Arlene Raven Criticism

In the section, Words of Honor: Contributions of a Feminist Art Critic, in the book Women and therapy, Arlene Raven outlined the events in her life that have led her to be an art critic for the artists who were not as “bankable” as other artists. In this excerpt, she also discusses how her experiences of being raped exposed her to a cruel reality about the oppression women faced despite equal education acquirement. She became increasingly more involved to the feminist/political work, which led her to be a columnist for The Village Voice newspaper company (source). In her employment here, she has written several critiques of artists like Sandy Skoglund, Audrey Flack, etc. in which she often discusses the generalize idea of their work, background
She focuses mostly on women artists though because of the disadvantages they face in attempting to gain higher status in the art world. Her main subjects of interests by female artists are largely about the ideas behind works of art, or the unconventional thinking that challenges current popular trends happening in the world.
Arlene Raven does not thoroughly address the art itself but equally the background of artist’s and the events occurring at the time. She would often discuss a generalized idea of the works she is critiquing and all of them have either a neutral or positive criticism. Basically, she is providing brief information of the work to give her audience who do not have profound artistic knowledge to have the ability to interpret the works in their own way. Arlene wants her audience to look at these artists and to really expand their knowledge about culture, history, and social structures. For example,…
Arlene Raven tends to focus more on ‘unconventional’ topics at the time like feminism because of her background as a woman. For example, in her critique of Flack’s, Pantheon of Female Deities, she saw an unconventional standard of how women—specifically goddesses—were being portrayed in this exhibit. Traditionally, goddesses are usually depicted as pure virgins and are often displayed in passive positions. In classical
She provides an outline about the art she is critiquing to her viewers, and then invites them to come up with their own more detailed interpretations of the art on their own. This is because she is targeting viewers who do not possess an extensive art history or criticism skills to be able to analyze artworks, and to hopefully develop the ability to appreciate or critically review works. She evaluates the success of both individual pieces of art and exhibitions by their idiosyncratic ideas about history, culture, and traditions. Essentially, Arlene Raven’s idea about art “is in part about the world in which it emerged” (source). Also, she aims to write about artists who would otherwise would not be given much visibility