The Artist Speaks: Art and Art Writing in the Long Twentieth Century

online course

Developed in association with Barbican, this six-week online evening course at Guildhall School of Music & Drama will explore art writing within modern art. The relationship between the artist and the critic is often considered fraught. Sol LeWitt railed against ‘the notion that the artist is a kind of ape that has to be explained by the civilised critic’. Both vocations share anxiety over the distinctiveness of the materials in which they work, and the limits of criticism to properly shed light on artistic practice. Through a range of writing examples from the UK and the USA, which will predominantly focus on the artist statement, you can expect to study the relationship between word and image, as well as artist and critic.

Ages 18+
Tuesday evenings on 27 April, 4, 11, 18, 25 May and 1 June 2021

Course leader

Dr Matthew Holman is an art critic, writer and lecturer. He teaches at UCL, The Slade School of Fine Art, and Queen Mary University of London, and is currently Research Associate at The Perimeter. His art writing has been published by respected journals.

Target group

- Anyone aged 18 and over with a passion for art: no experience is required, just your interest and enthusiasm for twentieth-century art. This is an opportunity for those interested to explore and understand how artists have written about their work in the modern period.
- The course is also suited to those interested in arts journalism or criticism, but who do not necessarily write themselves.

Course aim

The online sessions will include smaller group work, writing exercises, and discussion. Between each session there will be suggested reading, as well as voluntary opportunities for you to respond creatively and critically on the reading for each week.

You can expect:

- Discussion groups where you will analyse art writing in context, from the perspective of artists and using primary documents (e.g. manifestoes, essays, catalogue texts, etc.)
- Analysis of reproduced archival material
- Group criticism of artworks relevant to the critical appraisals: each week will feature ten ‘representative’ works

By the end of this course, you will have received a thorough grounding in the production and reception of art writing in the UK and US through various art movements from 1888 to 2000.

Ages 18+
Tuesday evenings on 27 April, 4, 11, 18, 25 May and 1 June 2021

Fee info

GBP 250: £250