century and the first individual to acquire a reputation of a critic of art was La Font de Saint-Yenne, is renowned for his writing about the salon of 1737 and 47. In the late 19th century, of the artistic expressionism and critics occurred in these salons which were societies made up of artists an critics, many of this were centred around Paris in France as the city acted as one of the centres of art and culture (Eagleton 1984, p.97). However, these salons kept multiplying owing to the dissenting views of different artist and in the dawn of the 19th century a group of young painters and sculptor took over the institution and founded the salon of d’Autumne. They were reacting against what they deemed to be the too conservative approaches of the previous salons and from this salon the salon of modern art emerged. Parisian and other galleries all over the world begun to show Avant grade work and new art dealers such as Daniel Henry Kahnweiler emerged presenting contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque as well as several other young artists of the time. The early 20th century was an inaugural period where art and culture critics took on retrospective assumptions and generalization of the social cultural evolution; many of the subjective theories of the past were rejected. Throughput the 20th century, critics seem to constantly be in a quest for the relationships between the art created and that which it represents (Lassalle, 1993, p. 1999). One of the preeminent anthropologists of this period was Franz Boaz and some of his students such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead who later became some of the leaders of the anthropological rejection of social and classical evolution. Contemporary critics at the time eschewed the previous discriminative and subjective assumptions many of which were based on a distinction between primitive and civilized. Many of the artist works produced from non-western societies especially in Africa was previously not seen as genuine art since the inhabitants were primitive and uncivilized people. These critics were cognizant of the fact that cultural and artistic progression terminated at a stage of civilization that was not unlike what was happening in modern Europe. Nevertheless, they also noted that the theory presumed communities are distinct entities and did not allow for social cultural traits that transcended geopolitical boarders diffusing among various societies. Boaz’s critical approach was significantly influential in American anthropology and it marked a retreat from the high level generalization that had been characteristic of cultural theories in the first half of the 20th century. Notions of cultural evolution were seen simply as justification for superiority by the elites in society such at the Nazis in and the European imperialists in Africa and Asia. Modern social cultural evolution rejected most of the classical social evolutional theories owing to the fact that they were heavily ethnocentric and assumed that all cultures followed the same path of progression in which civilization was measure against material achievements such as technology and cities. When critics of the social evolutionism was accepted in mainstream anthropological discourse, the sociological approach to arts and culture became radically different and theorists were careful to avoid unempirical and ethnocentric comparisons. It is in this cultural period that new theories were postulated including cultural relativism and multilineal evolution. Between the two world wars a new school of art criticism named Surrealism emerged and it was used primarily to critic art and literature (Carroll 2008, p.133), it flourished in Europe and produced works of anti-art deliberately designed to defy reason and logic. It was in response to the rationality that had wrought destruction in Europe (Goodheart 1978, p.176). After the Second World War, one of the theoretical perspectives that emerged in the mainstream was the Abstract expressionism in the early 1950s portraying the artist as a heroic individual. Supposedly, the artist would create works by looking for inspiration in the depth of their soul as opposed to responding to respond to the society or environment around them and thus assumed an apolitical identity (Althusser 1970, p.127). This theory morphed with time and throughout most of the century it was used to critic a variety of artist productions and even today it makes a substantial part of the theoretical artistic expression. However other theories emerged such as the feminist and queer theory and these too played a vital role in reducing the roles of the critic and directing the perception audiences in regard to diverse art works. In the space of a hundred years, new art genres have been introduced and many popular ones seem to be gradually fading into obscurity. Today, there is considerable critical investment into film and movies which had not even been discovered in retrospect (Horkheimer and Ardono 1998, p.14). Art forms such as sculpting and fine art while still relevant have mostly been pushed form the Centre stage as today's public seem to pay most attention to poplar literature film and drama (Tynan 2007, p.143). Contemporary art critics are not limited to any one or group of theories and the media through which they can express their views have significantly expanded. Many reach their audience through newspapers and other forms or print and electronic media; however a majority of art critics reach their audience through the internet in blogs and websites. The there is no doubt that the internet has revolutionized the art scene and today, the production, combustion and criticism of art are all bound in some way to the digital platform, however the trend has brought with it a new set of challenges to the contemporary art critic (McDonald 2007, p.16). Today, the most highly consumed art forms such as films and books are highly commercialized owing to the high financial cost of their production especially films. Consequently, the health and ability of a critic is weighed against the amount of money a subject produces. When it comes to rating movies for instance, while good critical review are valued by directors, they are more interested in the bottom line, therefore when critics give a negative review of a film but it breaks the box office and makes millions, their opinions are seen as irrelevant (Zizek, 2002). This situation is