Voices

One of the cornerstones in the edifice of my criticism of art criticism is how much better the writing and public is served when difference voices opine on the same subject.

Case in point: the current Foon Sham’s solo joint exhibits at GRACE in Reston and Heineman-Myers in Bethesda.

- Dr. Claudia Rousseau’s excellent review appeared on Wednesday, October 31 in the The Gazette. Read it here.

- A typical piece by Jessica Dawson in The Washington Post's Galleries column on Friday, October, 26. Read it here.

- Joanna Shaw-Eagle’s feature article was published on the front page of the “Arts and Culture” section on Saturday, October 20 in the The Washington Times. Read it here.

- Eileen River’s fascinating profile on Foon Sham’s dialogue work was published on Tuesday, October 16 in the The Washington Post on the front page of the “Style” section, with great photos of the installation at GRACE. Read it here.

Why isn't anybody writing about art anymore?

Peter Plagens on "Why isn't anybody writing about art anymore?"

Today's art world is bigger and wealthier than it was half a century ago, a generation ago, or even a decade ago. In 2002, more than a quarter of the adult population in the U.S. visited an art gallery or museum, a rate of what the federal government calls "cultural participation" (movies are not included) behind only the number of people reading books and visiting historic sites, and ahead of attendance at concerts by double...

...Judging by the newspapers of many major American cities and some national magazines, the more straightforwardly journalistic popular press appears to be covering art with some thoroughness. Roberta Smith, Holland Cotter and Michael Kimmelman at the New York Times, Peter Schjeldahl at the New Yorker, Mark Stevens at New York magazine, Jerry Saltz at the Village Voice, Jed Perl at the New Republic, Arthur Danto at the Nation, Ken Johnson (now) at the Boston Globe, Edward Sozanski and Edith Newhall at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Christopher Knight and David Pagel at the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Baker at the San Francisco Chronicle, Robert L. Pincus at the San Diego Union-Tribune and several others produce a veritable mountain of words about art every month. And most if not all of their publications also print additional art writing by freelancers and stringers [my note: notice that the Washington newspapers are conspicuously absent from this list]...

...Nationwide, though, newspaper coverage of art is down... the trend, over the last five or 10 years, is downward everywhere except perhaps at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times...

...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...

While noting that almost all newspapers have made cutbacks in the coverage of "the arts" at the same time coverage of the effluvia of popular culture has "exploded," the Monitor's Thomas says that visual art might have some specific drawbacks. First, there's what he calls "the snoot factor"--the perception that modern and contemporary art is intelligible only to a rich, initiated elite. Second, he says, "there's no Picasso," no dominant figure around to pique the general public's interest. The same might be said for critics...

Read this fascinating article, first published a while back in Art in America here.

1992 Redux?

In the early nineties, more than 70 New York galleries went out of business.

Could it happen again? No, say many observers—today’s art market is too global, too rich, even too smart to suffer such a wrenching setback. All the same, one shouldn’t forget that the art market’s biggest climb ever has been based in part on a growing pile of dealer debt. Dealers have borrowed against inventory to fuel bigger shows, art-fair exhibits, and satellite galleries all over the world...

There are now 360 galleries in Chelsea, up from 124 eight years ago. Already, Craigslist has seen a slight bump in its rental listings for gallery spaces in the area. A couple of them even read “Currently an art gallery.”

Read this very interesting piece by Alexandra Peers in New York Magazine here.

Seeing Double

El Greco painted several versions of "Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple," and in the process set the OK standards for generations of artists to re-visit the same theme or image over and over in their work.

"You are not seeing double. Sotheby’s and Christie’s both have mystical gray-and-black paintings by Mark Rothko, executed the same year and painted on the same size (60 by 68 inches) canvas. The sellers of Sotheby’s version, the Iowa collectors John and Mary Pappajohn, bought it at Christie’s for $800,000 in 1996. Christie’s Rothko was purchased from the John Weber Gallery by an unidentified collector. Why Sotheby’s Rothko is supposedly worth $2 million to $3 million more is anyone’s guess."

NYT's Carol Vogel discusses the fall auction season's star offerings as the millions continue to pour into the secondary art market. Read it here.

Good News

Last August, The Washington City Paper added a new writer to the DC area art scene, and Maura Judkis has been a refreshing new voice to the region's critical dialogue.

Thanks to the art gods that the CP understands the critical importance of having different voices delivering art criticism to a region. It amazes me that the CP understands and can afford to do this, but the WaPo doesn't and won't - neither the "new" Style nor the "Weekend" section editors!

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

Much Ado About Oil and Water

The Smithies have to return a $5M donation because of mixing oil and water. Read it here.

Feh!

Use the money to do some roof repairs instead.

Don't give it back.

Botero Opens Tuesday

"Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib" opens Tuesday at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in DC.



Tomorrow's WaPo will have this article on the works by Erica Jong.

This will be one of the major exhibitions of 2007 for the entire Mid Atlantic and I bet that it will set new attendance records for the Katzen.

My own thoughts on Botero and his torture paintings are here.