Excellent survey from Greg Kucera on art in Seattle on ArtSlant, here. I especially like Kucera’s action at the beginning of 2009, foreseeing collector paralysis:
My staff and I called a meeting of them on January 2nd last year and explained our feeling that we were all in for a tough year. We related our experience at ArtMiami 2008, just a month earlier, and the collector paralysis we saw there. My response to this was to set our artists free from their contractual obligations to send all local sales through the gallery. I advised them to sell work as they could to family members, friends, the postman, their plumber, whoever they could sell work to without any commissions coming back to the gallery. Still, though a few artists took me up on that permission, others sent sales back through the gallery.
Kucera has a great Web site, which wouldn’t be true had he built it or insisted on running it. He pays for it. That suggests he appreciates what online can do for him. Left to his own devices, however, he’s hardly in the forefront. Here’s what he said about arts coverage in Seattle:
We saw the press
and media coverage for the arts diminish. With the demise of
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, we lost print reviews by our most
active art critic, Regina Hackett. Her blog, Another Bouncing Ball,
can now be found on ArtsJournal.com.
The Seattle Times retired its art critic, Sheila Farr. The Seattle
Weekly hasn’t made a commitment to the visual arts in years. Jen
Graves, art critic for the Seattle Stranger is now the last critic
standing and still writing regularly for print publication. Her
writing also appears on The Stranger’s Slog.
Only because Kucera values writing that is printed on paper above all other kinds can he say coverage for the arts has diminished. Instead, it has never been more robust. Why?
The art blogs. (Go to my blog, look right just below the scroll of recent comments for a list.) Despite what he wrote, Kucera knows this. He mentioned them, but he composed his first draft in his email account, failed to save and accidentally pushed delete. His second draft, written in haste but admirable anyway, omitted these tributes only by accident.
And the other reason for the currently robust critical scene is not online but is printed in newsletter form – Matthew Offenbacher’s La Norda Especialo, a zine of artists’ writing. (Althpough not online, it can be downloaded as a pdf. ) Like Kucera, Offenbacher values print on paper, not quite ready to believe that what’s online only is the same real deal.
There are other lines he is loathe loath to cross. I asked him if I could write for La Norda, and he said no. Artists only. By way of softening the blow, he allowed that I could contribute my own drawings, if I wanted. Offenbacher’s zine proves once again that the best critics are not always critics at all but artists writing on the side, insiders looking at each other’s practices.
Other news:
Blake Gopnik on Brian Junger. Not just no, but hell no. Just because Junger’s work has wide cultural resonance doesn’t mean it lacks a primary connection with the Native North American experience.
Christopher Knight on LA City Council arts funds cuts, promised to be deep. Ditto government cuts in B.C., and ditto in Seattle at 4Culture.
The problem of art plagiarism, again. I’d say in this case, photographer Alex Brown has good reason to complain.
By planting clues to their location on facebook and Twitter, Patrick Skoff gives away his paintings to get attention, making his relational aesthetics the point and his non-too-engaging paintings a byproduct. (Chicago Tribune report here, via AJ) Donald Young is quoted in this story. Does the Trib review Young’s shows? Rarely. Instead, it quotes him on an art party trick.
Finally, Tyler Green is unable to write the word dickish, even in a quote. He writes it, d*ckish. How remarkably arch of him. Did George Carlin live in vain? (On the subject of Green’s post, Jerry Saltz vs. John Yau, I side with Saltz. Yau’s slam that Jeff Koons appeals to rich people is boring, as well as a gross misunderstanding of the history of art.)
Back to Carlin. Tyler, this one’s for you.
The only problem with us blogging artists is that we can’t really criticize anything. We can’t criticize each other, the galleries, the critics. We’re dependent on this web of connections and can’t afford to burn bridges. I suppose it’s better for one’s own well-being anyway to focus on the positives, on what we do like; but at the same time, thoughtful criticism makes an art community better.
Your reduction of John Yow’s argument to some kind of boring sour grapes against wealth is a but facile. Jerry Saltz’s largely ad hominem response either makes him an idiot, or a socratic fool, and many people take a dim view of his continued lack of criticality.
The art world does not need more cheerleaders, contrary to popular belief. Neither does “it” need a bunker mentality.
I;m not really sure what the point is, other than to maybe emulate (and envy?) the “snarkiness” of blogs.
Hey you, zipthwung. I read John Yau’s essay and yes, Regina didn’t do it justice. But the part she objects to is real and is part of his argument. He blames Koons for his audience. How lame is that? This is a daisy chain of snark, from John Yau about Saltz, and from Tyler Green about Saltz. Regina was sticking up for the (ha!) underdog who is really way top dog but not in this discussion. She’s the least snarky person in the chain. Complaints about art blogs are like complaints about newspapers or magazines or YouTube vidoes. It’s ridiculous to lump them together. When I want reporting, I go to Green. When I want art, I go to Hackett.
Regina, thanks for mentioning my selective review of 2009 in Seattle. But, my goodness you’re touchy about the difference about print vs electronic media coverage of the arts.
In my (apparently luddite) opinion Seattle’s press and media coverage did diminish in 2009.
