In relevant comic and art related news, 6 South Asian Webcomics you should check out, points about criticism, and learning to look.
Thinking about Kim’s piece from the other day and our relationship to criticism in general made me think of artist Zak Smith who gave 68 tips to art critics a few years back. Highlights for me include…
“1. Assume any young artist you _don’t_ write about will die of starvation tomorrow. (They won’t, but their art might.)”
“7. Go to art fairs. MOVE FAST. Talk to no-one. When you find good art, demand to be alone with it for an hour.”
“8. Interview artists. Ask questions _about the art_ not about where they grew up or what they named their dog.”
“33. Don’t pretend your opinion is fact. Instead: if you want authority, state your prejudices upfront. Like so. ”
“55. Remember the art isn’t just competing with other art, it’s competing with everything else you could do that day. It must win anyway.”
Swapna Krishna shares six webcomics from South Asian artists that should be on your radar. Check that post here.
https://vimeo.com/154236446
Still thinking about criticism. Filmmaker and critic Kevin B. Lee has been doing annual analysis of the major Oscar nominees for the past few years on Fandor (a website for independent films from around the world), and something he said at the end of this video essay for the Best Picture nominees seemed to resonate with me. He says “This movie (THE BIG SHORT/Adam McKay 2015) reminds me of why I make these Oscar videos in the first place. People ask me why I bother making them, since the Oscars go to whoever has the biggest ad campaign or has the most hype. And sure we can be cynical about it, but at the end of the day, we want to care about something. For me, the Oscars are a way to care about the movies the way I want to care about them. Specifically, how to look at moves to see what’s really good about them, because how do we know how good a movie is, how do we know how good anything is, if we don’t actually look at it?”
Time Floats