ARTS

Got art? Need a review?

Critic Lori Waxman turns the industry of art reviews on its head with her live reviewing project.

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Sunday, July 05, 2009

Consider the economy of the art world. What defines an artist's value? Many things, not the least of which is a review (presumably a positive one) by a critic of record. Good reviews can legitimize artists, bolster sales of their work, leverage their careers.

But what if an artist, instead of just hoping a critic might wander into his or her exhibit and review it, could order a review like ordering any other professional service? What if the whole mysterious system of which artists are reviewed by which publications (or not) was deflated? What if you didn't even need to have an exhibit to have your artwork reviewed?

Such a scenario got Chicago-based art critic Lori Waxman thinking. So she created "60 WRD/MIN Art Critic," a performance during which she writes short reviews on whatever piece of art any artist brings her.

This weekend, Waxman brings her project to Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary art center. Waxman will set up shop in the Arthouse gallery, and for three days she will receive artists in 20-minute increments. Artists can bring in any work they choose. When finished, the reviews, which Waxman signs, can be picked up. The reviews will be posted in the Arthouse gallery and, in a special arrangement with the American-Statesman, a few reviews will be published in print Friday and all the reviews will be on www.austin360.com.

Most of the appointment times for this weekend already have been booked, but Waxman is reserving a limited number of first-come, first-served walk-in appointments.

Waxman guarantees that she will take all art presented to her for serious critical consideration — no matter who the artist is or what level of experience the artist has. But she does not guarantee her review will be a positive one.

Waxman says the title of her performance is a riff on the measure of typing speed in the pre-digital days — a yardstick for written language that Waxman says she is kind of poking fun at, just as she is at the whole practice of art criticism itself. In reducing the act of reviewing to an almost clerical function , she hopes to undermine the elusive process of reviewing.

"A review has become a commodity in itself. But who is reviewed and why isn't understood by most artists. And that makes artists feel very vulnerable," Waxman says by phone while taking a break in her office at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she teaches art criticism. "What happens when whatever capital my reviews have then gets completely re-channeled? And does a review become worthless because the artist ordered it?"

The genesis of Waxman's project, which she prefers to think of as performance, came from thinking critically about the very art of art criticism she herself has been practicing. Through deepening friendships with artists, she began to sympathize with their frustration at the way art criticism has become as commodified as anything else in the status-minded, money-fueled art world.

Waxman has had reviews published in, among others, Artforum and Modern Painters and also is a freelance contributor for the Chicago Tribune. She's staged "60 WRD/MIN Art Critic" four times previously. Austin is the first of 10 cities where she'll stage the project as part of the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program.

"Really, I'm poking fun at myself (as a critic) more than anything else," Waxman says. "Just making visible a process that is usually completely invisible is also part of the challenge. Critics rarely talk to the artists whose work they're reviewing. And it's really awkward for me to be right there handing a review to an artist. That's a completely uncomfortable moment, but it brings a very human element to an exchange that isn't normally very personal."

The project is also a challenge for Waxman as a writer. " I've gotten very fast at writing. \u2026 This is sort of the extreme sport version of critical writing."

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699