Thoughts of a Reviewer on a Critic writing on a Translation
Thoughts of a Reviewer on a Critic writing on a Translation
Between the 4th & the 22nd of December 2023 the artist Marsel Reddick hosted in the Marion Nicoll Gallery (MNG) a site-specific process art performance, where they attempted with the use of a piano and prior musical literacy to create a score that accurately translated the gallery space from physical architecture into musical notation that could be understood and played. Over the course of twelve hours spread across the duration of the exhibition, in 1 hour segments the artist composed a piece of music which was documented by painting the gallery walls with the musical notation of the score being developed. The composition was later recorded, being played by the artist for documentation purposes, and was made available to the public through the MNG’s website.
On January 15th 2024, the magazine “ART at the Confluence” published in their winter issue a review of the exhibition written by The Critic, the most infamous arts writer in Western Canada.
This review reflects some of my thoughts on The Critic’s review.
When presenting any work of creative genius, it is encouraged by the academia to offer a straightforward summarisation of the complexity of parts so as to make aware to the viewer beforehand, or in this case reader, the propensity for their faculties to be stimulated by the aforementioned genius they have before them. This metaphorical thesis, in its relative simplicity, is the door handle to the cave of wonders that is the creative object. Unfortunately, though sometimes purposefully, the door may present a handle but only open to a barn full of horse shit…”
-The Critic, “How could an art gallery make a sound?”, ART at Confluence Town, Winter 2024
It was neither a gloomy space nor an engaging space. There were three white walls and one made of glass, making a room of a square. It was neither a fluid space, nor a transformative one. It did not sing or make any music. Truly, in that space, there was nothing outside of the ordinary within the context of an art institution.
This was disappointing for The Critic, the space falling far from what he had been led to expect from his scant perusal of the translation given to him by the editors (there were two). Instead of the wonders of the immaterial conjured by the excitement of his imagination, he was faced with the banality of a white page: his greatest enemy.
Before continuing I would like to say that the Critic was not an idiot, though he had a substantial record of being misinformed. He made do with the meagre earnings of a life of art writing in an artless city out of the true joy he found in a good work of art; this despite his litany of complaints when questioned on the trajectory of his career. What that meant, both true joy and a good work of art, only he could say. Evidenced by his reputation as a reviewer, he seemed to struggle finding either.
“In all my life and career working in the arts have I never seen an exhibition space that could so comfortably be described as standard.”
-par 2, The Critic, “How could an art gallery make a sound?” …
The directive of visiting the gallery was a formality exercised by his small publication: it seemed that the editors (there were two) considered it to be better PR to have their writers seen working in the field rather than solely pontificating their opinions from the luxury/austerity of their living arrangements. In consequence, The Critic found himself on a dreary Thursday afternoon in early January sat on a stool positioned in what he approximated as the exact spot where the artist would have sat. He imagined the piano before him, his fingers dancing randomly in the air imitating the Ray Charles videos he had studied for a never published comparative piece concerning the link between sightlessness and an exhibition on decolonising structures in post 20th century Canada. He let his fingers dance for some time, but soon found that it took much effort and that the stool was unstable, so he ceased his parody and looked around. As a space there was little to be found of interest. There was a contorted series of vents and pipes that spanned the far ceiling. There was a poorly concealed door behind him. There were switches and sockets dotted hither and thither, miscoloured against the white. All trivial things that faded to the background as soon as they were observed, becoming aspects of practicality and that he took for granted, decided to ignore, and subsequently forgot. Soon all that was around him was stillness and whiteness, the latter stained with the blue of winter and the orange of suspended LEDs. It was monotonous, it was silent. It made his skin itch, and it allowed his thoughts to begin to think.