What we got from you in the P-I were thoughtful reviews that built on the foundation of your years of coverage of the scene. Granted there were fewer reviews per week than you are now publishing daily in terms of items on your blog but they were generally more substantial than most of what gets written in blogs by you or anyone else. The attention span for the web seems to be far shorter…..geez, could it be that no one really enjoys reading from a flat incandescent screen as much as we do from a 3-d paper surface?
In conversations with you I think we both recognize and appreciate the facility of the web for transmitting images as well as ideas. But critical appraisal of an artist’s work is crucial. Artists can comment on other artists with great ease, but can they be expected to critically appraise each other with all candor? Blog responders can add their own 2-cents worth but often it isn’t worth that much in its content. Arts listings are a snap on the web but that isn’t really arts coverage and it certainly isn’t art criticism.
While I welcome all the various new voices writing electronically—intermittently or with dedication—I don’t think that many of these voices can be truthfully construed as arts criticism. Regina, think of the difference between what you did and what The Seattle Times historically did in terms of critical opinions expressed versus general information reported? Think of the difference between what The Stranger has offered for so many years in contrast to what became lacking in The Seattle Weekly.
Further most of those voices have been writing for the last several years. Veltkamp, Demetre, Josselin, Artdish, Pothast, Tipton, and others were writing well before 2009, the year of which I was writing. Offenbacher has been publishing La Norda Especialo since the beginning of 2008. City Arts as well. (As Regina correctly points out, I included these in my first draft and, in the haste of meeting deadline, I foolishly forgot to include them in the final. My apologies to all of you who are actively covering the scene in whatever form.)
The truth is I love the web. I’m thankful to Jena Scott for instigating and building our website, and to current GKG staff member Laura Komada for maintaining it. It’s a huge part of my business and the web is a huge part of my business. I spend the better part of every day (and many evenings, like tonight) staring into my Apple monitor, reading emails, responding to inquiries, reviewing blogs, and writing the occasional response when I get sucked into the quagmire.
Staring into a screen has become a necessary hazard of my job though often I’d rather be sprawled out with The New Yorker.
To anyone who makes it through my screed here, “thanks!” for reading it all.
where exactly did John Yau judge Koons for attracting wealth? Criticizing Yau as implicitly neo-marxist or somehow classist or even envious also oversimplifies or cheapens the the argument and issues raised.
But also, I think you can criticize (meaning blame as well as critique) an established artist for their aggregated audience/base – even if he or they “knows not what it means”.
Koons does nothing to efface himself, in the high modernist sense nor the postmodern sense nor even the arch quisling sense – there is no fly in the ointment – it simply is what it is, anything else is subjective interpretation – and to say that isness represents NOW is to say something like Reagan Era Trickle down would jump start the 2010 economy. Koons is NOT America, Yau is rite. As if a pair of Mickey Mouse Ears could represent America? Please, cancel my Nickelodeon drip.
this is an excellent and objective analysis of the issue by a blogger/critic.
The meaning of the Puppy is contingent – increasingly it is a symbol for, as Yau points out, an America of misdeeds, missteps and misogyny, as well as mythologizing, mendacity and meretriciousness. All attributable to Warhol-Koons mandarin attitude that kitch is ok so long as it sells. That art careers are made not by antiestablisment gestures, but by imitations, attentisme, tacit consent, collaboration and finally whole-sale capitulation. Why celebrate it? And then – why not celebrate shit as well? Cloaca is actually the more interesting work. It at least points towards a utopian ideal, for me, Cloaca is a symbol for a future in which art could eat its audience. Could eat itself.
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”
* John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism Ch.2
I just commented over on the more recent post as well but…
I started Artomaton in 2007 (now defunct) and was writing much more critically at the time, with the unrestrained freedom of someone who hadn’t really met anyone yet. Now that I have DV, I’ve noticed how much more tempered my writing has become since I’ve met more people – having said that I want to resurrect my critical voice in some part because even though I’m a practising artist, I am most engaged when I’m viewing art through a philosopher’s lens; and that’s how I want to write about it.
On the other hand, articles change by virtue of being web-based, and most people just don’t have/take the time to read a lengthy article on their computer. Perhaps another option has to emerge? More Nortes? Artist catalogs? More Kindles?
I feel that Regina, Jim Demetre, Gary Faigan (via ArtDish), and Jen do still write comprehensive and critical pieces on local arts. It’s just not every day, and it’s not on paper (obvious exception: the Stranger). Does this mean that it’s less accessible to people who would linger over it and a coffee if it were on paper, rather than on a screen? Is there a way for bloggers to access tried and true criticism with grace, poignancy and brevity?
The web is for broke losers like you and me, Regina.
I side with Greg’s comments…
“Blog responders can add their own 2-cents worth but often it isn’t worth that much in its content. Arts listings are a snap on the web but that isn’t really arts coverage and it certainly isn’t art criticism.
While I welcome all the various new voices writing electronically—intermittently or with dedication—I don’t think that many of these voices can be truthfully construed as arts criticism.”
My goal is to write criticism, not just a “what’s coming up this week” listing. I feel that bloggers are a incredible service to artists and galleries but only if their writings are worth including in an artist cv or the binder at the gallery counter.
Sorry I (and others) didn’t respond about the rest of the piece/comments. But that’s what you get when you post a blog about bloggers – we swarm on that like chum.