Video Posting week of Dec December 4 - 10

1. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.

Greenburg\art - the sound on this was beyond awful. even with headphones it was hard to understand. The main stream can only be found in retrospective. And that personal prefrences do play a part in art criticsm even if it should. he places limits on nothing and relevance is merely a guideline

Greenburg\ Pollack- Pollack's paintings were not what he wanted them to be.."he did like  easel paintings, but that's what he painted, even the long ones" according to Greenburg. Some times Pollack painted on unstretched canvas. "don't ask anything from art except that it be good"

Critics...Critics get people to think and get the most from their money..and that they want to have their readers love the mediums as much as the critics do. again comes the idea that one's prefrences can get in the way...


Italian REnaissance _ I learned the correct words for some of the techniques, and how Florence was organized in the Middle Ages and Renaissance ( fascinating, btw), That the Guilds trained may of the great artists and that artist learned from the past and built on it.


Colonialism - This was an "expose" of Western societies views of Africa at the end of the 19th and early 20th century versus what the African view of their culture and art. I think judging cultures of another time by today's standards is a dangerous things after about 9min 20 seconds the script repeats itself. In fact, this happens at various points in the video. This just adds to the uncomfortablleness of viewing pictures that degrade the subjects. The art is used as a justification for colonization of other nations, as the colonizers use the arts to claim moral and intellectual supperiority over the colonized.



Pollack/Fried/Clark- This is a conversation between Fried and clark about the importance of Pollack to the art community of the late 20th century. It shows how critics differ in their view of art from those in other disciplines (Clark is a historian) a big point in this was that that Pollack has historical siginficance beyond the art world - that it communicates in a historical context too, that that context is needed but the communication can't be seperated from the visual either. 


2. Do the videos relate to the creation of your Art Criticism project? If yes, explain how. If no, explain why not.

Kind of - the first two served more as warnings against letting one's prefrences get in the way of what the art was supposed to be/do.

3. What is your opinion of the films? Do they add depth to understanding of art criticism?
I think the films could be better chosen the sound qulaities and the scipting issues really interefered with any learning that could take place. Others were a rehashing of stuff I learned in another class this semester.

  For many I am sure they did - however as a museum studies person I haave seen similar stuff before and was familiar with a lot of the concepts. I really liked seeing some of them, tho,