Elizabeth Schambelan on criticism - Artforum International

- "In charting what is relevant at a given moment, bringing new art and cultural developments to our readers’ attention, we aren’t just embracing topicality for topicality’s sake; we’re trying to stay unsettled."

- "Pater said beauty is impossible without some element of strangeness; the potential for beauty was built into his own “strange webs” of significance, spun in such writerly fashion around the object with which he was in dialogue. Criticism is one way to be the spider, paying out silk, both navigating and creating the web as one goes. What defines ... See more

- "Criticism in the broadest sense is a key tactic for maintaining a nonrigid, noncomplacent orientation toward the world. [...] Never get too comfortable, never be quite congruent with yourself, and never assume anything else is entirely congruent with itself."