14th October 2022
Discussion about Formative Assessment which will take place in Week 4 and should see us showing our work so far for around ten minutes to Niki.
We should bring all of our work so far, including reflective journal, sketchbook, notes on lectures, further research, practical response to The Photographer’s Eye task, Exhibition research, image analysis task, independent project work so far.
Then it was on with the seminar proper. This week it consisted of two parts, part one being Exhibition Reviews and the second part being on Research.
Part One: Exhibition Reviews
Looking at Exhibition Reviews we were to respond to what the point of exhibition reviews actually is?
We had a few minutes to discuss so I worked with Bethany and Leah to discuss the reasons they exist and we came up with a short list:
- Selling
- Advertising & Promotion
- Reflect on Perception of Exhibition
- Make a salary as an author in a magazine
- Gain reputation & audience
- Critique that artists and people can use to improve
The short reason in Alice’s PowerPoint was:
“To tell people who haven’t been to the exhibition about it and to give
them an idea on whether they should make the effort to go.”
Alice Hodgson, Experimentation & Dialogues, Seminar 3.
Much more succinct and better worded than I would have ever managed.
Essentially it’s letting people know whether it’s worth travelling to the exhibition and paying the ticket price, for what they may see in there. It’s obviously very subjective and some people might enjoy an exhibition much more than others because of their experiences and world view before they enter.
This is why I would pick a couple of trusted reviewers that have proven themselves to have similar taste to my own and then use them as a first pass. Much the same with movie reviews, I don’t trust some of my work colleagues’ reviews of films but Kermode & Mayo almost always get it right.
It’s also a way to think critically about the exhibition and work out why it was successful or not, and whether you should be able to use these ideas in planning your own exhibitions. Again it’s very subjective but you can easily get a broad section of understanding from reading a few different reviews.
Alice mentioned at this point that an Exhibition is a time stamp in history and a review is a document of that time and place that the artwork stood in. Multiple reviews can often help paint a picture of the sensibilities of the time and whether people visiting were shocked, appalled or disgusted by what they saw. People’s memories over time will soften all of these out so a review or two stand in the archives to capture the reflections on the exhibition.
Review the Review
We were each given an exhibition review to read and I was given a review of Actual Size! Photography At Life Scale: International Center Of Photography, in the Musee art magazine. LINK
We read through them and made some notes on the document before giving some feedback to Alice about the list of things we noticed. We looked out for the following:
Title: On this example it was a factual title including the date of writing, all in upper case Bold typeface. There was no opinion expressed in there and was enough that a reader might be grabbed by the headline.
Introduction: The introduction informs the reader that this is an informal piece of writing immediately and uses lots of hyperbole and superlatives to paint the picture nice and large. The intro to this review sets us up to want to see large scale pieces of art before we even get into the text of the article.
Language: Is not art language or overly complex and is conversational in it’s approach, as though a friend were telling you about a good band they’d seen in a pub gig. The superlatives and largesse of the adjectives continue throughout the piece, “enormous”, “gargantuan”, “sheer scale”, “very big way”. There is a little opinion at the tail end of the article about how it’s beautiful and a confirmation that “Bigger Is Better”. It definitely recommends that you try to see this show if the article interests you.
Visual Material: In terms of images the article is split into small sections by five large images that cross the whole page to break apart the writing. There are only 450 words in the article so the pictures do a lot of the heavy lifting in the review. The images are representative of the art works and have proper captions with the notable difference being that these captions contain the exact sizes of the pieces in inches as if to highlight the scale of the art on the wall.
External References: We were asked if the reviewer brought in anything from the outside world into the review but there wasn’t anything at all, there were no references to other exhibitions or any other artists etc.
Trust: The last point we were to note was whether we’d trust the author/editor of the piece and a quick search for previous works showed up very little for both. There were a small number of pieces written by the author but only going back 10 months so it’s highly likely that this person is new to reviewing exhibitions. It might be that I visit this exhibition and agree with the limited points raised in the review and then trust them for the next review I see. I would then base my opinions on my experience compared to theirs, which as I. mentioned earlier is how I appraise friends and family’s opinions.
An attachment of a pdf with my scrawled notes on it can be found below.
Other Reviews
We then looked at the reviews analysed by our course mates and whilst there were some good skills on display there was some evidence that an opinion can completely colour the whole review, even the title or subtitle using words with negative connotations can turn someone off an exhibition. One of the reviews contained a reference to an “Impossible Map” written about in Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno Concluded which seemed like a sharply elbowed in reference that was obscure to most people and almost there as if to emphasise the authors classical literature knowledge. It bore no real relevance to the review other than to express an impression of the review.
