By using and studying the Tate Britain collection of art from 1500s to the present day, this five-week course offers an exploration into the art of criticism. Working chronologically through the galleries this course will trace changing critical opinions and support you to develop your own critical eye and faculties. Each session will combine discursive talks by the course tutor, group criticism, small-group work, individual tasks (some of these written), as well as collective and tutor discussion on your work and ideas. Set in the galleries after hours, we will take our inspiration from the collection displays, temporary exhibitions, galleries and the works and texts around us.
No prior knowledge is needed to take part in this course, though participants will be encouraged to engage with a wide variety of material and to discuss their own interpretations in a warm and supportive setting.
Week One: Through History
By taking the BP Walk Through British Art galleries as our starting point for this first week’s session we will explore and discuss some of the critically contested works in the collection. From the hail of abuse that persisted through Turner’s career, to the objectionable and shocking response to the Pre-Raphaelites and more recently the reception Tracey Emin’s seminal work My Bed (1998) received, we will examine how critical thought has developed alongside advances in artistic and art historical movements.
Week Two: Displaying the Position
Using the Artist and Empire exhibition as our backdrop, this session will explore how the curatorial process and exhibition-making can take a critical position. We will discuss the wider issues around museums/ institutions, their collections and exhibitions need to react and shape themselves to reflect the contemporary world. You will discuss the issues and challenges – such as internationalisation, the emergence of new centres of economic and cultural power and demographic shifts that contemporary art museums face today.
Week Three: The Review
Drawing our focus in to the direct relationship between the art work and the audience, this session will examine in detail the reviewing process, asking: what questions do critics start and how do they set about translating their opinions to the wider public. After which you'll also be given the chance to attempt your own collectively put together review of one of the gallery's 'Spotlight' collections.
Week Four: The Professional Position
Is criticism an art form itself? Is it better left to 'The Professionals'? What qualifications do you need to be a critic? You will be provided with a variety of learning resources and materials – from recent debates about who owns public art in relation to Henry Moore’s sculpture Draped Seated Woman (1957–8), the footballer Joey Barton’s response to the works of Lucian Freud, to 'official' critiques of some of the works on display – in order to discuss these questions and debate issues.
Week Five: Critical Responses
Having explored various critical responses to the arts we will examine the idea of the artist as critic, and the artwork as critique. Beginning our debate with a discussion of critic and theorist Roland Barthes’s seminal 1967 essay The Death of the Author and how a piece such as Maman (1999) by Louise Bourgeois, which was displayed at Tate Modern, can inspire strikingly different interpretations in artist and critic, ultimately asking the question of where or with whom the meaning of any piece resides?
About the course tutor
Lucy Scholes has a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London, and used to teach at Goldsmiths. She now works as a freelance critic, writing for a variety of publications including Critical Quarterly, Untitled Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Daily Beast, The National, The Independent and The Observer.