The Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America

The Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America garnered a few mentions from fellow art bloggers this past week.

First, Sharon Butler on her blog Two Coats of Paint linked to my previous post about Artists Falling Through the Cracks. I’ve linked to Sharon’s writing in the past, as I’m an admirer of her writing on art-world issues, so I appreciate the return gesture.

Then, Seattle Post-Intelligencer art critic Regina Hackett, whose work as a daily art critic I’ve read and admire, picked up on the buzz. In a post called Down In Lovely Muck I’ve Lain, she suggested that readers looking for a “gloomy start to the New Year” might find CAFA interesting. Now, I won’t repeat my self-justification about how looking at artistic failure is really a hopeful, forward-looking, and optimistic exercise (because it supposes that once enough art-world people know exactly how art is failing in this country they’ll be able to make positive changes). Instead, I’ll point out to you that as good a writer on and observer of art as Regina Hackett is, she is also, sadly, one of a dying breed: the everyday art critic.

Yes, art critics are dying off. Whereas every moderate-sized newspaper in every middling city in this country once had art critics on staff, and often took occasional submissions from critical stringers, now it is the rare newspaper—even in the largest metropolitan areas—that even deigns to publish any local arts writing at all. According to studies numerous city papers have, over the past ten years, cut their arts critical writing staff and curtailed arts coverage. The Twin Cities very nearly lost their last remaining critic a few months ago in the recent round of layoffs at the Star Tribune, and the Strib’s sister paper—the Saint Paul Pioneer Press—stopped publishing any sort of local art critical writing several years ago. Last year, I spoke with the long-time art critic at the Chicago Tribune, Alan Artner, and he said he had never seen, in thirty or so years of working for papers, arts coverage at such a low point. “I have a stack of press releases on my desk that goes to chest high,” he said, “and I have no hope of writing about a single one of these things. The editors don’t want any of it. It’s just that bad these days.”

Why does the culture care so little about art criticism now? Every answer to this question that I’ve considered or heard mentioned in recent years, and some I never thought of, are collected in a 2006 collection of essays edited by Raphael Rubinstein called Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice. Some of the essays in this volume blame the decline on the various sins of modern artists—from their tendency to shift styles weekly and avoid creating work that is meaningful to the wider society to their enthrallment to the entertainment industry. Other essays blame larger forces—recent deep shifts in the art market and the art “power structure,” the globalization and rampant commercialization of art, the rise of authority granted to curators and museum professionals (and resulting loss of authority granted to critics), and the disappearance of critical publications and their committed readership. Still others blame problems that are internal to contemporary criticism. In particular, they point to the tendency among critics to resist passing actual judgment or any sort of discriminating appraisal when they write about art.

The wide range of notions about what’s wrong with art criticism today reveals that, just as no one has figured out how to keep art from failing in this country, no one really has any idea what to do to keep art criticism from fading away either.

Since an NEA study recently determined that Americans are reading less, I can only ask What the f*ck are Americans doing these days? After all, as studies have shown arts audiences are dwindling, we know they’re not attending arts events. Meanwhile, other studies have shown that civic involvement is down—especially among younger Americans—so we know they’re not attending political rallies, or volunteering down at the senior center, or helping the local art center with a fundraising event. Has it become nothing but video games, Internet porn, spectator sports, and music downloading for everyone these days?

I’ve been writing on this site about what results when a society eschews its support of the arts and artists, but I can only imagine what results if a society’s reading habit goes away.

The NEA study, “To Read or Not to Read,” does speculate a bit on what’s happening now. Interestingly, it seems many of the forces driving artistic failure—expanding media, the Internet, a failing education system, economic forces, changing leisure-time priorities, popular resentment of creatives—are similar to those currently destroying reading as a cultural activity. Consider the following NEA Study findings:

• 72 percent of high school graduates today are deemed by employers to be “deficient” in writing in English. (Failing education system.)
• In 2002, only 52 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 voluntarily read a book; let me repeat that, only half of college aged kids in this country read books for fun (this is down from 59 percent in 1992). (Shift in youth away from intellectual and cultural activities and toward media.)
• Money spent on books, adjusted for inflation, dropped 14 percent from 1985 to 2005 and has fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s. (Change in economic activity vis a vis culture.)
• The number of adults with bachelor’s degrees who are “proficient in reading prose” dropped from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent in 2003. (Failing education system.)

What’s particularly frightening about this loss of reading trend is researchers have seen, across the board, a marked decline in tests for reading comprehension. We’re rapidly moving toward a duller, more sluggish, less creative, less informed and less engaged, slow-on-the-uptake society.The report particularly emphasizes the social benefits of reading (which, of course are now being lost): “Literary readers” are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work.

NEA Chair Dana Gioia said: “Reading creates people who are more active by any measure. … People who don’t read, who spend more of their time watching TV or on the Internet, playing video games, seem to be significantly more passive.” And he called the decline in reading “perhaps the most important socio-economic issue in the United States.

“‘To Read or Not to Read’ suggests we are losing the majority of the new generation,” Gioia said. “The majority of young Americans will not realize their individual, economic or social potential.”

And by the time they realize they have not reached their potential, it will be too late.