An international Indigenous art exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada reveals a feminist, camp aesthetic
Lindsay Nixon slays in this review. One of my favourite lines: "Because, after all, isn’t being a little bit country what makes us Indigenous? We are the original rhinestone cowboys."
Nixon’s piece is exactly how all art criticism should be-- direct, personal, honest, and playful. It seems to be the perfect solution to artist Emily Auchincloss’s complaint about art criticism, which artist William Powhida wrote about a decade ago now in his observations of the Miami art fair (see Powhida’s awesome blogpost “Feeling #rank, Part 2″). Here’s an excerpt:
Emily's frustration with art criticism though also has to do with the bleeding of opaque, theoretical, academic discourse into the public practice of art criticism. She identified some important points about reforming the practice of writing about art for both a general audience. Basically, she would like art writing to be clear and direct, passionate, connected to the world, open to interpretation, and finally, humorous.
I have to say that most reviews take themselves way too seriously. Yes- let’s absolutely give the artists attention, but please don’t just summarize the artworks and please don’t think that art theory will serve as praise and validation of work. If I attended an exhibition, I would like to read a review of it that takes me back there again, walking in someone else’s shoes.
