The Critic Transference
Creating a contemporary work of art is a linear and complex process that begins with inspiration and substantial incubation of ideas and affects, and continues beyond and does not end with rendering of the work. Artists, as they engage in their craft, describe a process of contemplation that has the potential to bring about joyful feelings and a sense of mastery. When contemplating their work in progress, the artist’s observing ego makes him or her become both critic and audience (Spitz 1985). Re-working of the piece can be transformative and re-creative. Usually, a period of hesitancy and additional contemplation follows before the artist feels the urge to share his or her work with an audience. Art in industrialized countries has become a money-driven commodity (Alfonso and Eckardt 2005), creating resentment among talented artists who are eager to share their work but are not given the opportunity to do so because they have not been discovered or initiated into the elitist gallery and museum circuit. It is only after this laborious sequence of creative events that an audience has an opportunity to actively engage with contemplation and critique. Present-day audiences do not respond in predictable reactive ways, but rather engage, as Kris (1952) noted, in a “re-creative process”. Spitz (1985) comments on the audience’s reaction to contemporary art: “…audiences become absorbed into the aesthetic whole of a work…the goal (of artists) is to expand awareness at the risk of shock rather than to confirm the familiar and comfortable” (p.3). Turco (1998) describes the re-creative process of the participant audience: “Unknowingly, we fuse with the product – we become one with the total experience. The work talks to us. We don’t have to think about it, although we may. We don’t have to like it, although we most likely will. We experience art… Our inner world experience is then one of abstractions and illusions… Sensing a glimpse of our true selves, we are primed for peak experience and wonderment” (p.16). Deprived audiences, for art is not readily available to the masses, react with entitlement and harsh criticism when a work does not meet all expectations, while blossoming artists are usually enraged when criticized because of accumulated frustration from the commercial and social rejection of their work. Artists who have pursued formal training are all too familiar with the harsh and often arbitrary critiques received during their student-years. As a direct result of how art has become stigmatized, contemporary artists tend to have a low threshold for criticism of their work. This, in my view, is usually not a result of narcissistic intrapsychic conflicts. It is more of a posttraumatic adaptive defensive reaction to fight off social alienation and inequities, and an expression of contempt instigated by the arbitrary idealization/devaluing process of irresponsible and insensitive critics, and by the assignment of monetary value to art by auction houses and galleries.
What is then, the critic transference, and how are the processes of the artist creating a work of art and the artist’s audience’s re-creation related to this transference? The critic transference is at times a preconscious but more commonly an unconscious phenomenon where an artist relates to their analyst with an ominous concern that creative block or regression would occur when discussing the creative process or by describing, bringing in, or sharing artwork as data in treatment. Artists can experience even the most educated, neutral, and empathic analysts as harsh critics, and fear that their work could be deconstructed and hyperanalyzed to the point of disintegration. The critic transference is ubiquitous, and can occur in the early phases of treatment with both accomplished and established artists as well as with struggling neophytes, with or without work inhibition. The identification and analysis of the critic transference in the early phases of treatment can be helpful to promote cultural attunement, a therapeutic alliance, and free the artist patient from inhibitions if these are present. Kaufman (2003) compares Isenberg’s (1973) approach to aesthetic criticism to the work of a cartographer. The Isenbergian critic as guide and not judge is an ideal that needs to enter the psychoanalytic setting in order to firmly establish a therapeutic alliance. Isenberg (1973) describes the exemplary critic as one who “gives us directions for perceiving and does this by means of the ideas he imparts to us”. Spitz (1985), quoting Empson (1947) states that “critics must be both appreciative and analytical” (p. 158) and that “a critic is not a teacher, he is not there to instruct a pupil in the proper way” (p. 161). Spitz (1985) further states: “interpretation is largely an art and the best interpreter is not necessarily the one who knows the most” (p.75).
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Psychoanalysis, 30(4), 573-582