MSB brainstorming

24 December 2013

Art Criticism Crisis, Part Two


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As I mentioned in a Shark blog post quite a while ago, Nancy Princenthal's Art in America article on the crisis in art criticism is a must-read. Especially if you were one of the immense number of "hits" we had on our recent Shark-pack-altercations about critics, artists, art --- one of several perennial or at least revenant Sharkpack concerns. If you didn't catch that issue of the magazine, the article is now on-line (probably for a short while, since it is the complete text). Here's your chance to read it on your screen, and maybe even download it, print it out and read it in the bathtub, as I am wont to do with on-line articles.


Yes, there is a current crisis not only in art itself --- and the curating of art --- but in art criticism as well. New York Times book editor Barry Gewen reflected upon the theme last month in his long, elucidating essay, "State of the Art."

Nancy Princenthal contributes a wonderful, barbed-yet-not-vicious article on the subject in a recent issue of Art in America (January 2006, pp. 43-47). The title of her article is "Art Criticism, Bound to Fail; A critic confronts the inescapable limitations of writing about art and reflects on its pitfalls and privileges." This essay will be a part of the upcoming anthology Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of Their Practice edited by another great art critic (and a poet), Raphael Rubinstein.

Now on-line!

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