Talk:Lorenza Böttner/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Asilvering (talk · contribs) 03:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Review

1. Well-written:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (prose)	Easily passes. One typo/translation error I can see; I'll clear it. Actually, could you clarify and/or slightly expand this sentence: "This was meant to invoke an image of a struggling, exiled Chilean artist—a theme he had observed in Chile."? I understand the meaning but reading it again I think the lack of context on Chile/Bolaño makes this a bit confusing. (Observed how? Why make this observation? Why cast Böttner as a struggling, exiled artist? etc. Not too much or we end up with WP:PROPORTION problems. Added note: actually, having now read the source, I think the sentence as it stands is misleading (I did not, in fact, understand the meaning!), so it should definitely be clarified/expanded. You might find that this paragraph works better down in "Death and legacy"? I like the idea of moving it to death and legacy - this information was initially included just to provide some more balance in the article about her early life, but Fischer's discussion of both writers does go beyond this. I have taken a look at moving and expanding this information with more context, but it is hard to preserve a clear focus on Böttner without extraneous information. (This is part of why I didn't include Fischer's Deleuzian analysis of her art - the amount of explanation required for Deleuzian terms, eg "becoming", can make us lose focus ... I have a good grasp of D&G, but I can't condense that into a meaningful, and proportional, paragraph.) Yes, that makes sense re: Fischer. As for the Chilean novelists, I like how this new paragraph works much better! -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)	Pass
(b) (MoS)	I don't believe the use of Lorenza's male name is supported by WP:DEADNAME. The newspaper articles using it are all writing about her childhood after she was already known as Lorenza, with the exception of the Mampato article. I'll make this edit. Fair enough - I added it because Preciado emphasizes it (referring to her with her birth name for her pre-transition life) extensively. I know what the MOS guidance is on this, I just disagree - but not enough to enter it in again :) Urve (talk) 07:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)	Pass

2. Verifiable with no original research:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (references)	fn 1: "March 6" isn't in this source, just the year. -- found it in Preciado 2021, the Montreal exhibit pdf. Fixed Mampato: I think you should be citing Fischer 2016 here as well - in-depth on this topic and in English. Added; I am only hesitant to provide more information about the Mampato article because, while it is important, I don't think more details are proportional to her achievements and life Yes, that makes perfect sense. I didn't mean that I thought you should add more text to this article, just that the reference to Fischer could be helpful here for readers. -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC) "She refused to use prosthetics" - the source given just says "never opted to get", which is much weaker than "refused to". Cite Preciado's Requiem for a Norm brochure instead - it has this language. Fixed Böttner attended the Kassel School of Arts,[7] and while there, began publicly identifying as a woman.[8] -- Greenberger and Musselwhite aren't the sources of this info; they're presumably both working off of Preciado? Better to cite Preciado 2021 instead. Since that's a bare pdf and is a bit vulnerable to disappearing from the internet, I wouldn't complain if you wanted to leave G&M cites in, so long as P is cited there. Added "She also studied art in New York." - this is cited to Diez but almost certainly comes from Fischer 2016, 205, which should be cited here instead. "Se mudó a Alemania donde estudió arte en la universidad de Kassel y posteriormente en NY" is what Diez says, but I've added Fischer as well ( more citations never hurt :) ) Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Diez didn't say that, but rather that Fischer was probably the original print-published source of the information for Diez as well, so he should be cited. (No aspersions at Diez - it's not the kind of information I'd expect people to cite.) -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC) "Dissident transgender body" - probably better to cite Preciado directly, since they're his words. English here: [1]. German here [2]. Keep the documenta link here or somewhere else though - good to have this URL and also the gallery images that are here. Likewise on "In 2016, documenta in Kassel, Germany, began a public showing of her art." - good to hang these Preciado links here also for clarity. I think you should probably also clarify here that Preciado was the curator for this exhibition at documenta - right now it reads like documenta and the later solo exhibitions are unrelated. "The Chilean writers..." - better to cite the fuller discussion at Fischer 2016, 210-212 Yes, done "From 2018 onward, Preciado held a series of events..." - citing Fischer 2021 is helpful here. Also (imo) you should add the Toronto and Montreal exhibitions to this sentence, and link the two exhibition guides as footnotes. I don't think there are any other exhibitions at this point so I don't see any reason to mention only two of four.	Pass
(b) (citations to reliable sources)	Fischer 2014 - this work later becomes Fischer 2016. Better to cite the more recent publication imo. I've added accompanying cites; it's been a while but I think my point in doing this was to provide a more easily-accessible source for the information (more people have JSTOR than the book), which I think is probably true. Maybe I should go through the 2016 cites and see if there's accompanying information in 2014; that will have to wait a while That's a good point, so actually I think the best way to handle that is to cite both the 2014 and 2016. It would be bad form to cite the 2014 article in an academic context, but this is a public context. -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)	Pass
(c) (original research)	The reviewer has left no comments here	Pass
(d) (copyvio and plagiarism)	The reviewer has left no comments here	Pass

