The Toronto Alliance of Art Critics panel organized by Nadja Sayej a couple of weeks ago is now available on Youtube. Leah Sandals and John Bentley Mays have both written interesting blog posts about it. Having watched the video documentation, I find myself most impressed with David Balzer. Here are two things he said that I like:
The reason why people don't care about criticism isn't because there's a general apathy towards it but because it doesn't do service to the community, to the art scene, for critics to have a voice...because [artists are the] audience for us. And that needs to change. What I'm interested in as a critic is actually not the artists reading me but rather the people that aren't artists, and I don't think that there are very many. Film is different. Film is an industry, it's part of the culture, its part of the zeitgeist, people put money into it and want to know if something's good or bad. (video 6 of 8 at 4:21)
[...]
Being an editor has really taught me a lot of things and one of the most dangerous things you can do as a writer is to assume there is editorial opposition to what you really want to say. There is a lot of self-censure in the freelance writer community, and actually the reality of it is that there's a lot of freedom, especially in Canada, and you can say what you actually want to say ...so say it. (video 7 of 8 at 4:23)
Balzer is right on. But interestingly both of his statements speak more to editing and publishing than they do to writing. It's the responsibility of a publication to encourage confliciting opinions, to set up a context in which a diversity of readers are welcomed, and create an environment that readers come to because they can expect to have their assumptions challenged. There are umpteen reasons why writers self-censor, but I think the biggest is fear of offending artists. But if it is clear in the context of the publication that the audience for criticism is not the artist, but a broad and unpredictable scope of readers, then the pressure on the writers shifts less on the negative need to establish defensible positions and more towards the positive need to communicate their points of view. Editors may be frustrated that writers hold back, but that just means editors have to work harder to encourage dialogue and set a precedent. This means actively seeking out challenging critiques and then assuming responsibility when artists get their noses out of joint, rather than putting everything on the shoulders of the writer. And keeping the conversation going from issue to issue. It doesn't really matter if the context is academic or populist, the importance of editorial risk and responsibility is pretty much the same.
I think Mr. Balzer's comments ring true.
Thanks for this, Sally. I didn't make it to the panel and haven't watched the entirety of the video proceedings yet, but I like the Blazer quotes you've chosen and the way you've extrapolated from them.
I think critics' self-censorship has become one of the biggest stumbling blocks in published writing, but I think it is also coming, in part, from a fear of getting institutions' noses out of joint as well. I've heard some horror stories about institutions/curators/directors reacting poorly to negative reviews, which is especially hard to manage if the writer also works as an artist or curator and might one day want to work with that institution. But, again, as you suggest, that problem could be solved by editors taking responsibility for these risks.
I've been yelled at as a writer and as an editor. When a gallerist yells at a (young or emerging) writer it's just a bad bad power dynamic. When they yell at an editor, even a young or emerging one, the playing field is more even.
But (as both writer and editor) its the bridges I've burned with artists that still have some sting, even years after the fact.
The sometimes not so invisible elephant in the room during all this art criticism talk is the changing field of discourse in the age of social media. The online opportunities for peer to peer art criticism are pretty fantastic, but, as we all know, publishing as an industry suffers. Independent publishing has always been damn near financially impossible, and it may not actually be suffering significantly more now than it used to be. But the importance of editorial filtering has been lumped in with the evils of 'mainstream media.' I think the problem is more nuanced.
As is so often the case in art discourse, people worrying about criticism tend to focus on the agency and input of artists and writers more than the agency and input of audiences and readers, lumping the latter into the vague unspecified category of 'public.' But, as Balzer points out, readers are the reason that criticism exists.
On blogs we readers get to participate — we may agree or disagree, but we don't necessarily assume that the blogger's opinion is something we need to contend with collectively. There is a potential loss that people are grappling with, and it often gets characterized as a lack of critical authority, the lowered status of the critic, a slip into postmodern relativism, a climate of 'anything goes,' etc. But I think the real loss has very little to do with the shifting field of criticism, in which most of the change has been for the better, and a lot more to do with the declining publishing industry. The assumption that discourse is about working out shared cultural formulations in which everyone has a stake is in danger of fragmenting into niche cliques of common interest.
Of course in online discourse there is an attitude that anything published under editorial control is necessarily hegemonic and overly influenced by market forces. And, yes, financial pressure really skews the relationship. It is a very similar problem to that faced by museums. The danger is in conflating the role of the public/reader with the role of customer. But the editor is a person who must put readers first in order to survive and thrive. And readers are critical. We exercise our own judgements when we engage with ideas. We want to be able to understand the text, and we also want it to be challenging, to help us stretch our thinking.
In some ways, the relationship between readers and editors is more direct than between readers and writers (readers pay editor's fee, editor pays writer's fee), and the negotiations always have long term implications that go both ways. Therefore, when an editor publishes a writer for the benefit of readers, the decision represents a judgement that is inherently cultural with critical implications.
