Six Video Reviews

In the video, Greenberg on Art Criticism, he discusses the important things to remember when critiquing art. In his opinion, visual art is the hardest to critique. He states that he has a hard time not being biased or expressing his own preferences, but you have to be open and receptive when critiquing. Greenberg tries to focus on being relevant, and having good reasoning. When viewing works, we've been reminded to be receptive, and open, and this video reinforces those points.

In the next video, Clement Greenberg discussed the art of Jackson Pollock. He talks about how he knew Pollock was going to be a great painter, and when Pollock painted his first drip painting in 1947. He discusses the nontraditional works of Pollock, "outside of the box". He gives Pollock a lot of credit for his works, and even talks about how Pollock rejects criticism of his works. I think this applies, because some people may not take the advice we have to improve their exhibit. They may think otherwise and completely reject what we say.

The third video talks about the Renaissance and the renewed enthusiasm for art. It includes information about works by many famous artists, encompassed in Visari's book "Lives of the Artist". They discuss how art is changing and each artist learns something new from the ones who came before them. It doesn't give suggestions for critiquing like the other videos, but it does contain some criticism of works in the Italian Renaissance. The text accompanying the video stated that Vasari's book has been the basis of art criticism since the 16th century.

The video, The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages, features several critics talking about their own criticism and opinions of others. It starts by talking about what criticism does, and how it is a good thing. It has input from book critics, music critics, and visual art critics. Critics are people who are willing to make an argument, and often act as reporters. It makes me think mostly of movie critics. They put their own opinion on movies, and persuade other people to see things in their way. Some artists don't see critics as helpful though. Some think they send out the wrong message, and are too critical. The video encourages us to see all of the possibilities in artworks, and to really think about works which we see and hear everyday.

I found the video about The Colonial Encounter boring, and not very informational as far as art criticism goes. It talks about Colonialism and The Worlds Fair, and the woman is discussing the different cultures and art. There technically is criticism in it, as she describes it, and interprets it, but its difficult to understand and not a good video to learn from.

While Pollock was praised and admired in the video with Greenberg, the last video notices him as a great artist, but discusses how he brought negative comments to Modern Art. Michael Freid and T.J. Clark discuss his work Lavender Mist and both show their different approaches to critiquing art. One focused on the power of it at the time period in which it was created, and one of them discussed it strictly based on the way it looked, and the beauty and aesthetics it had. I think this is an important video because you get to see two different views, and how they took in each others opinions and combined it with their own. It reinforces the fact that each person has a different opinion and interpretation of art, and each critique would be different.

I think the first two videos and the last video were the most helpful. The last one with the two critics going back and forth about Pollock's paintings was interesting to watch. Each one had their own way of seeing it, but wasn't opposed to hearing other views. After the first video with Greenberg, he seemed to really stand his ground, and think his opinion was the only opinion, but the two in the last video seemed very open and reasonable.