bite critics

(COMING SOON:
UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLICITY OF ARTISTS
You can thank Larissa Lai for inspiring this one..............)

My first love, David Wisdom, has this social group that meets every Wednesday at a certain bar. It's kind of a big boys business club, and the business is art. In fact, these guys inspired me to create the term, "Art Businessman Bastard Degree". Don't get me wrong, I respect these men, it's a hard world out there and you have to make a living somehow, but at the same time, there is something sinisterly wrong in that success, that is almost too hard to explain.

Should artists and critics be friends?
Thursday January 18, 2007
The Guardian

It might be different for music or film critics, but for an art critic in Britain in the 21st century it has become an urgent question: critics have become so close to artists, they practically do their laundry.
Jonathan Jones, art critic

Critics and artists live within a narrow geographical and cultural environment, which is reinforced by the art-school tenet: "If you want to make it, go and live in London." Two recent articles about Hockney included the critics' musings on their experiences of travelling up t'north to interview him as if they were travelling to an alien, philistine world. The whole thing is self-defining and self-reinforcing, and it is hardly surprising that the contemporary visual arts seem so stale, unremarkable and repetitive.
Fifibear

Artists and writers on art are always going to know each other, and it would be sad and impracticable if two groups of people with the same basic interest didn't. It's no use complaining that this tempts the writers to be uncritical. Temptation is endemic, and it's part of a writer's job to rise above it.
digit

Critics know the artists they write about because they are all in the same world, orbiting around like satellites.
Freddie8

Critics are "friends" with most of the artists they write about because it is only their "friends" whom they seem willing to define as artists in the first place.
Ortho

A friendship between a critic and an artist could provide a deeper understanding of the artist's work, an insight they may not otherwise gain. It's the responsibility of the critic to remain honest to their profession and not be corrupted.
Smalblogger

Reading art critics is a waste of time: they never say anything intelligent about art and they never highlight a new, interesting artist. They are in cahoots with dealers and their artists.
petrifiedprozac

SURVIVOR: Canada Council

We owe Jeff Probst and Mark Burnett a huge vote of thanks for the way they have encapsulated the human condition, present in all echelons of society. How much of every day is taken up by office politics? A lot, not including the stress and verbal abuse agonized over after work. I think that is one of the reasons I work alone and it's also from artists that I learned to make mean and nasty remarks. I was so naive when I started making art, influenced by the community art practice of the sixties, my delusion, was that arts funding wasn't controlled by the same despotic nepotism that runs everything else. What looks like a free lunch, isn't really.

To be honest, I've been making these same criticisms for years, which is why I may not get a Canada Council grant again. For instance, another critic had his application summarily dismissed by a "success story" who was on the jury and it was rejected before the jury even started deliberation. To assume that politics, cliques or influence doesn't exist is to be extremely naive. It is not about art, it is about control of the money. Any criticism of the Canada Council is looked upon as a complete betrayal by the arts community. One does not question or argue with these people, if one wishes to have a career in the arts.

I think it's time for more disclosure, currently, artists are given no answers as to why they are turned down. The decisions are made in a secret consultation process by a "peer" jury that is never made public, chosen by undisclosed Council employees. I think that when a jury awards, the reasons for that decision should also be available so that other unsuccessful "peers" and the public can see why it was awarded. Is this so difficult? Every juror I have ever talked to has told me how much they learned from being on the jury.

1. Artists who have their applications turned down, should be entitled to commentary from each of the jurors on why their work failed to meet the jurors approval and

2. have the option of having their project listed on the Canada Council web site.

3. Jurors for each category should have their names listed on the Canada Council site and an archive of jurors lists should also be available.