Crit Cross #7 Event

From Portraits to Language

Can empathy materialise as visual art? When is a realistic painting the only ethical representation? What pictures are prisoners entitled to? And…What is International Art English? Is it pornographic? And is it populistic to ask art writers to avoid it?

These are some of the questions we will discuss in this session. In other words: This Crit Cross is about portraits. And about language. Most importantly: it has a foreign guest, Hatty Nestor, who is currently a critic in residence at Studio Weisses Haus in Vienna. Hatty just finished Ethical Portraits, a book about pictures of prisoners. We will discuss her “Facing future feelings: The portrait of Chelsea Manning”, an essay which will appear in the book and was first published in The White Review in 2018. “There Are No More Ports For Flying Dutchman. On the Populism of the IAE Critique”, the second text we will discuss in this session was written by Chris Buden for Die Springerin. In it, Buden revisits the influential essay “International Art English” (IAE) published in 2012 in Triple Canopy, in which Alix Rule and David Levine argue that the artworld has developed its own version of English. According to Buden’s analysis the argument against IAE is anti-elitist in a way typical of populism of the Make America Great Again kind.

The texts can be accessed here:

▪️ Hatty Nestor: “Facing future feelings: The portrait of Chelsea Manning”, The White Review, March 2018
http://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/facing-future-feelings-portrait-chelsea-manning/

▪️ Chris Buden: “Es gibt keine Häfen mehr für den Fliegenden Holländer. Über den Populismus der „IAE“-Kritik », springerin - Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, Heft 2/2019
https://www.springerin.at/2019/2/es-gibt-keine-hafen-mehr-fur-den-fliegenden-hollander/ (the English original of the text will be made available online by Springerin before Crit Cross)

This Crit Cross is realized in collaboration with the mumok library and studio das weisse haus.

Crit Cross is a reading and discussion group of current critical writing about art and society, a platform for the sustainable promotion of art- and sociocritical dialogue and art-related topics, founded by Verein K in Vienna. Meetings take place every two months and are facilitated by art critic, image theorist and curator Klaus Speidel. Discussions take place in German or English, oral summaries of each text are provided before the discussion. Anyone is welcome to suggest a text published in the last two months for discussion and join the group. To be informed about future events, please write to critcross@verein-k.net