Useful critiques have information I can use. Redundant, I know. The best critiques are halfway through the working process or 3/4's of the way. Finished piece critiques are okay, but only help in the moving forward stage. They tell me what's working, and what's not. If there's anything glaringly distracting in the work that takes away from my meaning or my imagery. They MAY address how readable my imagery is (but this is a secondary concern, since I suspect that most of my imagery is not readable without some kind of guide.) They tell me if any references I'm making come across clearly. They are reasonably polite/not excessively harsh/cruel-- I am not one of those people who get off to being nasty for the sake of being nasty. Constructive is the opportune word-- they give information that is useful to me going forward.
The best advice I've ever got about critique is something I wish was also put forward in terms of writing critiques; that all advice should be filtered by you-the-artist because some of it may not be relevant to you and some of it may not be relevant to you right now, and other aspects of critique ARE directly relevant to your practice NOW.
The specific questions and advice that is best to answer/receive varies from painting to painting/work to work. Though suggestions on how to display the things are almost always useful to me, who does a lot of experimental work. (Specifically, the large painting currently stapled to the wall of my studio which i don't want to stretch over stretcher bars but which can't easily be displayed in another fashion.
EDIT: After more thought;
Nitpicking is fine, particularly from individuals i respect who I KNOW actually do have a knowledge of composition and anatomy (a stranger critiquing anatomy i am less likely to believe because they may not have stared at naked persons and/or musculature charts with the same level of depth or memorization that I KNOW a professor or one of my peers has.) Mentioning its nitpicking is good though
DO NOT neglect strnegths because if you do i might consider them a neutral and obfuscate them in the future. I DO need to know what's working and not for the sake of asspats.
Do not be cruel but do be honest.
More information is better. Some may ultimately be discarded but I cannot assess the worth of a critique until I have heard it. Scholars do no t improve their knowledge by not gaining new knowledge, and I will not improve by not hearing more critique. We do not improve in a vacuum.My own view of my work is both extremely harsh and baised; i need to know the external because I am not the external.
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