What can critical writing contribute to contemporary art?

How difficult it is to write about art-writing and by that I mean critical writing about art without descending into first, a nostalgic lament about the demise of the printed word and then, a prognostic attempt to find a future for the vital space created for critical writing by the existence of Art. This is of course in a world where readers for such writing are barely present and those few that remain are probably on a road to extinction in a world “contaminated by the problematic model of “communication” embodied in advertising and mass media.”

In the academic world of the University and Art College there is probably more being written about art than at any time in the past, but this is an academic phenomenon where the third level institution has absorbed intellectual and cultural responses from several academic fields and embodied them under the banner of the amorphous and ever expanding field of cultural studies. Is the academic institution to be a natural history museum for preserving the taxidermied corpse of critical writing? As George Baker points out in his essay, Late Criticism, “Art criticism arose…in relation to the rise of the bourgeois public sphere,” and it would be safe to say that the dissemination of this form of criticism lay very much in journalistic production. But with the demise of print journalism the avenues of access for the general public to critical writing and space for critics to publish and develop their critical writing skills have very much declined outside of academia. There isn’t much stomach for a lot of the dry intellectual writing that passes for criticism, not to mention the toothless “info- mercial ” nature of many journalistic reviews. Jens Hoffman’s review of the 54 th Venice Biennial that appeared in October 2011 edition of Frieze magazine is a perfect example of a review that inoffensively goes through the motions.

The retreat from rhetoric and the increasingly theory heavy, intellectual and often times incomprehensible use of a lingua franca has led critical writing on art up a remote cul – de -sac. On the borderline of irrelevance most critical writing about contemporary art has alienated not only those who might have a passing curiosity regarding contemporary art but also many within the art world that are familiar with its particular vocabulary. Terry Smith finds “art discourse in an oddly suspended state between an arrested art criticism and a nervous historicism ,” that is ”a sign of our debilitating contemporaneity.” As an answer to this peculiar paralysis, Maurice Berger calls for a strong criticism that “uses language and rhetoric not merely for descriptive or evaluative purposes but as means of inspiration, provocation, emotional connection and experimentation.” It is a rally cry for the reinstating of the powerful position of the critic to inform contemporary art in a spirit of autonomy, appealing to a wider audience, liberated from the commercial compromise of art industry publications and aloof academic journal essays. But where is the forum for this renewed critical writing going to be?

The specialising characteristic of late capitalism has largely removed the journalistic commentator from the art discourse leaving only those educated in the elitist vocabulary of art-speak in a position to write or be published in what would pass as the dwindling authoritative publications. In the case of Irish art publications the change of Circa from a hard copy to an electronic art magazine really only leaves the Visual Arts New Sheet as the sole specialist hard copy publication carrying critical writing on contemporary art. In an attempt to explore an alternative form of writing MA students in the National College of Art and Design are posting content on the http://www.acw.ie website commenting on art openings in a satirical way through an imagined wine soak, Jacob Ligvine Creek. It is an attempt to introduce non-intellectual art criticism into the art discourse provided by this college resource.

But how effective can the Internet be for reviving critical writing on art? There is much hue and cry about the new cyber – world being a messianic solution to the loss of avenues for public access to critical commentary. It might be argued though, that the cluttered space of the virtual media world makes it difficult to find an informed and authoritative voice. Who outside of those with a vested interest in Contemporary Art will ever read an art-critical blog? This may come across as a facile question but, why is the question of authorship and authority essential to critical writing? Who is to be trusted to mediate art to a wider public? Does contemporary art even need mediation when the market itself is there to inform us through consumer statistics, marketing and promotion? In his introduction to the crisis of criticism Maurice Berger states:

“at no point has the role of interpretation and evaluation resided more in the hands of the consumer as well as in the institutions and companies that serve them. Indexes of consumer interest and satisfaction – measured not in critical praise, but rather, in sales records, gross receipts, top ten lists…increasingly are the respected markers of cultural quality”

This can be evidenced clearly in the adoption of the top ten list in the Artforum magazine. With this level of exclusion and dereliction of informed commentary and criticism the consumer is open to serious manipulation by the forces that control the means of production. In the case of the art market it is the dealers and gallerists that become the gate keepers to international art world success and consumption. Unfortunately the interests of the dealer and gallerist do not lie in public consumption but in private and privileged access to art, validated by the media and endorsed by academics, public institutions and museums. The complicity is further compounded by magazine editors who believe the role of the art magazine is “to privilege art”

