I re-read Sarah Thornton’s article ‘The Crit’ the other day, from the book Seven Days in the Artworld, Granta 2008. It seemed particularly apt following the recent television program documenting Goldsmiths students in the run up to their degree show and also with references to our own twenty four hour college opening hours which commenced this week. ‘The Crit’ is the written view point of Thornton after being invited into the closed sanctum of the Cal Arts MFA Fine Art Crit under the tutor Michael Asher, notorious for running indefinitely into the night. No one has to talk, however, as the author poignantly points out, “People remember what they say much more than what they hear.” (Stirring students into heated debate has never been a tricky task). ‘The Crit’ describes the ritualistic setting up procedure – the characters, the costumes, their props. It feels like a story building up as friction and exhaustion mount, yet nothing exemplary happens, just a normal crit over an abnormal amount of time. There is nothing to save the ridiculous art student stereotype, in fact it is encouraged e.g. “Finally a woman’s voice cuts through the air, ‘I’m so conscious of the fact that Jews are totally uncool. Where do we see ‘Jewish Art’?’”

Why is the crit such a closed, secret system? It is not unlike a police interrogation and yet competition for entry into this class is at an unprecedented high. People seem desperately keen for the privilege of their work being ripped apart however only, it would seem, by a limited number of selected individuals, in front of and mediated by a supposed authority, within a closed room. At a recent crit I attended one individual got rather cross that students from other years were wandering in freely at various times without asking to take part. Is taking criticism really a necessary life skill and can it indeed be taught in such a distilled, microcosmic manner? William Jones (a film maker who studied under Asher said, “negotiating interviews, conversations with critics, press releases, catalogues, and wall texts are part of the responsibility of the artist.”

‘The Crit’ encourages the idea of the art school being set apart from reality, existing as a creative bubble that does not necessarily translate beyond. Asher’s own crit sessions, facilitated in a single, closed space, are only the same discussions that emanate from every art school. Perhaps it is telling however, that they have been prized so highly merely for their length and their celebrity mediator (Asher himself).

Self indulgent or fruitful discussion? Is twenty-four hours in an effectively closed cell the best way to utilise and expand the creative mind? I can’t help feeling that more would be achieved if they all got some fresh air!