authenticity in criticism

Authenticity in Criticism The role and influence of the critic in disciplines opens up interesting debate and is rather hard to define directly. Multiple texts read throughout the semester address the issue of authorship authenticity. The always scrutinized but always-present position of the critic in architecture discourse is what the questions asked in this paper attempt to address. Does the critic within the discipline of contemporary architecture gain a stake of authorship in the projects he/she critiques? And if so, how can the critic, and the critic’s authorship be considered authentic?

To first understand the critiques role within Architecture (or other disciplines) lets refer to Dave Hickey’s “Air Guitar” text.

“People despise critics because people despise weakness, and criticism is the weakest thing you can do in writing. It is the written equivalent of air guitar—flurries of silent, sympathetic gestures with nothing at their heart but the memory of the music. It produces no knowledge, states no facts, and never stands alone. It neither saves the things we love (as we would wish them saved) nor ruins the things we hate.”

“Air Guitar” Dave Hickey

Hickey begins his text with what appears at first to be an attack on the critic. The comparison of the critic to the Air guitarist is a fairly accurate and clever one. The comparison the air guitarist might be considered harsh and make the critic’s position seem unvalued, but it rather adds clarity to what the critic is here to do. In the context of guitarists and music, the air guitarist is the bands biggest motivation for making music.

Rather than the average music listener (who’s numbers fluctuate depending on the popularity of the band within pop culture due to a series of variables most importantly marketing and chart song position) the Air guitarist or “the exuberant fan who understands” is always expressing enthusiasm towards the music. In reality the Air Guitarist is the band’s most supportive and exuberant fan and the critic position in contemporary architecture can be looked at as the same. In a way, by giving the critic the “air guitarist” label, Hickey has empowered the critic. Every band needs the group of loyal exuberant air guitarists just like every relevant building in contemporary architecture needs its band of critics, criticisms, and analyses.

In the same text the “distant critic” who detaches him or herself from emotional analysis or experience of the work is introduced. In a way the “distant critic” positions himself in a more advantages position by furthering himself from the core of the most captivating element of object and analyzing the object from a purely logistic point of view which is less open to interpretation. A critic whom chooses to not address a major element of the art or object cannot produce and authentic criticism.

In “A Black Box The Secret Profession of Architecture” Banham addresses the mystery element of the architecture process. The architecture surpasses discussions

regarding sustainability, engineering, or functionality and always enters revolves around this indefinable phrase referred to as “the architecture”.

“For the sources of these differences of professional behaviors, one needs look no further than the place where architects are socialized into their profession, the studio.

Anthropologists have been known to compare the teaching studio to a tribal longhouse; the place and the rituals pursued there are almost unique in the annals of western education.

One of the things that sustains this uniqueness is the frequency with which students are discouraged from pursuing modes of design that come from the outside the studio.

Usually, the discouragement need be no more than veiled or oblique, but when schools were under radical pressure in the early seventies, many students will have heard something which I personally heard at the time, the blunt directive: ‘don’t’ bother with all that environmental stuff, just get on with the architecture!’

How does one ‘get on with the architecture’, forsaking all other modes?”

-“A Black Box The Secret Profession of Architecture” Reyner Banham

Banham’s grappling of “the architecture” is not an uncommon one. What is this mysterious term defined as “Architecture” which holds entirely variant definitions for each person? Can a critic provide legitimate criticism without fully engaging the manifesto architect who produced the object, and if so what does he do with his / her own developed manifesto and bias? Can the critique be a constructive one if the critic doesn’t step inside the architect’s manifesto?

In “Black Box The Secret Profession of Architecture” Banham references Le Corbusier’s opinion on Gothic Architecture; According to the text, Corbusier felt that Gothic cathedrals were “not very beautiful” and not even architecture because they were not made of the pure geometrical forms that he had found in buildings of classical Greece and imperial Rome. How can such a strong opinion be digested and viewed as valid a relevant critique. For someone as influential as Le Corbusier to discredit an entire era style and period of architecture discourse due to a personal manifesto makes the profession hard to understand and digest from an outside perspective.

Does a comment like Le Corbusier’s affect the authorship of the Gothic works, can it be considered an authentic criticism even though Le Corbusier’s manifesto is wildly different from a gothic style architect. If we hold the critic to the same amount of understanding of the work as the author, then no one besides the author could produce an authentic critique of the work. How ever if we embrace the role of misinterpretation in Architecture and art oriented disciplines then a comment like Le Corbusier’s becomes relevant, valid, and worthy of exploration.

Dave Hickey while referencing Harold Bloom’s “The anxiety of Influence” adds to Bloom’s theory of younger artists willfully misinterpreting their master’s work in order to progress as artists, and makes the claim that the critic must also do the same in order to produce a relevant discussion. The only way for a criticism to be an authentic and relevant is for the critic to embrace this position. By embracing the role of misinterpretation of work the critic is able to ground his or her own authorship within the project. The Architect, office, or artist has the strongest authorship over the project and as a result can produce the strongest pure criticism. However if the critic wants to enter the discussion he/she must make the argument that regardless of the intentions of the author, the work should be open to interpretation/misinterpretation and continue to prove why their misinterpreted critique is relevant to the work or the discussion of the discourse itself. This not only adds value to the critique but also places the critical discussion in a separate realm where it cannot devalue or damage the authorship and influence of the original work.

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Referenced Texts:

Dave Hickey “Air Guitar” Reyner Banham “A Black Box The Secret Profession of Architecture”