3. Broad in its coverage:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (major aspects)	No mention of Michael Stahlberg’s 1991 documentary Lorenza - definitely should be at least mentioned. It's cited on Fischer 2016, 207. Likewise Frank Garvey's Wall of Ashes, same place. Possibly where you talk about the novels. In general I find it strange that Preciado gets a voice in this article, but Fischer does not - you've cited Fischer extensively for facts, but no interpretation. Since Fischer appears to be the first person to bring Böttner to academic attention at all, this is very odd. Fischer has some stuff on "resistance to identity", "elusiveness of signification", and something I now can't find that was "unknowability" or something, that would be good to have in here - the Nair and Preciado interpretations in here don't disagree with that but I don't think "transition and not identity", for example, quite gets the same thing across as Fischer is saying. I think the last paragraph should be expanded somewhat, both as I've already mentioned in the references section and to clarify that documenta 14 is what brought her to wider critical attention. Right now the article clearly states that documenta in 2016 was the first time her work had been publicly exhibited in some time, but it looks like it's this exhibition that gets her work critical attention in the first place, and it's also her first major solo exhibition according to Greenberger (who mentions some additional reviews you might want to add but certainly don't have to). Actually, now that I see how much of this attention is due to the exhibit Preciado curated, I think it might make sense to use his photo here after all, depending on the size of this hypothetical paragraph. However you handle this, I think you should try your best to avoid a kind of "Preciado discovered her" narrative, since that's definitely false (see: documentaries in 1991, 2009; Fischer's academic work, etc). He's definitely responsible for bringing her to wider critical attention though. (Comment from Urve (talk) 14:26, 8 January 2022 (UTC)): Just for clarity, although you didn't mention it. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find more information about her death, such as when she contracted HIV, what her life with AIDS was like, what the actual complication was, etc. I'm not sure a biography can cover main aspects of the subject's life if there are sources that discuss end-of-life that we don't mention - but I am just noting for the record that I've not been able to find more. Given the date and the diagnosis, I expected as much. Personally, even if we had that information, I think I would prefer to leave it out. It's her art that's significant. -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)	Pass
(b) (focused)	The reviewer has left no comments here	Pass

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Notes	Result
The reviewer has left no comments here	Pass

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Notes	Result
The reviewer has left no comments here	Pass

6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales)	Infobox image is still awaiting NFUR, but the rationale given looks sound to me.	Pass
(b) (appropriate use with suitable captions)	I don't think the image of Preciado is relevant and would be happy to see it go. But it's not so irrelevant that I think the GAC require it to be removed. I assume there are no free use images of her art. I found another exhibition link that I can add as a ref. I suggest recaptioning the image of Böttner herself as "Photograph of Böttner" or similar to avoid the possible interpretation that "probable" refers to whether the image is of Böttner or not, rather than whether or not it is a self-portrait or simply a portrait. I won't do this one myself in case there is some other reason why the image has been captioned in this way (in which case, I'd like to know?). That caption doesn't seem worth holding the GAN up, though, so: Thanks - good points on both. I've removed Preciado (it was added because it is of him at documenta, where Böttner was exhibited), and adjusted Böttner (the importance of being a self-portrait is that it can demonstrate what her art looked like, but since we don't know if it's hers or not - I don't understand what Preciado is saying in the video - then that value is diminished and confuses). Urve (talk) 07:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC) It's definitely her art, if that's the question! Preciado is talking in general about her art and how she portrays herself in it at that point in the video and these are on a slideshow that's sort of just paging through on its own in the background of what he's saying. I wish he commented on them directly, but alas no. They're also very much in keeping with all the art of hers that I've seen paging through gallery photographs and so forth. The argument that it's not a self-portrait can only really hinge (at least, as I see it) on whether or not she was the one who literally pressed the shutter button. Which, in my opinion anyway, is not a particularly interesting question. I see no reason whatsoever to doubt that the setup, concept, framing, etc are all hers. -- asilvering (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC) Thanks. I'm not sure where to go from here. "Portrait" probably suffices since captions shouldn't be overly long or confusing. I thought of something like "A self-taken portrait of Böttner", but that's not super helpful. I don't agree that self-portrait is misleading if she didn't click the shutter herself, but if Preciado doesn't even comment on them (again, can't understand) then there's not much to do :/ If you don't agree that self-portrait is misleading, I'll just change it to "self-portrait". I don't object to it at all - I think the argument I gave, which is the only argument I can think of against calling it a self-portrait, is very weak. -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)	Pass

Result

Result	Notes
Pass	Pass. See Outstanding items, below, for a clearer list of what remains.

Discussion

Possible places for further expansion (no bearing on GA review):

• I'm interested in this "public performance of everyday tasks" part of her art, which isn't mentioned here but is taken up at Fischer 2016, 206-7.
• a bit more on these two novels (wrote about her how?) - you could even do this now using Fischer 2016, 210-212.
  • Thanks for these detailed comments, Asilvering!! It's good seeing important artists getting feedback beyond what I'd expect of a good article review, especially since I felt so alone in writing ... I started the article and there hasn't been much interest among editors. I'll try to have all of your comments addressed within a week, though probably sooner. There are some pieces that you've brought up here that I purposely did not include, but I'll explain my thought process more as I reconsider the sources. Urve (talk) 14:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I am so glad you wrote it! I would never have learned about her otherwise, and she is awesome. -- asilvering (talk) 16:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Outstanding items

Almost everything in the above review has been addressed at this point. These are the three items I see as still outstanding:

1. I think you should probably also clarify here that Preciado was the curator for this exhibition at documenta - right now it reads like documenta and the later solo exhibitions are unrelated.
2. "From 2018 onward, Preciado held a series of events..." - citing Fischer 2021 is helpful here. Also (imo) you should add the Toronto and Montreal exhibitions to this sentence, and link the two exhibition guides as footnotes. I don't think there are any other exhibitions at this point so I don't see any reason to mention only two of four.
3. No mention of Michael Stahlberg’s 1991 documentary Lorenza - definitely should be at least mentioned. It's cited on Fischer 2016, 207. Likewise Frank Garvey's Wall of Ashes, same place. Possibly where you talk about the novels.

I am happy to leave these as suggestions for further improvement, and to pass this GA review as the article stands now. Thank you for writing this. -- asilvering (talk) 19:56, 8 January 2022 (UTC)