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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

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The situation is not much different with sections devoted to "Arts and Leisure," as in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, where art criticism has been eliminated in favor of soft journalism. In the current Sunday newspaper dispensation, art exhibitions, legitimate theater, classical concerts, etc., are valued mainly as "hot" items, preferably with attached scandals, gossip and statistics (production costs, attendance, salaries paid, popularity rankings, etc.). Whether the exhibition, play or concert in question is, in the considered opinion of a knowledgeable critic, any good or not drops to the bottom of coverage considerations. Whether or not the event seems to be a historically meaningful contribution to the field is regarded as entirely irrelevant. The atrophy in seriousness isn't limited to the popular print media, however. Here's what Cary Darling had to say last year in the Fort Worth Star Telegram about the gradual lobotomizing of the cable "arts" network, Bravo: "Symbolically at least, the poetic voice of Paul Robeson has fallen silent to the raspy ravings of [comedian] Kathy Griffin, and the groundbreaking works of Picasso have been masked in favor of the tattoo-shop shenanigans of [the show] Inked."

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III

To help find out why such a disparity exists between a robust public interest in art (though not necessarily in the kind of art usually indicated by the adjective "contemporary") and the increasingly mingy popular-press coverage of it, I sent e-mail queries to managing and feature editors at about a dozen daily newspapers outside the major U.S. art centers. I also included my phone numbers for people who might rather not answer in writing. I must have hit a sore spot. In all but a few cases, the standard "repeated queries to his/her office were not answered" applies. One editor, finally replying to my third try, offered up the old excuse that my e-mails somehow "never arrived." My reply to her, which included the electronic trail of the previous trio (all of which had obviously reached their destination) prompted her to switch tactics and buck the subject of art coverage to a couple of the paper's writers who had nothing to do with the management decisions on art coverage I was asking about. "Stonewalling" may be too strong a term for the editors' aggregate response, but suffice it to say that newsgathering organizations don't look good when they try to fend off the gathering of news.

The Greensboro News & Record's Robinson, however, sets a standard for candor regarding the matter of art coverage:

There are a variety of reasons we don't give art more respect. We perceive that the audience for such coverage is small. It could be a self-fulfilling prophecy--we don't write about it because it's not that much in demand, but it's not in demand because we don't write about it.... Advertising has nothing to do with these decisions. I suppose that if a gallery said it would purchase a premium-priced ad along the bottom of a page focusing on the world of art, we would leap at the opportunity to expand our coverage. To my knowledge that hasn't happened, and theaters and symphonies aren't big newspaper advertisers, but we find the money to write about their productions regularly.... Contemporary art is often hard to understand. I dare say that, if asked, most of the readers I know would subscribe to the Tom Wolfe school of [opinions about] contemporary art.

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

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