- Deborah de Boer said...
- Dear Brian, How refreshing! The comments here alone evoke much glee and consideration -- agendas being harder to hide than most folks imagine. I agree almost entirely with what you say. I would only suggest your assumption that most sensitive writers about art need to be artists is wrongheaded: sensitive writers about art need to be sensitive to art, especially over ego. Being literate, brave, brief, self-deprecating and capable of critical thought while constantly looking, reading, feeling and absorbing are also helpful. And It is mandatory to have some evolving concern with the larger world of contemporary art if you're going to write about it. The shrines to provincialism, amateurism and self-styled authority are the most virulent and destructive of all, for both communities and artists. Kick the damned hornets' nests. It can only be a positive thing. Deborah
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Re: The Current State of Art and its Writing in Victoria by Brian Grison
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The results might be positive, I agree, but I don't find the article refreshing...it's really the same kind of thing Amos said in a panel a couple of years ago and I hear people say at the dreggish end of an opening. At its best it's a genuinely frustrated complaint made by people who want something better, at its worst it's just "cocktail bitchiness"...see http://www.rrj.ca/m8451/ for a sound take on the problems of Canadian criticism in general. See James Elkins (http://criticaycontracritica.uniandes.edu.co/textossimposio/ElkinsWhathappened.pdf)for a bigger exploration of problems faced by conmtemporary criticism and see http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2010/01/20/state-of-the-art-criticism-subjective-musings/ for a weather report on the challenges faced by online criticism. These problems are bigger and more interesting than anything you folks have had to say about them so far...
ReplyDeleteThank you John. Brian’s article was refreshing to me because I haven’t read anything like it locally. Locally being the operative word because I haven’t been keeping up with events in the real world. So at the least Brian prompted you to post some very interesting links. I’ve been out of touch with the state of art writing for some time but after reading those articles I feel as though I’ve caught up. Back on the cutting edge...whoopee! I find something entropic about them though. Reading them it’s not hard to sense an overall ‘been there, done that’ cloud of ennui over the art scene which must be very dispiriting for young artists. It’s also clear that the John Ruskin, Clement Greenberg and Robert Hughes days are well and truly over. Art criticism was always a minefield but anybody with the nerve to call themselves a critic, or even a theorist, these days is likely to get lynched. So maybe art journalism is the best we can hope for.
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