"The art critic is the official critic, but hardly the only one." —Adrian Piper
Artists communicate in a personal "idiolect." If their work is original, making a unique or valuable contribution, its value will not be obvious. Conventional language must be employed by the artist in order discuss or explain their intentions and unique contributions. As Piper points out, many artists who have found success see no need to learn to discuss their work because success of a kind has already been achieved. "My work speaks for itself," is the favorite mantra, when the artist's success really depends on the critical consensus of art-professional legitimators who have spoken for it.
The artist has handicapped herself by abdicating control over the public interpretation of the work to others who may not have the time or commitment to interpret it properly.
Audiences and readers criticize artists, curators, dealers, writers and editors. Even the non-art professional audience influences the collective evaluation. Most often negatively. "The fact that the general public hates some work may, in fact, be just the épater le bourgeois badge of legitimacy it needs to put it over the top of institutional approval," she says. "The reason being that if ordinary people hate a work, the artist must be doing something right."
The artist also has evaluative responsibilities. This contradicts the too-common, naive, notion of the artist as unconscious genius creating from blind inspiration. As in, "I don't know why I did it, it just felt right."
Criticism at every level requires some basis for believing that the artist we like today will be able to hold our attention when they produce something new tomorrow. Official critics, other artists, collectors and audiences of all kinds do not wish to invest time and money in paying attention to an artist about whom our first impression was mistaken.
Ultimately, the art-world depends on inter-subjective evaluations. When judging an artwork, the professional critic actually risks the least, according to Piper, because he or she is paid to take those risks. The individual artist risks the most, perhaps, because she can hardly afford to be wrong very often.
In the case of the individual artist, aesthetic evaluation must be distinguished from entrepreneurial evaluation. If culture is produced according to market-research, there will be no style independent of such research from which an artist may draw. Advertising draws from fine art because business requires the risk-taking to be minimal, so advertising creative specializes in mimicry, and marketing that copies itself dries up quickly.
Source: "Criticizing the Critics: Artist Adrian Piper delivered a keynote lecture" at the Frieze Art Fair, 2006. Listen via podcast here.
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