Back to that art criticism failure thing again, just for a minute
Posted by: admin in The art world is its own worst enemy, Decline of art criticism, Dave Hickey, Decline of reading, Decline of human culture, Artistic failure in America, Decline of human accomplishment in art, Decline of art“DH: …my particular age of the critic is just over. There are no influential midcareer critics today. I think part of that is circumstance, in the sense that a whole generation of critics died of AIDS in the ’80s. It was like the plague that wiped out two generations of Neapolitan painters in the sixteenth century. They’re just gone, and those dead guys from the ’80s should be writing most of what I’m writing now, and I should be left to play blackjack.
SH: OK, so what are the supposed art magazines interested in hearing about, if not about art?
DH: They want touting. In twenty years we’ve gone from a totally academicized art world to a totally commercialized art world, and in neither case is criticism a function. We’re all supposed to be positive about art. Nobody plays defense! I mean, my job, to a certain extent, is to be in the net. My job is to mow stuff down.
SH: So in what kind of structure would there be a place for criticism?
DH: Well, I came into an art world of volunteers—six thousand heavily medicated, mysteriously employed human beings who were there because they wanted to be, you know? And all they wanted was to be right—not safe, not rich, not fair, but right! Now we have this vast bureaucratic structure of support. Everybody’s a poll watcher. Nobody’s a voter. We’ve got millions of people devoted to the whole idea that art’s supposed to be fair and good for you. But art’s not too fair, you know? Why should you be publishing books and not your friends? Because it’s not fair, that’s why.”
–Dave Hickey, interviewed in The Believer
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January 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Some of the more serious artists gave up waiting for “critics” to risk their careers and really write criticism that served the artist by clearing the bush to allow the real art to grow.
We real artists ought to perhaps rush this generation of career hypesters to die out of the busines? Then maybe the new kids in wings can come on and trash all the crud that the current generation has allowed to fill our galleries and museums. Sounds like history always repeats it self. Odd to see you appreciate “brutallity in Art”.
jrl
chicano artist de minnesota
January 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hm. Explain to me again why it’s the critic’s job to “serve the artist”?
CB, you should have a blog, if you don’t already…
March 5th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
someone bleating about integrity in art. Maybe art is like life and the crisis of confidence that’s wrecking the consensual mass delusion called Wall Street will visit — a great winnowing where the chaff blows away.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
“someone bleating about integrity in art…”
Yeah, I guess you could, if you were so inclined, call MacArthur Fellow, multiple book author, Art in America columnist, and generally accepted art-world genius Dave Hickey just “someone” who bleats…
March 12th, 2009 at 7:12 am
no disrespect to the speaker and his accomplishments, but the integrity part — would more be found in art than in finance? If not, why? Critics determine who rises, who gets ahead. Could they be as wrong, as misguided as Greenspan, and his fat resume?
October 8th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I keenly await Hickey’s AiA articles every month. Where I live the some old artists get hyped and the emerging ones are given no support, in the way of critique, when they do manage to sneak into a show. Almost like the critics don’t know what to say about a new entity!