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‘Critical Dialogs’ is a contemporary art podcast that will investigate the latent potential of the podcast format to support critical dialogue and innovative forms of art criticism. ‘Critical Dialogs’ will explore emergent approaches to and forms for art criticism that are enabled by today’s media landscape and changing public sphere. Pilot episodes will take the form of conversations among professional art critics on topical issues such as decolonizing/queering art criticism, and the ethics of critique.
Through these conversations, Christine Antaya and Matthew Rana intend to establish new directions for future episodes, while also contributing to the development of critical discourse around art in the Öresund region and connecting the local art scene to broader critical communities both nationally and internationally. That is, to situate our critical conversations in a local and regional context – one that can be regarded both as center and periphery – at a remove from the art market’s most intense pressures.
Christine Antaya and Matthew Rana believe that Malmö, with its large number of artist-run initiatives and diverse community of international artists is an ideal context for developing innovative critical practices that run counter to the systemic production of value in the contemporary art market.
‘Critical Dialogs’ is an implicit critique of the limitations not only of current forms of art criticism, but also criticism’s available platforms. The crisis of criticism discourse is by no means new, but in their experience working professionally as art critics, Christine Antaya and Matthew Rana have in recent years seen a turn away from the review as form. Editors and publishers are looking for new ways to cover exhibitions and developments in the art world. “People don’t read reviews.” This has resulted in an increased focus on interviews or more personal ‘opinion’ pieces, forms in which there can be potential for contributing to and deepening a critical conversation, but which more often result in an increased focus on the individual rather than the work and contexts.
The podcast format can be a way to expand upon the traditional review and other journalistic forms. ‘Critical Dialogs’, seeks out criticality in Irit Rogoff’s sense of the term, as a lived practice that extends beyond the review form, computer screens, or printed page. That is to say, generative modes of critique that are embodied and partial, conversational and generous, intimate and public, while never losing sight of criticism’s social function as a site of contestation.
‘Critical Dialogs’ is hosted by Apple Podcasts and embedded on IAC’s website.
Visit Christine Antaya’s website – christineantaya.com
Visit Matthew Rana’s website – matthewrana.com