“…the construction of any good translation is as much up to the interpretation of the translator as it is in their ability to understand two differing communication systems. Biases are inevitable for translator and viewer alike. Taking one linguistic form and corresponding it to another leaves ripe the opportunity for the subjective nature to show its head. Accuracy could always be questioned when it comes to the interpretation of a source material, and objectivity could always be doubted…”
-par 7, The Critic, “How could an art gallery make a sound?” …
The day before the issue was published, I spoke with The Critic privately, primarily to ask what he would have written if he were tasked with the job of translation. His half-smile answer came spoken with the arrogance of his profession. “Every syllable that arises to my head captures naught but the bare minimum of what the mind thinks, as if I were but a child in my grasp of language.” He went on to liken the space to the properties of a mirror, believing that he had perceived himself in the white walls after a half an hour of being sat in the space. It was a slow realisation, his perceptions forming gradually as the space became regulated to his being. He was projected onto the walls, bouncing images, ideas, thoughts, and worries until they moved about in the sealed atmosphere as imagined phantoms would, penetrating consciousness and gaze so that the world beyond the glass drew ever the more distant. He sat there for an hour in solitude which passed him by unnoticed and he continued for what he thought was another, but it could have been one thousand. Time was multiplied in and by the space, making it seem expansive in its simplicity.
“… if one were truly serious in this endeavour of translation, they could only consider vacating that gallery when the internal self becomes aware and subsequently repulsed by its very own external corporal mortality. Only when this occurs could one truly begin to grasp for any translation…”
-par 43, The Critic, “How could an art gallery make a sound?” …
The thesis of The Critic’s five-page review, which ultimately became a half page review in 8pt Baskerville due to “the editors (there were two) chopping it to pieces”, was simply that the artist had translated wrongly. His infamous line that appeared as the title “How could an art gallery make a sound?” became the misquoted joke amongst the magazines’ other writers: for the next three issues appearing arbitrarily but equally in the columns of better and worse opiners than himself. Holding that the only significance of the gallery space was in its nature of being devoid of any meaningful information in need of translation, “…particularly such a space as that Marion Nicoll Gallery which is the drabbest of all spaces in this desert of a city for anything contemporary…”(par 105), The Critic argued that it was rather the artist that was being translated and not the space; and seeing as that were the case (for there was no doubt in his mind apparently) the mere suggestion of the work being anything other than an excuse to take up space and government resources (he later refuted this second claim) was blasphemy to the very sacredness of the so called fine art that was being striven for.
To his credit, whilst undoubtedly growing ever the more senile and out of touch with every piece of writing he somehow convinces the editors (there still are two) to publish, some of The Critic’s statements when held up to scrutiny do bear an aspect of plausibility. The artists’ desire to take an architectural space and represent it in the form of a piano composition could be argued as being impossible to realise accurately, no matter how compelling an idea it may be. The interpretation of one language of representation may not be compatible with the interpretation of another, leading to a translation that is devoid of any objectivity. A corner may not be a melody, a crescendo may not be an unpatched hole. This is not a bad thing, but if true, it is a contrary thing to that which the artist intended. I cannot say like The Critic that the translation closer resembles the artist rather than anything objective about a white walled gallery. Even if I had ever been in the space, or had known the artist, I am not good enough a translator to make such a statement.
The magazine issued a statement in February claiming to have reached out to the artist for comment after the publishing of the review, however no response has yet been received. Interestingly, no backlash came of The Critic in the wake of his writing. After 27 years, the arts community has seemingly grown numb to his bullshit.
Check out the archive and documentation for the show written about above:
https://www.marionnicollgallery.ca/archive/20202024/scoring-the-mng-marsel-reddick-1242023-12222023
About the Author:
Jonathan Creese is a Trinidadian visual artist, currently living working and studying in Calgary, AB Canada. His practice focuses on the intersection between the technical craft object and the impact it can have on the individual or communal. His works can be classified as functioning within the realms of printmaking, textile design, papercrafts and installation, with the philosophies and practices of relational aesthetics, the arts and craft movement, post-colonial discourses and performance art being utilised and referenced in the creation and dissemination of work. As of the 3rd August 2024 he is considering the visual aesthetics of the Canadian prairies and the correlation between printmaking and the feeling of falling in love.
ig: @the.creole.factory
Website: thecreolefactory.org