With the demise of the proletariat in Western society as a political force and the failure of Marxism as a viable alternative to capitalism we are left with what Mark Fischer refers to as a state of ‘Capitalist Realism’ where the capitalist paradigm reigns supreme. This is accompanied also by the demise of the the bourgeois identification with the avantgarde and the post modern elimination of distance between the avantgarde and what Greenberg categorised as Kitsch. Art becomes solely a consumer commodity where what is regarded as “art” or “acceptable art” is dictated by the market. This absolute com-modification allows production to advance to corporate levels with global artists like Takashi Murakami , Damien Hirst and Olafur Eliasson . With dwindling circulation numbers the remaining specialist art publications, where critical writing should be strongest, are completely dependent on the advertising budgets of commercial galleries and art dealers.

Even though it may be denied by former Artforum editors like Jack Bankowsky , the capacity to be openly critical of an advertiser’s stable of artists must surely be resisted at an editorial level and even the consideration of writing about art not within the stable of the core advertisers must be compromised by this relationship. Bankowsky sees critical writing as having “an influence on the way art is validated in the market place,” Even his ethical viewpoint is coloured by the language of business. The integrity of what he calls Artforum’s seriousness is “a commodity.”

This raises questions about the autonomy of art and thus the autonomy of critical writing in relation to that art, particularly in a commercial entity such as an industry magazine like Artforum . Where does this leave the critical writer? The specialist magazines, just to name a few, such as Frieze, Artforum , Modern Painter, Art in America all carry the sputtering torch of critical writing, moving from short reviews to longer monographs and at times to even longer theoretical treatises on art history and wider social phenomena in relation to art. Even the more radically academic and left leaning October is drifting more towards the mainstream with publishing round table and questionnaire based content. October even featured “a round table discussion on criticism, a kind of writing it has largely refrained from publishing, in [Autumn] 2001.” It is generally accepted that even this small oasis in the print media dedicated to contemporary art is in a crisis. Ramona Koval in her introduction to her ABC interview with Raphael Rubinstein, “Is art criticism in crisis?” sums up the problems facing critical writing:

First to the state of art criticism. In the last couple of years, leading arts writers and critics have been claiming that while once art criticism was passionate, polemical and judgemental, today’s critics are likely to find themselves tangled in a web of obscure language and ideas and neutrality

Is it a crisis fuelled perhaps by the wider crisis facing the Consumer Capitalist society that has developed since the rise of the bourgeoisie as identified by Max Weber in his work “the Protestant ethic and the spirit of Capitalism.” As oppossed to Marx, Weber correctly identified capitalism as the only possible model of social organisation but he was careful not to predict its future outcomes. However, he was sure it would come to be the dominant economic and social structure by which human society would be organised. But with the recent collapse in the confidence of global capitalism coupled with the demise of the modernist zeal for utopian ideas have we come to a point of exhaustion, a point of post-modern affectation, to the end of capitalism as we know it? The demise of the Soviet block in 1989 left us with an uncertain capitalism without a threat to its supremacy, a capitalism in need of some serious mitigation.

In an art world where judgement seems to be no longer acceptable we are left with interpretation and description. The art market like any commodity market needs no judgement or external valuation system, the market self regulates its needs and mores. The Dealers and Gallerists do not complain about the lack of effective critical writing in the art world, it is academics and writers who are struggling with the incapacity of art writing to reclaim its dominant position regarding aesthetic judgement and thus authority within the field of art.

Critical writing in its essence is a reductive activity, a form of naming and categorising. It reduces pure experience to something more tangible and quantifyable , it runs parallel to an art work but in essence is completely separate. Susan Sontag makes the point in her essay against interpretation:

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes the work of art manageable and comfortable.

