Sunday, May 19, 2013

Phoenix Passive-Aggressive Art Criticism Interpretation Guide

It's fairly universal, but written based on local observations.


“Hey, I meant to ask, how did your opening go last night?”

1. Sorry, I didn’t go because your art bores me but I like you as a person, or 2. Sorry, I decided not to go to your opening but instead to hang out at a bar where other people who didn’t go to your opening talk about what might be going on there.

“It was an intimate crowd at last night’s opening.”

Nobody showed up, motherfucker!

“It’s very abstract!”

What the fuck is this crap? Did you even try? Or did you assume we’d all think “Well, the artist clearly meant to do something ambitious but it was too fucking hot out to actually put thought into it.”

“Clearly, you have found your wheel-house.” 

This is basically the same thing you’ve been doing for the past 6 years.

“The titles and captions really add a new element to the experience.”

Why do artists try speaking? Forget you ever learned what words are, they don’t serve you at all

“You have a great sense of composition.”

Oh no! Your parents spent $130K on art school and all it did was teach you how to frame an image, but you still don’t have any imagination.

“This is really nice. I wish I had enough free time to paint like this...”

I have no concept whatsoever of how much time and effort goes into developing a craft.

“Your process is intriguing.”

Ah yes, very commonly used around sculptures and metal work.  It could mean, “How the fuck did you make something this awful?” or in less extreme cases, “It looks awful, but I’d like to reserve judgment. Who knows, maybe part of your process involves wearing a bag of wrenches around your balls whenever you're sculpting, that would explain the complete lack of attention to detail.

“I don’t give out compliments easily, but… “

I say this at every gallery I visit. I also probably wear this fucking hat to bed at night.

“I feel like people give too many insincere compliments, so I always try to point out at least one thing I don’t like or I think needs improvement about a piece.”

Don’t worry, I am just going to find something really minute about your piece that will not challenge you at all, so you can continue making shitty art and I can continue complaining about your shitty art to our mutual friends, that way we both still have something to do.

"There's a sense of urgency, I like it."

You obviously rushed through this between bouts of going to bars and talking about yourself, I hate it.

"That’d make a cool tattoo!"  

"Couldn’t find somebody who wants that permanently on their skin? Weird!Or "That looks like it belongs on a crappy t-shirt."

“Huh. Zombie... Ninja... Steampunk... Kitten robots. That's... really random!”

Ran out of ideas, didn’t you?