Is there a right way to write about art?

Last Thursday, the Spacex Review Group brought together people interested in writing and talking about art. Attendees ranged from a music reviewer to a software developer. We were also joined by a group of artists who are currently in Exeter working on an exhibition with Surface Arts. I spoke to the group, alongside David Trigg, an art writer from Bristol.

I was half expecting it to be a how-to session - the practicalities of getting your work reviewed or your writing published, but we had a well-informed audience and we started to get to grips with some of the really gritty issues around art writing.

For example, the authority of the reviewer's position (and how it's changed since the democratisation of comment via social media), the right of the reviewer to pronounce on what's good or bad (and where it leaves artists, curators and audiences if there are no arbiters of quality), and whether reviews should be written from a transparently personal viewpoint or in a more objective style (and what this means with regard to the implied status of the writer in relation to the work). We even discussed whether visual art needs to be written about at all!

I was also keen to stress the importance of writing about art as a way of documenting and sharing the work that's produced (much of it ephemeral), and in keeping Exeter on the contemporary art map.

Next session in a couple of months. Visit www.spacex.org.uk for details.