By David Allan King1. Critics are failed artists.
2. Critics are failed journalists.
3. All critics are bad. All critics are bad.
4. If you don't make it sexy for them, they won't come.
5. They didn't even research this before writing about it.
6. All critics have a personal vendetta.
7. Never piss off a critic.
7. They just didn't understand the interpretation.
8. All critics are single, lurking in the shadows of a dark room.
10. They didn't even see the same show I did, or why would they say that?
10 Things everyone ought to remember about critics:
ReplyDelete1) It is their job to fill column inches.
2) It is not their job to promote your show.
3) It is not their job to stroke your ego.
4) It is not their job to like you.
5) It is not their job to research, investigate or scrutinize your concept, process or progress.
6) It is their job to observe your work.
7) It is not their job to encourage you.
8) It is not their job to give you notes.
9) It is not their job to acknowledge hard work.
10)It is not their job to promote or preserve the artistic integrity of the community they observe.
note: Artists habitually obsess over what critics think of their work, mostly as a way of avoiding doing some. My advice: if approval is what you're looking for, ask your Mom. She's the "go to" person for that, not your local critic. Once you've gotten your fix, for god's sake, go back to work.
LR Lamont
LR - Reading your comment with interest, but not sure of what a critic -- in your opinion, remember -- IS there for. It can't be solely to fill column inches. Anybody can do that. The only other non-negative you mention is that it is a critics job to observe your work. That's rather vague in itself, as a bullet point, anyway. What do you mean by "observe"? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely interested. Please extrapolate/explicate. All best, Ned Cox
ReplyDelete