Judging a work of art

Judging a work of art is always problematic. Do you judge it on your terms, on the work's terms or on the artist's terms? And how are criteria developed in relation to these possibilities? Do criteria emerge in conversation with the work or in conversation between those looking at the work? Is the judgement of the professional any more reliable than the judgement of the interested viewer?

In Mixed Blessings, Lucy Lippard talks about "quality" being used a a kind of bludgeon to knock aside art of different races or ethnicities. Rigid criteria of a dominant cultural view just don't work in the climate of contemporary art.

But fluid criteria put more demands on the viewer of contemporary art. It becomes important to recognize that art can draw upon deep, complex and wide-ranging elements as it comes to life and then can give these, transformed, to the viewer.

It's in these cumulative viewings and judgings that the art work matures into a work of art.