back to back reading with benjamin's essay.

Quoted: A chapter from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment on mass-production of culture

great article about why we should teach art at school.

Quoted: What we found in our analysis should worry parents and teachers facing cutbacks in school arts programs. While students in art classes learn techniques specific to art, such as how to draw, how to mix paint, or how to center a pot, they're also taught a remarkable array of mental habits not emphasized elsewhere in school. Such skills include visual-spatial abilities, reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes. All are important to numerous careers, but are widely ignored by today's standardized tests.

Quoted: In recent years, the ubiquity of the market has become an ubiquitous theme. In May, ARTnews magazine, not exactly a bellwether, featured the cover story, "Are You Looking at Prices or Art?" In these pages, Charlie Finch, Donald Kuspit and Jerry Saltz have all taken time out to address the issue, in their own distinctive ways -- and with the recent market turmoil, it’s even more important to understand the effects that money has had on art of late.

Quoted: Somewhere in your personal space—the kitchen, office, bedroom, hallway—there’s a bulletin board holding notes, postcards, photos, a calendar or other miscellanea that help organize and define you. Whether you’re conscious of it or not, you’ve designed and authored personal installation art.

Quoted: Gut on its own is never enough to make a good piece of criticism, but it seems that most critics either don't trust their instincts or they feel the need to explain them away when they write for an audience.

it's true, art criticism has gone pansy. i personally don't mind the occasional "shock jocks" such as saltz and hickey. but unless you're god or oprah don't tell me you're not responsible to back those opinions up. pshaw!

Quoted: Previously, humans have constructed ways to store and display information that allow a viewer to gauge its significance within its context. The new media database not only allows for information to be pulled out of context, but also allows for information to be altered at any given moment. A continuous alteration of a database destroys the idea of a beginning, middle and end. The organization of the information is rendered arbitrary, because the user is aware that it is always being altered, and never truly complete.

interesting article on how new media has changed our way of storing and displaying information.

Quoted: give away money, win grammy awards, etc.

Quoted: Biennials are free-for-alls, but they’re also autocratic throwbacks to the time of kings. Often, they’re selected by one czarlike curator with absolute dictatorial power. These curators, however earnest, can simultaneously be annoying and sanctimonious while foisting their own pious, profligate or shaky taste on everyone else. Yet you have to feel for them; whatever they do, almost everyone will have 55 reasons why their shows stink. A common but almost never uttered one is, "It’s a bad show if I’m not in it."

jerry saltz being bitchy. part 2.

srsly, this is a fun read if you're into art criticism. i am crushed part 1 didn't get much hits, so here's the link again: http://www.flashartonline.com/OnWeb/THEORY%20OF%20THE%20MARKET.html =)