Art Critics

In my opinion the only person(s) that can provide an honest critique of a piece of art is the artist or the individual purchasing the art. The reason is quite simple as they are the only individuls with a proprietary investment in the art.

I came to this conclusion after asking two "credible" individuals to dinner with the idea that they would review several of my paintings, which they agreed to do. One individual was an art critic that worked for the local museum and the other was a interior designer and art critic for the local news paper.

After dinner and several bottles of my best wine, I took them into the kitchen where I had placed several paintings. Their comments were more than gracious and with that the evening ended. All was fine until they both agreed (while exiting the front door) that the one piece they really liked was the piece hanging on the wall behind the stove. I thanked them and closed the door absolutely livid because the "piece behind the stove" was a piece of linoleum. I had put it there to cover the hole in the wall where the stove exhaust pipe would have gone had there been an exhaust pipe.

After this episode I decided that if I were ever asked to reviewed someone's art, it would be an honest critic based on design, structure, lighting, texture, a feeling or sense of emotion, and overall composition; for are we not all attempting to present our personal reality through our art?