IN-PERSON New Schools of Thought

Abstract

The practice of the crit has shaped the experience of so many generations of art school students, it seems to truly begin the process of understanding it and the collection of essays in Beyond Critique, one should begin by reviewing the definition of ‘critical’. Such an obvious word, perhaps even the most frequently used word in art school pedagogy: ‘critical’, ‘critique’, ‘critic’, ‘crit’. A word so ubiquitous in the world of art school one version of it is insufficient. ‘Critical’ is defined as “Expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work of literature, music, or art. Having a decisive or crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something. Having the potential to become disastrous; at a point of crisis. Extremely ill and at risk of death.” Well, that escalated quickly. Though we might intellectually know ‘critical’ is imbued with the forecast of an unrecoverable ‘the end’, in art school unfortunately students are more likely to feel it affectively wash over them. When these numerous definitions of ‘critical’ are considered in the context of a high-stakes academic event such as the art school crit, or the project of critically analysing identity-based injustice (in the fields of identity studies), one can viscerally sense a kind of anxious tension rising. Where a method such as critique has the potential to progress from an expression of merits to a diagnosis of death, I argue that such an approach to analysis is not the ideal structure for art school critique. It is from the fraught place of this ingrained approach to art school pedagogy where the crit appears to lose its validity as well as where one finds the ambition to imagine something new. I argue, this context establishes a need for development of pedagogies more informed by reparative and egalitarian approaches.