Dear List,
Regarding the perceived lack of mainstream critics responding to new media work,
it's worth recalling that, in the US at least, the basis for a great deal of art criticism is
economic. Magazines like Artforum, Art in America, Arts, and Art News can afford to
run longer essays in the "front of the book" because they are paid for by advertising
by galleries whose exhibits are covered in 300-500 word reviews in the "back of the
book". These reviews are then xeroxed and placed in protective pastic covers to
provide gallery patrons with proof that the work on show is "serious art". It's a
straightforward economic transaction; advertising revenue for intellectual credibility.
In the ancient days of the 1970s and '80s US arts funding agencies actually provided
support for art magazines and as a result there was a proliferation of "alternative"
publications during this period. These played a central role in providing a critical and
theoretical framework for, and validation of, emergent practices like video,
installation, performance, public art, activist work, etc. (before many of these were
"museumified" in the '90s). I realize that support for publications is somewhat more
generous in the UK (although the situation of Variant is instructive), but in the
absence of a "product" that attracts the lustre of capital it may be awhile before the
mainstream art critical world has a reason to care. Just figure out a way to create
new media works that can be bought and sold as precious objects and your criticism
problem will solve itself (obviously a Faustian bargain). Of course, capital does
accrue to new media art, but his is primarily due to its frequent and close integration
with research universities that see digital media training as a job creation panacea
for parents nervous about their offspring's future (art departments are the intellectual
gentrifying wedge for the transformation of the university into a job skills center). I
would also note that "academic" art criticism (the world of Hal Foster, Rosalind
Krauss, Buchloh, etc. in the US) is only just now beginning to produce young Ph.Ds
who might be interested in writing about this work. At UCSD we've had a good
number of young writers/critics interested in this work apply to our new Ph.D.
Best wishes,
Grant Kester
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