Lori Waxman: 60 wrd/min art critic

Lori Waxman: 60 wrd/min art critic

March 19th: 1:00 - 3:30pm & 4:30 - 7:30pm

March 20th: 1:00 - 3:30pm & 4:30 - 7:30pm

March 21st: 10:00 - 12:30pm & 1:30 - 4:00pm

Presented in collaboration between The Luminary and fort gondo, art critic Lori Waxman guarantees brief, serious reviews to all artists on a first-come, first-served basis.

The short review is at once a challenge, an insult, a record, and a piece of advertising.

Its purpose is debatable and arguably quite different for the various parties involved: the writer gets a tear sheet, a couple of bucks, and some editorial gratification; the reader, in the best case scenario, gets a succinct, opinionated description of a body of work they probably did not see in person; and the artist gets published recognition and an entry for their bibliography. But think, for a moment, of the artist who has been reviewed carelessly, who has never been reviewed, who lives in a city where there is little local criticism…

Installed in venues throughout the U.S., from Columbus, Ohio to Portland, Maine, critic Lori Waxman receives artists in need of reviews. Reviews are scheduled and written in twenty-minute increments between the announced hours only. Reviews are signed, published, and ready for pick-up within the time frame of the performance. Artist, artwork, critic, and review all exist in the same space simultaneously.

Reviews are free of charge, but are not guaranteed to contain positive responses to the work submitted. Critics are not meant to be cheerleaders or educators or advertisers; they are opinionated, thoughtful, informed commentators. Or so they try.

60 wrd/min art critic is funded by a Warhol Foundation | Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant. Additional support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts.

About the artist
Lori Waxman, born in Montreal, Canada, writes a biweekly column for the Chicago Tribune. She teaches art history and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has a Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, about walking as a radical aesthetic art form. She is co-author of Girls! Girls! Girls! in contemporary art (2011) and Talking with Your Mouth Full: New Language for Socially Engaged Art (2008). She received a Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her performance "60 wrd/min art critic," which was included in dOCUMENTA (13) and later published as an artist book by Onestar Press. Waxman is a 2015 resident at The Luminary.