THE CRITICAL CONDITION (Volume 1, Issue 2) [Draft Feb 6, 2020]

THE CRITICAL CONDITION

VOLUME 1

THE STATE OF ART CRITICISM

ED.
JESSE LEPP
NOTL
2020

ISSUE, 2.

Funny Business

1) Fleshing Out A Criticism

I heard once about a criticism of a certain late 19th Century novel. The critic said it was structurally unsound and that it was indicative of confused and shoddy writing. The majority of critics dismissed him and the novel was as popular and acclaimed as the author's best work. Years later the proofs of the novel were found and it was discovered that two of the chapters had been mistakingly published out of order. Not only that but that the novelist himself countenanced it.

This is, I think, a little story about how good criticism works. The hard working critic can't always put a finger on what exactly is the proof. But with luck and time an inspired, imaginative criticism is as positive and creative as any other art-work. I used to say to myself, "Don't worry, all of your opinions are sound arguments that you no longer remember." These days, with so few sound arguments being made, I'm lucky if a remember what a sound argument sounds like. I'm surprised I can write at all without merely constantly citing my opinions. In fact--I might as well have begun not with "I heard once about a criticism", but with "once upon a time". I'm only half-sure I've written it down the way I heard it and not positive at all that I've written it the way that it was heard.

It's been a long slow crawl from debilitating aphasia. Hopefully these pieces of criticism--if they can be raised to that level of competence--indicate some progress and not what I fear it is: a brief respite from a degenerative disease.

My plastic art is something that is much more difficult to do in language--nigh impossible. It is something I can do as an individual--something I can do in solitude or in isolation. Conversation just doesn't work that way. But even plastic art can never be great art in a social vacuum. I've never been sure that "no man is an island" didn't boil down to "If you're an island you're no man." So it's mostly third or fourth rate work these days. Always trying for something profound and mostly failing. Once in a while I catch something on the ether and rarely, too rarely, I succeed in what I am trying for. Someone actually almost called my paintings second-rate recently--what a compliment!

I don't think criticism is a performance. If it was, and all critics were actors, then criticism would suffer from being an unnecessarily prolonged hypocrisy.

I suppose the only thing I've ever said, insofar as it was an attempt to understand art is this: Literature is the conscience of art.

I haven't ever written any art criticism, proper. My schooling is mostly to do with literary criticism. I guess my art criticism would be pretty basic stuff and not particularly earth-shattering. How would it begin?

Well, a old friend and one-time editor once said to me: Do you think you can think without arguing? I suppose I can just look about myself and see, say, my oil paints and start arguing.

There is a colour that I might have called, "skin colour" when I was a kid. It is, upon my recollection, "flesh tint". Where I first heard that definition, "skin colour," is a real question. You might think it's the instinct of a child to call the colour something familiar, but I figure I heard it in school.

I have two tubes of what Crayola have been calling "peach" for decades. "Portrait Pink" (Artist's Loft) and "Caucasian Flesh Tone" (Gamblin). Both what I would think of as "Flesh Tint". Both of these colours are awful in a very useful way. I used one once to paint a sky I was working out. And while writing this piece I did one using both for the ground.

I don't know what Artist's Loft and Gamblin mean by it. They both seem to assume tubes of oil paint are specific in a way that is uncomfortable to consider.  Artist's Loft seems useful in rendering  Porcine "flesh". And that's where I've seen the colour in life, the cliche, sort of cornucopia looking portrait of a ham. I suppose adjusting the values one could paint the whole ham.

If one considers only ideas then Artist's Loft, politically, hedges its bets and suggests that "Portrait Pink" is an underlying colour used for portraits. A sort of band-aid solution. In the same way of thinking Gamblin has gone all silly as if English were just too absurd to care about. "Caucasian Flesh Tone"! How offensive this must be to have to use to paint the colours that are similar to all people? I might not have anything to say, though. Call it pink porcelain and it would be closer to what they have achieved in it. Gamblin's colour invites one to participate in the political thought where every other non-specific . . . in an inartistic way . . . is offensive to reason. And perhaps there is a historical narrative that one can research. And would this kind of endeavour be worth the time spent on it?

I can just as easily ask myself, "What does the portrait of an idea look like?"

And I lurch about my little house looking for a copy of Against The Academicians by Saint Augustine that I used to own. Hoping to refresh my memory.

"Tarry a little; there is something else.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood--"
Shakespeare's Portia, The Merchant Of Venice.

Maybe you think Portia is one of Shakespeare's [enter approval masking as criticism here]. I think that Portia is a criticism. There are teachers that tell their students, Portia is so good! We should delight in her rescue of her husband. God forbid. But if you go to Stratford Festival maybe they do it the same way. They'll wrap Coriolanus, Richard II in fascist robes but Portia they have no idea--how can they not understand, I wonder?

A while ago I was featured in The Lake Report, a local newspaper that has won my respect. Much of the interview was left to the tape. All the self-depreciating stuff, awful morbidity and jokes that can't come off that I wield when I'm anxious. And it was a positive piece. Now that I've combatted a slander, how do you think I accepted a flattery? I helpfully rewrote it so that is was more cynical and ironic and sent it to the journalist--next time it can be a hurt-my-feelings piece--only you've got to be sure of your criticism.

2) What Is Art Criticism?

First of all, the art critic says, I have or I have not seen this before.
Secondly the art critic says, This person can paint like this.

3) What Am I Selling?

What are you buying when you buy one of my paintings? The whole thing. I may still have cartoons and drafts of it but you bought the whole thing. Hopefully some of you are making money from it!

I can't just gain in value just like that! I have to hope that someone who bought a painting of mine is making reproductions of it--my paintings can pay for themselves you know . . .

Or keep it all to yourself. I don't make facsimiles, or prints, or limited editions, I'm lucky if a have a stock photo for my files. I have a few copies of early paintings but mostly I've given all of these away. I just have some amateur photos that I take in case I want to put them in a book.

You can buy my paintings and they become your property to do with as you like. Only you can't lie about them. You can't say: I painted this. You can't say I don't know who painted this.

I am selling paintings from Mikreations in Virgil Ontario. "Never heard of it." We get that frequently. Which is strange when there's a free 'new-paper' called The Sound that is ubiquitous in Niagara's shops and businesses. It is Ah--but Mikreations is a business. We don't benefit from all the government money that is handed about. A business has got to pay to be featured in The Sound. But the public galleries--they're like the envelope that doesn't need a stamp.

On the website is says: "The Sound STC is your source for art and culture in Niagara." So whoever you are, your source is the Sound and no wonder you've never heard of me or my work or Mikreations and some very fine Niagara artists.

Of course exceptions are common in The Sound. If you are a popular Hollywood movie, or a celebrity who has said something incredible, a politician with the right views or the wrong views, an author who has captured the imagination for a day, a theorist with a following, a cause with some pathos, well of course The Sound doesn't ask them to pay.

The only precluded, not important art is in businesses in our community trying to sell art.

And that's what I'm selling.