What are the conditions of production of the activity of criticism? What is its function in a time that privileges communicability and accessibility over content? How to write art criticism when critical distance no longer exists? These and other questions underlie this essay that exposes criticism within the assembly line of the market, the cultural/publishing industry, the academy and the media. Criticism survives today under the mandate of profitability and publicity, forgetting its once lofty transformative aims. A journey through its history and the observation of its mutations can offer us an X-ray of late capitalism and its most recent consequences, in order to reactivate its full potential.
Peio Aguirre is an art critic, writer and independent curator. He lives in San Sebastian. His writing encompasses theory, contemporary art, design and other expressions of popular culture. He has published in numerous magazines and newspapers such as Cultura(s) de La Vanguardia, Mugalari, A-desk, Afterall, A Prior Magazine, Exit Express, Flash Art, El estado mental, e-flux journal among others. He has written catalogues and monographs on artists such as Philippe Parreno, Ibon Aranberri, Jon Mikel Euba, Annika Eriksson, Liam Gillick, Martin Beck, Apolonija Sustersic, Fernando Sinaga, Susan Philipsz, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Willie Doherty, Fiona Tan, Txomin Badiola and others. He has also curated the exhibitions Imágenes desde el otro lado, CAAM, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (2007); Arqueologías del Futuro, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2007); Asier Mendizabal, MACBA, Barcelona (2008); Néstor Basterretxea, Forma y Universo, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao (2013), among others.
