nothin How To Decolonize Art Criticism | New Haven Independent

How To Decolonize Art Criticism

Jason Farago and Linda Friedlaender, head of education at the Yale Center for British Art.

Are people still interested in reading about art? 

The rise of Instagram and demise of print publications might suggest that the days of the learned art reader are behind us. No need to subscribe to a high-brow magazine when that #artsy selfie your friend took at MoMA conveys everything you need to know about the latest Jackson Pollock exhibition, right?

Wrong, says New York Times critic-at-large Jason Farago. 

Delivering this year’s Norma Lytton Lecture to a virtual audience at the Yale Center for British Art, Farago discussed the growing responsibilities of the 21st century art critic. Noting that it has become a rarity for publications to employ art critics at all, Farago still insisted that the future of art criticism is bright — because visual art has never been more popular.

Unlike theater and ballet,” Farago said, visual art is the one domain of high art’ that has become more popular” in recent years. Even the pandemic could not contain the world’s feverish excitement about art. Grim predictions that the art market would tank during the pandemic have proved overblown. Soaring online art sales last year helped alleviate the loss of the traditional auction house venue. And despite low vaccination rates, global art festivals — namely, Art Basel and Frieze — are set to run later this year. To Farago, this speaks to the strength of contemporary visual culture, and therefore necessitates the role of a qualified art critic to write about it.

But who is qualified to judge visual art today? The question riles Farago who, as a student of art history, understands that people have been asking it for centuries. In his talk, Farago gave a brief history on the origins of the critic,” whose authority has long been a point of contention. 

The first New York Times art critic, Elisabeth Luther Cary, hired in 1908.

Farago’s lesson began with 17th century Europe. At that time, members of royal academies regulated artistic production and served as arbiters of good” and bad” art. Then, in the 18th century, a handful of independent citizens began writing art criticism. (One such critic, Jonathan Richardson, foolishly established a 20-point system to score works of art.) In the 19th century, art criticism began to resemble its form today. The rise of modernism gave way to grubby journalists” — with whom Farago identifies — who democratized criticism by gearing their writing to the everyday reader. By the 20th century, the dominant formalist” approach allowed critics to offer hyper-focused, elaborate judgments on the form of an art object. And in the late 20th century, critics began taking a more theoretical approach to art, searching for what Farago called a painting or sculpture’s inner logic.”

So what comes next? Art criticism today, Farago suggests, should embrace the complex and multicultural nature of the times. In an age of too much information” — mostly circulated online — contemporary criticism must be poised to tackle diverse perspectives that the elite have long ignored.

The diversification of the art world necessitates art critics who can write from a global and inclusive perspective, fairer to broader swaths of readers. Farago credits newer artistic hubs like the Institute of International Visual Arts in London, founded in 1994, for connecting non-white artists and “[teaching] the establishment how provincial they were.”
 

Legendary 20th-century art critic Clement Greenberg, known for his formalist approach.

The responsibility now lies with critics, Farago says, to “[provincialize] the West.” For too long, argued Farago, art criticism has employed mostly white critics from a select few Western cities — above all, New York. A critic’s geographic command over a small island in the south of New York State — Manhattan — ought not give them the authority to speak definitively about art made in Kenya, China, or even Alabama.

What critics must do for the first time, said Farago, is consider a work of art as a plural affair with many lives and meanings as it is encountered in different places.” What sounds like a sensible request — asking critics to think beyond the West — marks a radical departure in the history of art criticism.

Farago faces an uphill battle as he advocates for a more inclusive mode of criticism. Old-school critics who have never thought beyond their American or European art history education may be immovable. Farago’s ideals are additionally limited by the mistakes that even open-minded 21st century critics will inevitably make. He alluded to this when he asked, How do we avoid going global’ as just being another form of Eurocentricity?”

We don’t yet know if art criticism’s crusade toward a more diverse and global future will be made impotent by critics’ missteps or the lack of support from publications. But we can take a guess. Farago conceded that all of his fellow art critics at the New York Times are white. And while the array of artists that the paper has turned to in recent years has diversified, the roster of critics has not.

In his talk, Farago insisted that critics must get away from the idea that the object of inquiry is simply the object on the wall.” The prime object of inquiry for 21st century criticism may, in fact, be the critic.

Farago’s lecture was, in many ways, a subtle request to readers to check the authority of art critics. To take Farago’s request for diversity in art criticism seriously, readers must legitimate themselves as authorities on the critic.” In an age that seeks to undo the whitewashing of art history’s past, a reader’s lack of formal education in the field may actually be their greatest asset.

A recording of this event will be published on the Yale Center for British Art’s website in the next few weeks. You can find recordings of previous At Home” conversations and other YCBA events on the site as well. The next Yale Center for British Art At Home” event will be held on Friday, Feb. 19 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. Mixed-media artist and researcher Ingrid Pollard will be speaking with Hazel V. Carby, the Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Yale University. Admission is free and attendance is virtual.

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