further underscored by the fact that positive review that do not rhyme with the productivity of a film will ultimately portray the critics as “dead” that is to say irrelevant and out of touch (Sawyer, 2011). Today’s critics do not carry anywhere as much weight as they in did 50 years ago and the value of art is more often than not dictated by its weight in dollar or pounds. To remain relevant, critics sometimes are forced to compromise their own artistic and theoretical integrity and adjust them to the audience’s mindset; this is because the audience will not always judge a film in the same way a critic would owing to the formers subjectivity and inexperience (Gill, 2007). As a result, critics have become more like an extension of the marketing department than genuine and disinterested reviews of art. According to Miranda Sawyer, one would imagine works like “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen to be artistic masterpiece which would explain the fact that it was on the American best seller list for 17 whole weeks. She however contends the legitimacy of criticism that book got since according to her, the critical reviews appeared to be more of press releases rather than critical review. Granted that the audiences still take critics seriously one can therefore infer that the book may have sold because it had good reviews but that does not necessarily mean the review were a genuine examination of the book. Today, there is a series disconnect between many of the consumers of art and the critics owing to the fact that due to the diversity of culture, majority of people especially those living away from major cultural centres such as London participate in culture and art of their own making. Owing to the rising culture of individualism expressionism people tend to participate in activities of their own choosing with whomever they chose to and they are likely to disregard what critics think of their choices in cultural or artistic choices. Professional critics are alienated from the majority of art consumers since they spend much of their time attending private screening and visiting high end art galleries, with their peers. Consequently one finds that some of the best-selling movies and TV shows such as breaking bad do not receive allot of acclaim critical acclaim yet, they end up topping the charts because today most people gravitate towards what their friends are watching. The spread of internet access on the world wide web, is one of the challenges that the professional critic is faced with, admittedly the internet revolution is a force for good, a lot of art is created and distributed online and this is has proved critical for diversifying and increasing exposure to art. Owing especially to social media, anyone with a computer can set themselves up as a critic or reviewer while this is an inevitable and to some extent positive tendency the open online forum have tended to act more like a canopy than a source of objective discourse. Today there are thousands of websites that review content not only through critical appraisal by voting and rating by customers, as a result many art consumers tend to rely on these rather than the opinions of critics. According to Mark Kermode, a critic and writer, one of the tragedies of being a critic is that the audience often seems to enjoy and remember the content one finds distasteful and negatively review and generally ignore and forget the ones that were praised (Kermode, 2013).  He contends that most of those who listen to and read film reviews seem to have a taste for vitriol and when one negatively reviews a movie, they may be more interested in watching it. This ultimately negates the role of the critic since in today’s world, where there is so much in the art scene the critic’s role is to direct the audience to the best content out there and therefore when their reviews have the opposite effect which is counterproductive. Conclusion From the evidence examined herein it is clear that art criticism has played a crucial role in the global social cultural space, since the 19th century and probably beyond. There has been radical changes in artistic space most of which have been inspired by the trend of globalization which was people from all over the world interact more closely than ever before due to the development of transport and communication technology. Nevertheless, despite the many positive changes, the role of the modern critic appears to be under threat both from the upsurge of online critics and the super commercialization of arts and culture. Consequently, although they are still relevant it is important that they adapt to the rapidly changing cultural landscape and context otherwise they may be eclipsed and rendered obsolete. References Althusser, L, 1970 Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. in Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays(1971). New York City: Monthly Review Press Carroll, N. 2008. On Criticism; Thinking in Action. London: Routledge. Eagleton, T. 1984. The function of criticism: from the Spectator to post-structuralism. Michigan: the University of Michigan. Gill, AA. 24 June 2007. “It’s Curtains For The Critics”. Sunday Times. [Online] Available at: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/arts/theatre/article66701.ece\ Goodheart, E, 1978 .The Failure of Criticism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Horkheime, M and Adorno, T, 1998. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. [Online] Available at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm James, D, 1994. A Historical Theory of Art Criticism. Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 28, pp. 13-29 John, C, 2005, What Good Are the Arts? London: Faber and Faber. New Blackfriars, 87(1007), 103-105. Kermode M. 29 September 2013. “Hatchet jobs, anonymity and the internet: being a film critic in the 21st centur”. The Guardian. [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/29/hatchet-jobs-anonymity-internet-kermode McDonald, R, 2007. The Death of the Critic. London: Bloomsbury. Sawyer, M. 30 January 2011. “Is the age of the critic over?” The guardian.   [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/jan/30/is-the-age-of-the-critic-over Tynan, K P. 2007. Theatre Writings, Volume 1. London, UK: Nick Hern Books Limited. Zizek, S.2002. The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology. [Online] Available at: http://thepervertsguide.com/ Read More