CAS is the region's only outlet specifically for visual arts, and as such we are dedicated to representing the local art landscape within a broader national and international context. A public conversation about art criticism that took place as part of this year’s Coast Contemporary and Open Studios Stavanger is an example of these efforts. In a conversation that sparked much engagement with the audience, curators, writers and critics Arnau Horta and Foteini Salvaridi – both part of Coast Contemporary International Visitor’s Program – shared their practices and their perspectives on the state of art criticism.
I wanted to start this conversation by evoking the image of the critic as perceived by popular culture. I propose that the idea of the critic is much like the popular idea of the artist as a troubled painter, often a man, that stems from a certain moment in mid-century North America – think Jackson Pollock. In this era, you have critics such as Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg who gave the impression of either eating artists’ careers for breakfast or single handedly lifting artists to stardom. They had the power to make or break. But is this image accurate? Arnau, leading up to this talk, you posed the idea that being an art critic today is not about being a judge or an all knowing genius, but it is actually a form of doubting.
Yes, doubting. I'm so very immersed in doubt right now. I think nowadays art, at least the art that I personally appreciate, is not trying to answer anything but rather is raising questions. I think art criticism should be alive with this kind of questioning; a relational practice in the sense that it should engage not with the final product of an artwork, but as a humble approach that relates to the work, the artist, and the context. So yes, I am in doubt right now…
Foteini, to continue this thread, what do you see as the position of art critique in the cultural ecosystem? Is it from the outside looking in, or is it integrated?
I think that art criticism should decentralize the established system that evaluates art in a market-oriented way. Of course artists and artwork are in the focus, but not in the sense that the artist and the artwork are the center and everything else is on the margins or revolves around them. It’s an ecosystem. In order to operate in it and grow in a healthy way, it should be relational, and a place where we can address disagreement in a safe way.
It’s important for me to think of the context, as Arnau mentioned. I ask myself, Why is this work important? How does this resonate with the current reality, with the human condition? To whom is this important, if this is not important for me, if I cannot directly relate? When I reflect on a lived cultural experience, I have to always find a landing point for this experience in our larger current reality. And through writing or opinions or sharing, I hope to offer a few entry points to others to be able to access the experience.
Returning to the idea of relationships, one question that often arises in a small city like Stavanger is one of objectivity. Perhaps the ideal of a truly objective, impenetrable critic is a myth. Do you have an opinion on this? If we are all sitting together at the metaphorical dinner table, can we still be critics or do we become allies?
Regarding objectivity, both aesthetics and critique are products of the enlightenment. Right? And I think we're done with that, a bit? Or at least we urgently need to figure out something different. If objectivity is somehow the product of reflexivity, of reflective activity, I think we should go for a more diffractive, in the sense of Donna Haraway, kind of critique. Another way to put it is if we understand criticism as a sort of resonate box – I like this idea of making art criticism a space of resonance – then objectivity is pretty much nonsense. This doesn't mean that everything is valid. You really need to make your point. But there is no place for objectivity. So again, in Haraway’s terms, critique needs to be diffractive and situated. Art is always changing, and so art criticism needs to change with it. I really don't think objectivity is a goal.
Do you also feel like we are done with the enlightenment Foteini?
Yes, I totally agree. The enlightenment created a segmentation of disciplines and knowledge that perhaps no longer serves us. I think we should think of the language and metrics that we use, the systems that we want to challenge with our practices. I want our policies to be challenged, our institutions to be challenged, our practices to be challenged. We need this discourse, and we need to be accountable. We are allies and we need each other.
Now that you mention allies, I want to say something. I think in a way artists and critics are allies of sorts in precarity. This is something that we share. In this sense, both artists and critics, we are in profound doubt. This is something we are going to be sharing for a while I think. So in this yes, we are allies and partners in doubting and in this quest of interrogating the material conditions, the affects, that somehow stream out of the artistic practice. So objectivity… How does this even play a role in this understanding?
So there is an essay that we’ve been reading which is called “Art Criticism as the Midwifery of a Shifting Consciousness", written by María Inés Plaza Lazo who is the editor of Art of the Working Class. She plays with the idea of the critic as a kind of midwife. And I would like to read a short paragraph:
“The question becomes not, what is this work saying?, but rather what is it trying to bring into being and what does it require of me to support that process? Judging is easy. To support life, this is the real work. To reframe critique as a form of healing requires us to confront cruelty, not only in our institutions, but in our imaginations.”
This understanding of criticism is quite far from the aforementioned figure of the all-knowing objective critic. Do either of you want to respond to that quote?
I really enjoyed the article. I don't know though, I think midwifery is maybe too much? I understand the point, but to be honest that's very serious.
I really enjoy the term midwifery. It's something that we from the publishing / editorial field use a lot. I’m interested in working together with people to bring something into being. What I find more provocative is the term healing.
I agree. Then it's not relational. It establishes a hierarchy and it gives the art critic a responsibility that, to be honest, I think is too much.
The term midwife is very graphic and deals with the body. It's significant to contextualize this piece: It starts with a reference to the horrors in Gaza and the state of crisis we are currently in. This grounding is really central to this text. How do we consume and access this information? It also has to do with the way we consume the different types of things we consume, imagery but also any kind of experience.
The writer also talks about the weaponizing of content. I think we are so used to this idea of “content”. It is used kind of like a missile or a projectile to reach as many people as possible and make them like as much as possible. So I think this article is proposing the anti-weaponizing of criticism. Or maybe we should change the word….? So in this sense yes, there must be some sort of care involved.
A way around the cultural numbness that she describes.
I'm not proposing that we replace the word, but I think art criticism could learn a lot of good mediation practices. There is a lot being done in that field – so why not? Mediation doesn't have to stay in the institution.
