What was Peter Plagens thinking?
I don’t know about other people, but I don’t read MAN for snarky repartee. I read MAN to find out about calamity at the Getty, or who’s getting fired this week, or which museum is deaccessioning what. That’s a far sight more useful to me than the soft art celebrity journalism of Michael Kimmelman, or, say, wringing your hands about cultural illiteracy amongst 18-35 year olds.
There's more to address here, and I don't think that Plagens is all wrong. He digs James Elkins, which makes me happy. I love whole sections of What Painting Is and The Object Stares Back--sections, I say, because I often find the quality of Elkins' writing and reasoning inconsistent, no matter how much I admire his ambitions. I think there are problems with What Happened to Art Criticism? in particular, which Plagens quotes at length.
But as far as I'm concerned, at the heart of any discussion about the dangers of the blogosphere and generational brain drain--and in this case, the lack of benefits, pay, and decreased opportunities for advancement in the arts, be it in journals and newspapers or in university art departments--is ageism.
More later.
I don’t know about other people, but I don’t read MAN for snarky repartee. I read MAN to find out about calamity at the Getty, or who’s getting fired this week, or which museum is deaccessioning what. That’s a far sight more useful to me than the soft art celebrity journalism of Michael Kimmelman, or, say, wringing your hands about cultural illiteracy amongst 18-35 year olds.
There's more to address here, and I don't think that Plagens is all wrong. He digs James Elkins, which makes me happy. I love whole sections of What Painting Is and The Object Stares Back--sections, I say, because I often find the quality of Elkins' writing and reasoning inconsistent, no matter how much I admire his ambitions. I think there are problems with What Happened to Art Criticism? in particular, which Plagens quotes at length.
But as far as I'm concerned, at the heart of any discussion about the dangers of the blogosphere and generational brain drain--and in this case, the lack of benefits, pay, and decreased opportunities for advancement in the arts, be it in journals and newspapers or in university art departments--is ageism.
More later.
posted by jhcudlin at 9:37 AM
2 Comments:
Sort of off topic, but a few weeks ago I found myself wondering, "What happened to What Happened to Art Criticism?" I can never find my copy of it when I think to read it.
Gee, I hope I don't have it.
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