I'm not in any way suggesting that edited publications are better than blogs — I'm a huge fan of participatory discourse because it makes clear what we should all have known all along, that readers are also writers, audiences are also artists, everyone has a stake because 'publics' are not passive, faceless mobs but active cultural participants — but I worry about the potential loss of editorial filters. I think we need both.
|
The Toronto Alliance of Art Critics panel organized by Nadja Sayej a couple of weeks ago is now available on Youtube. Leah Sandals and John Bentley Mays have both written interesting blog posts about it. Having watched the video documentation, I find myself most impressed with David Balzer. Here are two things he said that I like: Balzer is right on. But interestingly both of his statements speak more to editing and publishing than they do to writing. It's the responsibility of a publication to encourage confliciting opinions, to set up a context in which a diversity of readers are welcomed, and create an environment that readers come to because they can expect to have their assumptions challenged. There are umpteen reasons why writers self-censor, but I think the biggest is fear of offending artists. But if it is clear in the context of the publication that the audience for criticism is not the artist, but a broad and unpredictable scope of readers, then the pressure on the writers shifts less on the negative need to establish defensible positions and more towards the positive need to communicate their points of view. Editors may be frustrated that writers hold back, but that just means editors have to work harder to encourage dialogue and set a precedent. This means actively seeking out challenging critiques and then assuming responsibility when artists get their noses out of joint, rather than putting everything on the shoulders of the writer. And keeping the conversation going from issue to issue. It doesn't really matter if the context is academic or populist, the importance of editorial risk and responsibility is pretty much the same.
- sally mckay 12-19-2009 10:20 pm
I think Mr. Balzer's comments ring true.
- mister anchovy (guest) 12-20-2009 2:27 pm
Thanks for this, Sally. I didn't make it to the panel and haven't watched the entirety of the video proceedings yet, but I like the Blazer quotes you've chosen and the way you've extrapolated from them.
I think critics' self-censorship has become one of the biggest stumbling blocks in published writing, but I think it is also coming, in part, from a fear of getting institutions' noses out of joint as well. I've heard some horror stories about institutions/curators/directors reacting poorly to negative reviews, which is especially hard to manage if the writer also works as an artist or curator and might one day want to work with that institution. But, again, as you suggest, that problem could be solved by editors taking responsibility for these risks.
- Gabby (guest) 12-20-2009 2:52 pm
I've been yelled at as a writer and as an editor. When a gallerist yells at a (young or emerging) writer it's just a bad bad power dynamic. When they yell at an editor, even a young or emerging one, the playing field is more even.
- sally mckay 12-20-2009 4:57 pm
But (as both writer and editor) its the bridges I've burned with artists that still have some sting, even years after the fact.
- sally mckay 12-20-2009 5:16 pm
The sometimes not so invisible elephant in the room during all this art criticism talk is the changing field of discourse in the age of social media. The online opportunities for peer to peer art criticism are pretty fantastic, but, as we all know, publishing as an industry suffers. Independent publishing has always been damn near financially impossible, and it may not actually be suffering significantly more now than it used to be. But the importance of editorial filtering has been lumped in with the evils of 'mainstream media.' I think the problem is more nuanced.
As is so often the case in art discourse, people worrying about criticism tend to focus on the agency and input of artists and writers more than the agency and input of audiences and readers, lumping the latter into the vague unspecified category of 'public.' But, as Balzer points out, readers are the reason that criticism exists.
On blogs we readers get to participate — we may agree or disagree, but we don't necessarily assume that the blogger's opinion is something we need to contend with collectively. There is a potential loss that people are grappling with, and it often gets characterized as a lack of critical authority, the lowered status of the critic, a slip into postmodern relativism, a climate of 'anything goes,' etc. But I think the real loss has very little to do with the shifting field of criticism, in which most of the change has been for the better, and a lot more to do with the declining publishing industry. The assumption that discourse is about working out shared cultural formulations in which everyone has a stake is in danger of fragmenting into niche cliques of common interest.
Of course in online discourse there is an attitude that anything published under editorial control is necessarily hegemonic and overly influenced by market forces. And, yes, financial pressure really skews the relationship. It is a very similar problem to that faced by museums. The danger is in conflating the role of the public/reader with the role of customer. But the editor is a person who must put readers first in order to survive and thrive. And readers are critical. We exercise our own judgements when we engage with ideas. We want to be able to understand the text, and we also want it to be challenging, to help us stretch our thinking.
In some ways, the relationship between readers and editors is more direct than between readers and writers (readers pay editor's fee, editor pays writer's fee), and the negotiations always have long term implications that go both ways. Therefore, when an editor publishes a writer for the benefit of readers, the decision represents a judgement that is inherently cultural with critical implications.
I'm not in any way suggesting that edited publications are better than blogs — I'm a huge fan of participatory discourse because it makes clear what we should all have known all along, that readers are also writers, audiences are also artists, everyone has a stake because 'publics' are not passive, faceless mobs but active cultural participants — but I worry about the potential loss of editorial filters. I think we need both.
- sally mckay 12-20-2009 6:45 pm