In the other review that my colleagues were analysing it started with four lines of David Bowie’s Space Oddity and waxed lyrical about how the song had been deconstructed to “serve as an example of the dichotomy between digital and physical” Upon first glance it sounds like a strange quote, after all the song was about a spaceman being lost in space forever and losing his wife and planet. But the follow up paragraph usefully splits it and lends some weight to the example to highlight the time that we live in. This review was very academic in language and contained in-text citations to show where information had originated.
The article seemed pretty balanced unlike the previous example which was not impartial at all.
The photos in this review served to show the reader what it would be like to walk around, using “installation views” of the gallery and works of art.
Using some of the best parts from the reviews we read for this seminar and as many others as we can we are to write our own exhibition for a visit we are to undertake before week 6.
Writing Tips
We were given some advice in spreading out the sections of the review but keeping within the 750 word count (+\- 10%), it worked out that the Intro and Conclusion should be around 150 words each with the main body consisting of around 450 words.
We were also reminded that the conclusion should not bring in any new points that haven’t been introduced earlier, which is something that I will try and remember from now on. If I recall from my previous studies this was something we were told then but it makes perfect sense to reaffirm this and it’ll be useful to know going forward.
The end of the review we are to submit should consist of a new page consisting of the reference list we used to help construct the review. We’re to use at least 3 sources and we’ll be further taught about Harvard referencing in week 5.
We were told that we could write the review in the first person using “I” as we were the people visiting and experiencing the exhibition.
There is a Writing Skills Handbook on Canva in the Wk3 Section under modules so it’ll help us with directions into all of the points discussed.
Part Two: Research Strategies
Next up was information about research, why we do it, why we need to do it and the ways that we can make the most of research.
As a group of about five we wrote down some reasons for why we carry out research.
- Gain Knowledge
- Critical Thinking
- Check Opinions Across Sources
- Idea Generation
- Fact Checking
- Differentiate between Fact and Opinion
- Check Historical Contexts
- Awareness of Other artists work to avoid plagiarism
- Referencing for academic work
- Increase confidence in the subject that were working with.
Research and Practice
We were shown that research and practice are part of a cyclical process whereby we research a topic, practice it, analyse it using further research and fine tune etc.
Both Research and Practice need to happen to help you produce your body of work.
As a group again we made notes of where we might look for research.
Instagram, Library, Reviews, Artists Websites, Monographs, Historical Documents, Maps, Exhibitions, Interviews, Artists Opinions, Radio, TV, Podcasts, Pinterest, speaking to others, Artists Talks, Popular Culture, Music, News.
We then shouted out our opinions to Alice in an orderly fashion of course, as to what makes research “good” or valuable to us. Ways of deciding if research is good is by considering Reputation of publisher, whether it’s easily read, based on evidence, relevant to your practice, and balanced.
We had a mission then to rank where we thought some of the earlier sources of research would sit on a scale of “goodness” or trustworthiness. A discussion about Wikipedia saw that firmly at the foot of the list and a note to never ever use Wikipedia as a reference in an academic document.
We then discussed the differences between Primary, Secondary and Tertiary research.
Basically, primary is anything you see first hand or experience whether it’s an interview or visit to a gallery etc. Secondary is based around trustworthy sources such as scholarly books, PhD theses or Artists websites, places that you’re trusting them to tell you about their Primary research. Finally the Tertiary category is beset by problems with Wikipedia, Instagram and Pinterest appearing on there as they are not massively useful when coming to reference a source and knowing that it’s accurate.
Bunch Of CRAAP.
To help us learn how to trust sources Alice showed us the CRAAP mnemonic.
- Currency: Is it old, up to date or does it matter if it’s not?
- Relevance: Is the work relevant to you and your requirements?
- Authority: what are the credentials of the publisher, affiliations and experience.
- Accuracy: Is it factual, peer reviewed and proof read or full of grammatical mistakes?
- Purpose: What is the agenda of the work you’re reading? Is it politically biased, commercial?
Other Sources
- The Library
- Google Scholar looks to be a useful tool to help narrow down searches from the overly commercial and advertising filled usual google search.
- Another useful tool was the Wolves Library website which means we can search for information in the databases of Art and Architecture.. Some of the articles even show you the Harvard format reference in the article to reduce the amount of work you need to do.
- Browzine is also another useful resource whereby we can find many relevant documents in the Arts and Humanities section
Summary
Overall this seminar was a good reminder about how we find useful information and how we grade it as useful or trustworthy. The exhibition review section was really worthwhile too as it will help me critically evaluate reviews I read in the future. I’ll be more thoughtful about the language and agenda of the piece before just going to invest in attending it.
It has provided us with many skills needed to write the exhibition review and use the research and referencing strategies that are required to be of an acceptable academic standard.