Artistic Research and the Role of Critique

Michael Schwab

The proceedings of the 2006 conference 'Reflections on Creativity' have now
been peer-reviewed and edited and can be accessed via the conference
website: http://imaging.dundee.ac.uk/reflections/

Abstract

The proposed paper argues for a close relationship between artistic practice
and its reflection and contextualisation through a process of critique as
not only a necessary component of research but also of art itself.

The paper approaches the question of critique from a philosophical angle
basing the relationship between theory and practice on Walter Benjamin's
dissertation 'The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism' (1919), which
foregrounds criticism as a function of art. In arguing that the Romantic
definition of modern art is still valid, the paper then moves on to
speculate on some of the themes. It claims that an artistic definition of
research that moves across the divide between theory and practice has been a
fact during much of modern art's history, a fact, however, that only now in
the context of practice-led research can claim its proper status.

Schwab, Michael, Artistic Research and the Role of Critique. In: van Koten,
H. (ed), Proceeds of Reflections on Creativity, 21 and 22 April 2006.
Dundee: Duncan of Jordanstone College, 2007. ISBN:  1 899837 56 6.