Care & Criticism: An Art Writing Panel

Care & Criticism: An Art Writing Panel

Claire Voon & Barbara Calderón moderated by Kerry Cardoza

Cease celebratory write ups and myopic narratives;
Refute YT copy editing practices and style guides;
Art writing is patronage –matronage

Watch art critics, editors, and journalists Claire Voon, Barbara Calderón, and Kerry Cardoza in conversation about the responsibility of art criticism, how to navigate art publishing, and how to approach art writing with care. From critiquing macro and micro publishing practices to encouraging more art writers in the field, watch the conversation with a Q&A at the end of the panel. This panel is the second and last public program for the Muña Art Writing 2022 Program.

Event Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2022


Reading Materials

  • Art Historian Darby English on Why the New Black Renaissance Might Actually Represent a Step Backwards, Folasade Ologundudu, Artnet News, 2021 [Link]
  • Taylor Renee Aldridge : Criticism as Patronage, Taylor Renee Aldridge, 3RDSPACE, 2019  [Link]
  • Catch a Rising Star at the Auction House, Jason Farago, The New York Times 2022 [Link]
  • Not All Skin Folk Are Kin Folk: Why No Criticism for Virgil Abloh’s First Solo Show?, Rashayla Marie Brown, The Seen, 2019 [Link]
  • The Freedom to Oppress, Eunsong Kim and Maya Mackrandilal, Contemptorary, 2016 [Link]
  • There is No Secret to Writing About People Who Do Not Look Like You: Brandon Taylor on the Importance of Empathy As Craft, Brandon Taylor, Lithub, 2016 [Link]
  • White Skin, Black Masks, Aurella Yussu, Arts.Black, 2018 [Link]
  • How to Use (or Not Use) a Hyphen, Plus: a brief digression into why The New Yorker hyphenates “teen-ager.”, Mary Norris, The New Yorker, 2022 [Link]

Muña is a 3-month art writing program providing a cohort of six writers the opportunity to critically and creatively engage with art writing strategies, readings, exercises, and conversations. The program is structured for writers to develop and refine their practices through guided workshops and peer-review feedback. Muña is a program collaboration with Sixty Inches From Center and workshops are facilitated by Kerry Cardoza. 

Muña is funded by the Hyde Park Art Center’s Artists Run Chicago Fund 2021.


Claire Voon is a writer and editor who has contributed to publications including Artforum, the Brooklyn Rail, Frieze, the New York Times, and Teen Vogue. Previously a staff writer at Hyperallergic and an assistant editor at Chicago magazine, she edits for Aperture and Borderless Magazine, a news outlet working to reimagine immigration journalism. She was born in Singapore and lives in Brooklyn.

Barbara Calderón is a writer, artist and founding member of the arts collective Colectiva Cósmica. She is currently faculty and an art librarian at the School of Visual Arts.  She was previously assistant director of The Latinx Project at NYU and has collaborated with the Brooklyn Museum on Frida: Appearances Can be Deceiving and Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960 – 1985 exhibitions. Her art criticism has been published by Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, artnet, Art21, and Cultured Magazine. She was a recipient of the 2020 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

Kerry Cardoza is a Chicago-based journalist who writes about art, culture, politics, and power. She is the art editor at Newcity, the punk columnist at Bandcamp Daily, and a member of Make Yourself Useful and the Freelance Solidarity Project. 

Sixty Inches From Center is a collective of writers, editors, artists, curators, librarians, and archivists who publish writings and produce collaborative projects about artists, archival practice, and culture in the occupied lands known as Chicago and the Midwest.

Chuquimarca is an art library project tasked to gather and share resources related to Native, Caribbean, and Latin American contemporary art and art histories in Chicago.