You mentioned the body. I do think that one of the things that art criticism should do urgently is engage with the body and with all of our senses. For instance, what Foteini does is exactly that. You’re sounding writing – you're involving a sense that phenomenologically is not first in the hierarchy. I think we should be sense-oriented and go beyond written knowledge and theory and sight. Right? This is so difficult to do. We need to invent a form of sensing art criticism.
Foteini, you brought up how we consume information. One of the main ways we see art these days is within the square of the phone. Some of the art is made for the screen, but most of it is not. And we engage with that often in algorithms alongside violence, politics, war, promotional videos, product advertisements. It's chaos. And it's causing the numbing that you talked about. Arnau has said that we as art critics need to go down these other sensory roads as a way to engage with the artworks, maybe as the opposite of screen. You work with art criticism through poetry and other forms of creative writing. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
I do poetic responses to things and experiences. I begin by thinking about a work or a cultural experience, and then create connections between things and with myself and personal experiences, and then it becomes something new. Most of the time, at least in Greece where I am based, it would not be acceptable as art criticism. I share the writing with peers on social media or email. And then I receive responses that are personal and emotional that create a chain of these responses to something. It often ends up having very little to do with the work itself. I think this is a success of the work, that it creates these connections beyond itself. Sharing something open and vulnerable creates a more intimate discourse.
It’s almost a butterfly effect, beginning with a work and then resonating through other channels and conversations. We at CAS sometimes publish quite experimental forms of writing as well. Is there a point where critique stops being critique and becomes something else? And do we care?
Critique is just another name. It's either writing or reciting but just to go back to your work, you said it ends up having nothing to do with the work, but I think it has a lot to do with the work. Is that critique? I don't need to call this critique. It works. It does the important work in relation to all those elements that you're talking about.
You’ve been talking about the final format, whether its writing or poetry, etc. But isn’t critique just another word for thinking? And then the final format can be malleable. Do you have a perspective on that?
Yes, yes, so going back to the enlightenment, Diderot, who is the interesting guy in the game, would say what critique is lacking is autocritique. That's what we should be doing all the time. It is simply something that you internalize and you do in relation to the question of, how am I understanding this? So yes, critique is thinking, but thinking unless you do it autocritically, practically, is going to be very boring and probably useless.
Who is critique for? If we focus on the format of a written, published critique, who is it for?
Personally, criticism is a space for me to experiment. There are different roles that art critique can play: CAS plays a specific and important role within this local ecosystem. That is very different from me writing my points and sending them out. Or it could be the role of translator between an artist’s practice and a larger public. It could be a platform for people to share, experiment, reflect, contribute. It could be many things for many people.
Sorry for the philosophy again. But Derrida would say that translating is writing again. I think the art critic can be a translator but first of all he needs to fully engage with trying to understand profoundly and effectively what the artist is trying to say. And it is for sure going to be a translation because it is his or her writing. Translation is never neutral. It is always adding something.
I'm not sure if I think that art needs to be translated, but it's important to meet the work on the premise of the work. That you engage with it on its own terms. So if I present you with a red apple, and you are really fond of bananas, you shouldn’t focus on how it's not long and it's not yellow, but open up to what the apple does to you.
Yes, you really need to engage with the apple!
I want to circle back to your earlier point about precarity. This is an extremely relevant topic right now. I think everyone can agree that conditions in the arts within which we’re working both very locally and internationally are precarious. Can you define precarity and expand on those ideas about how that might affect art practice and art criticism?
Precarity means lack of resources and vulnerability, and not knowing, again, doubting. What am I going to do when I finish this project? What's next? Is there going to be another opportunity for work? This uncertainty makes it very difficult to think sometimes. It would be crazy if, knowing that this is a condition for both artists and art critics, we did not work together on this. This is what artists and critics and curators do. We are partners in this aspect.
This text is a condensed and edited version of a live panel that took place at Open Studios Stavanger on September 19, 2025. It was a collaboration between CAS - Contemporary Art Stavanger, Coast Contemporary and Open Studios Stavanger. The panelists were part of the Coast Contemporary's Visitors Programme.
Lori Waxman comes to Stavanger with her work 60 wrd/min, where the performative writing concise art critiques takes center stage. Her critiques of local artists, written over 25 minutes, are hosted by Stavanger kunstmuseum and Sølvberget, and will be published in Stavanger Aftenblad. CAS' International Editor Heather Jones touched base with Waxman on the origins, intentions and logistics of the project.
Judit Wellisch Tehel var en ungarsk billedkunstner som bodde store deler av sitt liv i Stavanger. Tross enkelte soloutstillinger, har hennes kunstnerskap vært lite kjent i regionen. Men nylig ble flere av hennes verk innlemmet i Stavanger Kunstmuseums samling, samtidig som en over 400 sider lang monografi om hennes kunstnerskap ble utgitt i Ungarn.
Les kunsthistoriker Arnhild Sunnanås inngående intervju med Wellisch Tehel, som ble gjennomført kort tid før hennes død 5. november 2025: En samtale om bygninger som gråter, flukt gjennom 1960-tallets Europa og livet som østeuropeisk kunstner i Stavanger.
Kunsthall Stavanger may be heading into its centenary year, but its roots reach further back. In 1865, a group of local citizens banded together to form what became Stavanger Kunstforening, or Stavanger Art Association. Back then, the brief was simple: champion the visual arts by buying work straight off their own walls.
Fast forward to today, as the institution, which was rebranded in 2013 as Kunsthall Stavanger with a more contemporary focus, is welcoming its newest director, British-born curator, Joseph Constable. British-Palestinian journalist and writer Jad Salfiti spoke with Constable about the legacy he’s inheriting, the future he envisions, and the nimble-fingered task of ushering a nearly century-old Kunsthall into a new era.