Vienna Center for Tragic Aesthetics
Interviewer: Dr. Hollenstein, your reviews are often described as catastrophic. How do you approach reviewing a painting?
Beatrix Hollenstein: I do not approach a painting. I am confronted by it. A painting does not ask to be reviewed; it collapses into my life uninvited, like a letter announcing a death that occurred years ago but was somehow my fault. My role is not to judge whether it is “good” or “bad,” but to determine what irrevocable loss it represents.
Interviewer: Loss?
Hollenstein: Always loss. The loss of proportion. The loss of restraint. The loss of whatever discipline once stood between the artist and the mouse. Even the competent painting mourns something—usually its own potential. My task is to name the corpse.
Interviewer: Many readers say you write as if every artwork signals the end of culture.
Hollenstein: That is because culture is ending—repeatedly. Every painting participates in this ending in its own small, earnest way. Some scream. Others whisper. MS Paint, in particular, has mastered the whisper that sounds like a scream trapped inside a cheap speaker.
Interviewer: How do you adapt this method to digital works, especially MS Paint?
Hollenstein: MS Paint is not a medium; it is a confession. It removes the comforting lies of texture and accident. There is no “happy brushstroke.” There is only intention and its immediate regret. When I review such a work, I ask myself: What did the artist know was wrong, and why did they continue anyway? That is where the tragedy lives.
Interviewer: You rarely mention technique in a conventional sense.
Hollenstein: Technique is a coward’s shield. Anyone can discuss color harmony. I am interested in moral imbalance. A crooked line tells me more about an artist’s inner weather than a hundred correct ones. Precision merely delays the reckoning.
Interviewer: Some artists say your reviews feel personal.
Hollenstein: They are personal. A painting is a provocation. If it wounds me, I must describe the wound accurately. If it bores me, I must explain why boredom is the most violent response of all. To pretend neutrality would be unethical.
Interviewer: Do you believe a painting can redeem itself?
Hollenstein: Occasionally. Redemption occurs when the work becomes aware of its own failure and does not look away. A bad painting that knows it is bad may still be tragic. A bad painting that believes it is successful is merely administrative.
Interviewer: Finally, what advice would you give to artists submitting work for review?
Hollenstein: Do not hope for praise. Hope for recognition of your collapse. If I write as though your painting marks the death of beauty, understand this: beauty has died many times before. Your work is simply the most recent witness.
Interview conducted in a room with inadequate lighting and an unresolved sense of disappointment.
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