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Secondary Information: The Persistence and Absence of Criticism

March 19, 2011, 2–4 pm / Fillip, Triple Canopy, and Queen’s Nails invite you to Secondary Information: The Persistence and Absence of Criticism, a discussion on contemporary art criticism with Bruno Fazzolari (Art Practical), Tara McDowell (The Exhibitionist), Julian Myers (California College of the Arts), Kristina Lee Podesva (Fillip), and Alexander Provan (Triple Canopy). This event will coincide with a launch for Fillip 13.

3191 Mission Street
Queen’s Nails Projects
San Francisco, CA 94110

Secondary Information brings together a small group of Bay Area writers and editors for a discussion with the editors of Fillip (Vancouver, BC) and Triple Canopy (New York, Los Angeles) about the numerous vehicles for, and approaches to, art criticism today, considering their value and significance vis-à-vis a spectrum of temporal and spatial contexts and engagements. How has the decentralization of publishing and the fragmentation of readerships affected art criticism? How are critical public spaces constituted around various forms of publication, whether online or in print? How might alternative forms of publication work to establish a critical position in relation to cultural production without necessarily engaging in conventional criticism? What is, and what should be, the role of criticism in relation to the speculative global art market and its preternatural ability to absorb, or cannibalize, oppositional discourses?

This discussion will take as points of departure Fillip and Artspeak’s Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism book and forum (2009) and related texts, as well as Print and Demand, Triple Canopy’s ongoing series of conversations about how print culture is being changed by the manifold forms of online publication.

Participants

Bruno Fazzolari is an artist and critic. He has shown with Jancar Jones Gallery, Feature, Inc., and Michael Kohn Gallery. His work has received attention in Artforum, Art in America, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. He is a lecturer at the California College of the Arts. In the mid 1990s, his criticism appeared frequently in local, national, and international publications, now mostly defunct. After a twelve-year hiatus from criticism, his writing and interviews now appear regularly on Art Practical.

Art Practical is an online magazine that enriches critical dialogue for the visual arts by providing comprehensive analysis of events and exhibitions. Since its launch in October 2009, the journal has worked with a network of partners to promote the Bay Area’s role in the international art scene, to create a historical record of contemporary artistic practices, and to foster artistic production through critical writing and public programming.

Tara McDowell is Senior Editor of the Exhibitionist, a journal on curatorial practice and exhibition history published by Archive Books, Berlin. She is also a doctoral candidate in the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. She has held curatorial positions at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The Exhibitionist is a new journal that focuses solely on the practice of exhibition making. The objective is to create a wider platform for the discussion of curatorial concerns, encourage a diversification of curatorial models, and actively contribute to the formation of a theory of curating. The journal is a publication made by curators for curators, and understands itself as a site for critical debate in regards to exhibition practice and history.

Julian Myers is an art historian and critic whose essays have appeared in Documents, October, Afterall, Frieze, Fillip, Artforum, and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor at California College of the Arts and is on the editorial board of the Exhibitionist. He is based in San Francisco.

Kristina Lee Podesva is a Vancouver-based artist and writer, and editor of Fillip. Her works and writing have appeared in exhibition and publication projects throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her writing has been published in Fillip and Bidoun, as well as in books such as Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism, Komma (after Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun), and 100% Vancouver.

Alexander Provan is a writer living in Brooklyn. He is the editor of the online magazine Triple Canopy and a contributing editor of Bidoun. His work has appeared in the Nation, the Believer, n+1, GQ, and Bookforum.

Triple Canopy is an online magazine, workspace, and platform for editorial and curatorial activities. Working collaboratively with writers, artists, and researchers, Triple Canopy facilitates projects that engage the Internet’s specific characteristics as a public forum and as a medium, one with its own evolving practices of reading and viewing, economies of attention, and modes of interaction. In doing so, Triple Canopy is charting an expanded field of publication, drawing on the history of print culture while acting as a hub for the exploration of emerging forms and the public spaces constituted around them.

image: Penelope Umbrico, Desk Trajectories (As Is), 2010. 8.5. x 11 in. Risograph prints on archival bond paper.