Criticism and criticality

We are in a time of very rapid changes. Reality supersedes fiction in the generation of inputs. Ships sink, banks are re-floated, web pages are closed down, politicians are in court, local protests that go global in seconds, projects that were previously utopian now receive direct financing from future participants…something is occurring, and its occurring now.

In a process of constant change, criticism (and the criticism of more traditional art) doesn’t know where it stands. We need time! It’s true. We need to be read! It’s also true. Nobody’s interested in us! And here lie the doubts… Could it not be the opposite? Is it not that some of the more traditionalist sectors aren’t interested in what is going on? Is it not that the comfort of knowing how things function has dissipated a large part of the critical capacity and capacity for action? Is it not that we fear the existence of other pathways, with which we are not familiar?

Criticism, of course, needs self-criticism. It also needs constantly to reconsider its forms, communication and language. And in a world where criticality begins to be dominant, criticism cannot lose its capacity…to criticise.

In this edition we publish three new texts. Lorena Muñoz-Alonso analyses the situation of criticism after a few events exploring this subject in London. Montse Badia takes a look at the exhibition curated by Kaspar König in Köln and Oriol Fontdevila analyses the work of Perejaume in the context of La Pedrera in Barcelona.