Criteria for Reviews/Evaluation of Discussions

CRITERIA for Reviews

The overall affect of the exhibition experience.

Placement of artworks to one another and its affect on the viewers’ experience.

Themes or threads in show. Competence, readability, visual impact, design, unity,

Spirit or personality of the artists chosen for exhibit.

Artworks chosen for exhibition. Originality, Context, Message, Technical Skill, Craftsmanship, and Presentation.

Quality,diversity and compelling nature of different artworks and how they contribute to the overall exhibition.

Nature of the spaces chosen for exhibition and how successful they are in terms of juxtapositions.

Are the artworks relevant to our time in a profound context?

Scene from the movie: "The Exorcist"

My thoughts on evaluating our leading discussions on “The Narrative” and “Deformity.”

… I thought that the first presentation went much better than the second. There are several factors for this, one being that my partner and I began our talk after a wonderful, relaxing class playtime working with crayons and glue. She, Sarah, blew in from a long drive, started the discussion with a somewhat impromptu, better catch up and continued that with that energy. The class also was ready to think and work on a subject that was probably incorporated in most of their work and something they were open to; felt had relevance. I personally feel more of an affinity for narrative works.

Our second discussion followed an excellent, presentation and long discussion on “Nature and Technology”; a subject that for the class (and myself) has possibly more depth and relevance to our time. I think that a discussion on the celebration deformity was distasteful and macabre to the majority of the class and thus it was hard to get a lively discussion going. The chapter from “Freaks in the American…” though interesting, in retrospect may have been dated and too long, though the chapter led us to the fascinating works of Diane Arbus, Joel Peter Witkin, and ultimately Marc Quinn.

I felt everyone concurred, due to its shock value, deformity in art was somewhat of a cop out artistically, so the general lack of enthusiasm and being at the tail end of class didn’t help us get it off the ground the way I would have liked.

I think the worst thing for a teacher must be facing a silent, unresponsive class and it’s a challenge to keep people engaged.

What I learned: There are always many factors at play. It’s very important to have more than enough material to draw on and organize things so that, when there is a lull, you can pull something out of your hat. Humor is always useful and I think it’s harder to do something with a partner or a group and a discussion goes better when the leader(s) has a passion for the subject. My lack of affinity for the chapter/subject of “Deformity” may have come through. In conclusion…we should have been better organized. I’m glad I had both a positive and negative experience with this assignment.