Sontag goes on to argue that interpretations of art are mere translations and do no service to critical analytical writing on art, she calls for a necessary return to some form of valuation in criticism. In reference to this function of critical writing on art Boris Groys asked “can new forms of criticism remake judgement anew, without making explicit determinations of quality?” But why is there a shying away from making a quality determination when “ Lyotard stresses that the viewer is always defined by their epistemological lack: their susceptibility to the siren song of vulgar and facile forms of culture.” In light of Lyotard’s snobbery perhaps critical writing as mediator has a fundamental role to guide the masses drawing them away from the kitsch and through the aporetic world of the avant – garde . Christophe Mencke raises this issue in his essay The Aesthetic Critique of Judgement. Mencke points out that the “ practice of aesthetic judgement exhibits the split of the subject between aesthetic force and methodological reason.” Critical writing falls on the methodological reason side of the split whereas the aesthetic force is an experiential event outside of the rationalising realm of language. This view is supported by Susan Sontag in relation to experience of art and how we then interpret it when she rejects interpretation without valuation. “What we decidedly don’t need now is to further assimilate art into thought, or worse yet Art into Culture. Interpretation takes the sensory experience of art for granted and proceeds from there.”

This raises a fundamental problem not just with art criticism but art itself. The basis of this problem could lie in the avoidance of qualitative judgement that has been the compass guiding the invasion of political correctness in the world of creative making. Art may in fact no longer be anything like what it was in the past and our modes of conceptualising and thinking about art making, exhibiting and trading may be totally outmoded. Our entire perspective may need re-adjustment if commentators like Arthur Danto are right and art ended in the 60’s. The role of curator is also suffering the same fate as the critic since the capitalist consumer model no longer requires them. It can be argued that with the advent of minimal and conceptual art came the hybrid of artist-critic and artist-curator that has undermined those specialised functions. Curators and critics as art experts are a hindrance to the art-business model because they tend towards making judgements on quality. By eliminating the authority of the curator and the critic the dealer and gallerists have more freedom to manipulate the market creating demand for sub standard art under the guise of blue chip artists personality cult

Most commentators agree, that after twenty years of the positioning of the biennial experience as the ultimate event in the art world calender, the large art show has already become jaded. Perhaps this is because there has been a drift away from qualitative judgement in favour of theory and interpretation in how we look at art. An event manager with strong fund raising capability is now the inter-locutor of the “Art event.” The content of the art event becomes of less importance and the business model is in fact hindered by any possibility of qualitative criticism. For example Dublin Contemporary 2011 as an “art event” can be criticised for this very reason. It is the perfect example of how an event manager, at short notice, was able to create an event bringing in art experts “the curators” to legitimise it as an “art event” to satisfy the department of Art, Sport and Tourism, the business client that was funding the event. Using this business model, if it were a flower show you would just insert “Garden designer” instead of “Curator.” According to the business model the event was a success.

It is notable that the event received very little serious criticism in the media, considering it had the same title, “terrible beauty,” as the Lyon Biennial and one of the curators broke the unspoken rules of curatorial etiquete by putting his own work in the show. As an art event along the lines of a biennial this event needed to fail but where the business model differs from an art model is that it doesn’t allow for failure. Susan Sontag touches on this when she writes: “The way one tells how alive a particular art-form is, is by the latitude it gives for making mistakes in it, and still being good” . What is interesting here is her use of the qualitative term, “good” . Christophe Mencke puts it like this: “Any object that can become the object of an aesthetic judgement about its being good or bad, is good”

Perhaps it is, as Susan Sontag pointed out, this taking of art for granted that is the basis of the crisis in which we find ourselves, not only in relation to critical writing but also in terms of contemporary art. It is now more than ever of fundamental importance that we make reasoned qualitative judgements, fight for those judgements, stand over them and argue our point.

The art-world is sleepwalking into the oblivion of a business model of cultural eventing, where ignorance and indifference are the basis upon which these events thrive. We need to justify non-economic reasons for engagement and consideration. We organise our society on an economic basis, but is there an alternative? Critical writing maybe able to help us find a way of renewing our post modern cultural malaise and exhaustion but only if we have the teeth to attack the serious lack of critical judgement that has pervaded our thought process under late capitalism. Not only has it been detrimental to our ability to produce art of relevence in a contemporary sense but also how we actually shape our lives at a fundamental level.

The scary truth about art, even the “good art,” is that it has no worth beyond an esoteric value in relation to those who experience it. It is only by dressing the nakedness of contemporary art in the couture of a critical writing that explores notions of value and quality, through reasoned judgement, that we can negotiate a meaningful and authoritative position for contemporary art within the greater expanse of culture and society.