The Current State of Art and its Writing in Victoria by Brian Grison

        There are several magazines that publish articles about visual art in Victoria. Among these, Boulevard, Douglas, Focus, Monday Magazine, the Times Colonist and Y.A.M are the main ones. Articles about art in these magazines have been written by Rick Gibbs, Alisa Gordaneer, David Lennam, Denise Rudnicki and others for Boulevard, David Lennam for Douglas, Mollie Kaye, Linda Rogers and, until six months ago, myself, for Focus, John Threlfall for Monday Magazine, Robert Amos for the Times Colonist and myself for Y.A.M. However, much of this writing is disappointing.
         The qualifications of these writers are worth considering. For example, except for Robert Amos, perhaps Mollie Kaye, and myself I don't think any of these writers can claim to be an artist. I think that only Robert Amos and myself write exclusively about visual art. Other than myself, probably none of these writers has completed university degrees in art history, or has taught visual art. In fact, it seems that few of these writers the basic qualifications to write about art. If this is true, the art community in Victoria is not being well served.
          Of course writers about art need not be serious artists, art historians or even art critics. For example, Charles Baudelaire, Octavio Paz, John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara are poets, and John Ruskin was an amateur artist. Writers about art need to be sensitive to art - whatever that means. However, one would reasonably assume that the most sensitive writers about art would be artists. A short list would include Michelangelo, van Gogh, David Milne, Lauren Harris, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and David Hockney.
On the other hand, there is no direct equivalence between the quality of one's art and one's ability to write intelligently about it. Many good artists are not articulate about their own or any other artist's work.          However, such artists are in the minority. The better artists are usually the most articulate, and often they are excellent writers about art. Much less often, an average or mediocre artist becomes an important writer about art. John Ruskin is probably the most well known example.
           While writing for Focus I often read articles in other periodicals (and occasionally, in Focus) that I wanted to respond to, either through letters to the editor or through Focus. I did once send a letter to the Times Colonist editor about an article by Robert Amos, but it was not published. And, perhaps understandably, Focus wasn't interested in publishing my criticisms of other writers.
However, a few months ago Efren Quiroz invited me to write such responses on his website exhibit-v. Through these articles I hope to cultivate discussion among artists and writers about what art, and writing about it, is supposed to accomplish.
            This present article will outline a possible relationship between writing and art in Victoria. This relationship reflects local geography, history, demography, art education and business practice.
Consider the following circumstances. Besides that fact that most local writers are incapable of writing about serious historic or contemporary art, there is a broad agenda among most local publishers to support low quality art. Most of the magazines in Victoria depend on advertising space purchased by commercial galleries, and all but about six of these exhibit art for tourists or interior decoration. From a business perspective this makes sense; tourist art and interior decoration sells more quickly than serious art. Good art receives little attention, and good writing is not required.
             Geography is another unfortunate matter. Victoria suffers from its location far away from the world's important art centres - with all due respect to the important First Nations visual art culture of this coast. Nothing can make up for not living in New York, Paris, London. Beginning artists need constant exposure to the best historic and contemporary art. Art books and magazines, art history and theory courses, images on the Internet, or occasional trips across the continent or ocean to visit important museums and galleries are not enough. Without constant exposure to good and serious art, most writers reflect what is available, and that is mostly provincial.
             Here is another point. On a per capita basis, Victoria supposedly has more artists than any other Canadian city. This is actually not encouraging. Since Victoria is not a world-class cultural centre, most young, talented and ambitious artists move to more important cities. On the other hand, Victoria is a popular retirement destinations for Canadians, and a many of these residents take up art as a leisure pastime. After a few easy and fun workshops and courses or consulting a few how-to books, they begin participating in studio tours. Then some local commercial gallery 'discovers' them and their misplaced ambitions soar; dollar signs and the artistic 'life-style' eliminate the possibility of critical thinking and good art practice.
             Art education catering to amateurs is big business in Victoria. Most of the art courses in this town are designed to satisfy the simple ambitions of amateur artists. Even if they find themselves attending so-called higher education courses, such students are rarely interested in the challenge of serious art. They only want to entertain themselves, to express themselves, to discover their inner artist. They want to make art about recognizable and pleasant subjects. Hence, most art education in Victoria is not challenging; it lacks the rigor, whether from a manual, perceptual or theoretical perspective, required to cultivate technically good or intellectually serious art, and well-trained instructors are not required.
             Unfortunately, these facts of artistic life in Victoria reflect a larger problematic cultural condition. Even quiet, quaint and isolated Victoria participates in one of the grand self-delusions of contemporary life, that we live in an age of increasing amateurism, deepening hedonistic materialism and simultaneously conservative and shallow politics. Today, being entertained has replaced being cultured. Instant gratification measured by fifteen-minute fame has replaced the slow, difficult life-long cultivation of knowledge, culture and wisdom. There is little wonder that much of the art and the writing about it in Victoria amounts to a lot of mediocrity.


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