The panelists for an upcoming College Art Association discussion on "Emerging Artists, Critics, and the Market" are Jeffrey Deitch, Don and Mira Rubell, Peter Plagens, and Jerry Saltz. According to an email from AICA, the critics' association organizing the event at the Hilton on Feb 17, among the questions to be addressed are:
In the current situation what, indeed, is the critic’s role and responsibility? Are there opportunities? Are there ways to respond and to act that circumvent the conventions of build-a-reputation/trash-a-reputation? What is the relationship between collectors and dealers? How does it work? Why do art world systems go unanalyzed and uncritiqued by most critics? Is there room for critics to deepen the discourse? If so how? Does it make a difference if critics expose the issues within the market, art-making and criticism? Is anyone listening? Can dealers, collectors and artists listen to critics or only to one another? Is there anything critics learn from collectors and dealers? Does it matter? Are artists so caught up in the dazzle and anxiety of early success that they can’t hear what they have to know or should a critic attempt to reach them with reasoned argument?
I quit going to these types of panels after a prominent critic told me "we can't discuss specific artists because collectors will rush out and buy them up." Here is an alternative set of questions:
1. What new forms of art have emerged since the '70s? Who are the best artists working today?
2. Have we had a "brain drain" in the art world since the days when Leo Steinberg, Rosalind Krauss, and Craig Owens wrote about their contemporaries (i.e. since about 1982)?
3. Is the art world's dedication to a relative handful of canonical (i.e., marketable) artists comparable to the "copyright tyranny" of Disney and other large corporations?
4. Won't blogging and other forms of online writing largely replace print criticism in the near future? (The publisher of the New York Times seems to think so.) How will that change art practice?
Update: Added Timesman's prognostication and link.
Certainly those are more interesting than the former. I don't know that we've had a brain drain - Alex Galloway is the first that comes to mind, but it doesn't seem like he's all that well known within the larger art community.
On the subject of if blogging, and online writing will replace print criticism, my answer is absolutely, but clearly I'm biased. I don't have any idea how or if it will change art practice. I suspect it will just mean a larger number of solicitations in my inbox each day.
Good call on Galloway but I would wager none of the panelists have heard of him.
A good (annoying) question for them would be: "What do you think of Alex Galloway's ideas about internet protocols and how they shape communication (including artistic interaction)?"
I haven't finished Protocol yet but a series of blog posts relating it to "gallery art theory" would be better than me bitchin'.
Still waiting for Rhizome or Eyebeam to respond to your critical gauntlet-hurling re: Guthrie's YouTube piece. Looks like they're not interested in the work!
wish i had decent answers to these questions altho maybe for number 2 the answer is yes because of the example of alex g?? it's nothing to do with his brain [i could use one like his], but i really felt protocol was geared a bit too much towards the layman reader ...so if thats as critical as it gets then yeah definitely things have slipped.
I didn't find it that "lay" but I'll think about it more if I do those blog posts.
As for the gauntlet-hurling I appreciate Paddy's support.
|
The panelists for an upcoming College Art Association discussion on "Emerging Artists, Critics, and the Market" are Jeffrey Deitch, Don and Mira Rubell, Peter Plagens, and Jerry Saltz. According to an email from AICA, the critics' association organizing the event at the Hilton on Feb 17, among the questions to be addressed are:
In the current situation what, indeed, is the critic’s role and responsibility? Are there opportunities? Are there ways to respond and to act that circumvent the conventions of build-a-reputation/trash-a-reputation? What is the relationship between collectors and dealers? How does it work? Why do art world systems go unanalyzed and uncritiqued by most critics? Is there room for critics to deepen the discourse? If so how? Does it make a difference if critics expose the issues within the market, art-making and criticism? Is anyone listening? Can dealers, collectors and artists listen to critics or only to one another? Is there anything critics learn from collectors and dealers? Does it matter? Are artists so caught up in the dazzle and anxiety of early success that they can’t hear what they have to know or should a critic attempt to reach them with reasoned argument?
I quit going to these types of panels after a prominent critic told me "we can't discuss specific artists because collectors will rush out and buy them up." Here is an alternative set of questions:
1. What new forms of art have emerged since the '70s? Who are the best artists working today?
2. Have we had a "brain drain" in the art world since the days when Leo Steinberg, Rosalind Krauss, and Craig Owens wrote about their contemporaries (i.e. since about 1982)?
3. Is the art world's dedication to a relative handful of canonical (i.e., marketable) artists comparable to the "copyright tyranny" of Disney and other large corporations?
4. Won't blogging and other forms of online writing largely replace print criticism in the near future? (The publisher of the New York Times seems to think so.) How will that change art practice?
Update: Added Timesman's prognostication and link.
- tom moody 2-09-2007 9:17 pm
Certainly those are more interesting than the former. I don't know that we've had a brain drain - Alex Galloway is the first that comes to mind, but it doesn't seem like he's all that well known within the larger art community.
On the subject of if blogging, and online writing will replace print criticism, my answer is absolutely, but clearly I'm biased. I don't have any idea how or if it will change art practice. I suspect it will just mean a larger number of solicitations in my inbox each day.
- Paddy Johnson 2-10-2007 9:03 am
Good call on Galloway but I would wager none of the panelists have heard of him.
A good (annoying) question for them would be: "What do you think of Alex Galloway's ideas about internet protocols and how they shape communication (including artistic interaction)?"
I haven't finished Protocol yet but a series of blog posts relating it to "gallery art theory" would be better than me bitchin'.
Still waiting for Rhizome or Eyebeam to respond to your critical gauntlet-hurling re: Guthrie's YouTube piece. Looks like they're not interested in the work!
- tom moody 2-10-2007 9:55 am
wish i had decent answers to these questions altho maybe for number 2 the answer is yes because of the example of alex g?? it's nothing to do with his brain [i could use one like his], but i really felt protocol was geared a bit too much towards the layman reader ...so if thats as critical as it gets then yeah definitely things have slipped.
- p.d. (guest) 2-11-2007 6:28 am
I didn't find it that "lay" but I'll think about it more if I do those blog posts.
As for the gauntlet-hurling I appreciate Paddy's support.
- tom moody 2-12-2007 3:56 am