[NEohioPAL] To Steve Wojtas

[marcus at designerglass.com]

On 10 Oct 2007 at 16:14, Steve Wojtas wrote:
> But what I´d like to know is:  By whose leave do you deign to hold
> forth in judgment of the artist and his works?  Are you his peer?  Have you
> studied intensively; have you practiced extensively in the discipline in
> which you presume to sit in judgment?  For unless you have, your
> pronouncements are just so much balloon juice and worth as much. ...<

Hi Steve,

The notion that one has to be an expert oneself in order to properly evaluate 
expertise is what you're putting forward here. What you're saying is that if 
you're not an actor you can't really appreciate, and certainly not criticize, any 
actor's work. If that were really the case there'd be no work for actors to do, 
since only other actors could appreciate it. Non-actors, whether the most 
casual observer or the most acute, would simply dismiss all acting as 
irrelevant nonsense, as a bunch of liars trying to put their lies across to honest 
people; as a bunch of frivolous morons wasting the time of serious people.

We know that's not what happens, though, don't we?

We know, instead, that the human impulse to art happens in many ways in 
almost all of us. Some of us create it; almost all of us appreciate it -- some 
profoundly, some naively, some on the surface only, and so on.

What critics do is compare and contrast out of their experience of the art 
they're engaged with -- sometimes out of practice and observation on their 
own part, sometimes out of observation only. Either way, it is the observation, 
and the comparisons and contrasts with other observations, that legitimizes 
the critic's work. Critics can be wrong; they can be as lazy, venal, and mean 
as anyone. But they can be right, too; they can be as diligent, noble, and 
generous as anyone.

The title of "critic", like the title of "actor" or "poet" or any other such title, is no 
guarantee of good work. It's descriptive of the field of endeavor.

Though you think for yourself all you please, you cannot engage with every 
performance of every art. Life is making choices, and choosing to go see this 
play instead of that one, or that concert instead of that recital, and so on, we 
all make based on a mixture of knowledge, prejudice, and advice. Critics give 
advice. Some give better advice than others, and we learn the critics' 
strengths and weaknesses just as we learn the actors' or the dancers' or the 
poets' or the singers'.

Every time you decide to skip the show at this theater because of that director, 
or the recital at that dance studio because of that lead dancer, and so forth, 
you're a critic. You're judging the likelihood of your own enjoyment. If someone 
were to ask you about the show you skipped, you'd be able to tell them why 
you skipped it, and, thus, why they ought to consider skipping it, too. 
Everyone's a critic, Steve -- we have to be in order to prioritize the spending of 
our own time engaged with the various arts -- or any other human activity.

The critics who write their opinions down differ only slightly in degree, and not 
at all in kind, from you or me when we decide that life's too short to see a 
[insert actress's name here] movie or a [insert musician's name here] concert, 
and so on.

Critics exist for the same reason artists do: because there's a demand for 
them. People who are not as well-versed in making artistic judgments as they 
might want to be look to people who are better-versed for guidance. But for 
the same reason you don't ask a barber if you need a haircut, you don't ask 
the lead actor whether his show is worth seeing.

Marcus





 
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