When in doubt, Question!

Situations that require verbal or written communication of reaponses to visual art are sensitive because they make the viewer vulnerable to scrutiny for offering an uninformed response, just as much as they put the artist at risk of being offended or responding negatively to an intentionally constructive criticism. Through training to be an informed visual art viewer and an every day communicator, I have observed that offering a question, rather than stating a judgment or opinion, often minimizes negative outcomes to these sensitive situations. Offering a question may rescue you from offending an artist, or it may allow you to offer an informed response even without necessary research or understanding of an artist’s work. This idea of offering questions is especially pertinent in the realm of responding to dance works directly to the creator of those works.

By offering a question to a creator of a dance work, the creator maintains a choice of how to answer or not answer the question. The creator also maintains their role as owner of their creation. You cannot go wrong when phrasing questions with “was it your intention to…because I noticed…” or “Why did you choose….for that moment in the work” These questions may spark a conversation with great depth and insight into the true intentions or lack of intentions for works of visual art, without risk of a viewer holding back information for fear of offending the artist or an artist being frustrated at a lack of viewers’ understanding of the work.