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Contemporary art, uncovered: a survey of major newspapers and weekly magazines suggests that visual art is steadily losing ground in the popular press, even as its audience—and market—grows exponentially
Art in America, Feb, 2007 by Peter Plagens
Oddly, this puts contemporary art in a double bind in regard to being considered newsworthy in the popular press. While it still suffers in the morning editorial meeting from being thought too arcane, its new wrinkle of engaging in pseudo-obviousness renders contemporary art simultaneously blah as well as mystifying. "Man-bites-dog gets noticed," says Knight. "[But] art is a multibillion-dollar industry promoted by corporate titans, civic leaders, commercial developers, public relations firms and tourism agencies in even mid-size cities. Art is just part of the churn."
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Can anything be done about the situation of art coverage in the popular press? The first thing art writers can do is, to quote Elkins, "engage the reader without recourse to ambiguity, technical language, or hyperbole." And with, I would add, some poetic flair--that is, a little art of their own. In a recent piece in the Village Voice, Jerry Saltz gives perhaps the best analysis ever of the desirable ingredients of art criticism:
My only position is to let the reader in on my feelings; try to write in straightforward, jargon-free language; not oversimplify or dumb down my responses; aim to have an idea, a judgment, or a description in every sentence; not take too much for granted; explain how artists might be original or derivative and how they use techniques and materials; observe whether they're developing or standing still; provide context; and make judgments that hopefully amount to something more than just my opinion. To do this requires more than a position or a theory. It requires something else. This something else is what art, and criticism, are all about.
Only when the popular press's predilection for fluff is corrected by writers standing up on their hind legs and exercising their right to make informed and unapologetic judgments, and by editors realizing that with art, considered opinions have news value that can pique readers' interest and start lively arguments, can one of Elkins's other wishes come true. "Newspaper art criticism," he says, "[is] there as a guide, but never as a source to be cited unless the [art] historian's subject is the history of an artist's reception in the popular press. ... I would love to see art criticism from The New York Times, The New Yorker, or Time be cited by art historians in journals like the Art Bulletin, October, or Art History." Not that editors in the popular press would be impressed by citations of their staff critics in specialist publications, but it would make the critics feel better--make them feel they haven't cut themselves off from the insider part of the art world just because they write mostly for the uninitiated.
Beyond these two purloined suggestions, though, I don't have much to offer. As much as I'd like to say the problem of diminished coverage of modern and contemporary art in the popular press could be effectively addressed by organized cheerleading efforts--critics shouting for themselves, critics shouting for art; promotion of "awareness" of artists and exhibitions among the general public through town meetings and symposia; and art-criticism curricula in art schools and college art departments--I can't. Even Elkins--who, while not quite an art critic himself, eats, sleeps and breathes other people's art criticism--ends up telling me in an e-mail, "I thought it was at least possible that there was no problem: that the U.S. media reflected the U.S. public fairly accurately. Basically people don't care, and they get the art-world coverage they want."
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