The exhibition festival »Photoville« in Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City
Photo: Michael Brochstein
For the past six months, I have been spending my evenings in New York rather than at exhibition openings in Berlin. During the vernissages, if at all, people only talk very superficially about the works on display. Or they gossip behind closed doors. Not much different from Berlin. But it is different on the Internet. Some of the New York exhibitions are discussed in a striking, not to say provocatively honest way on websites such as Downtown Critic or Manhattan Art Review.
But why is writing that does not shy away from judgment so refreshing, as is rarely the case in the field of visual art? Reason enough to talk about criticism in the age of poorly paid (cultural) journalism and independent online financing models.
After I have seen an exhibition, I read the reviews. It is striking that these are primarily descriptive and interpretative, whereas value judgments are avoided. This often makes them difficult to distinguish from a press release and relatively boring. The fact that there is currently not a particularly wide range of interesting art criticism is not a new diagnosis. One reason for this is the precarious working conditions for (cultural) journalists, which make independent writing difficult. Another problem is the strong commitment of those working in the art sector. The boundaries between the professional groups of artist, curator and critic are fluid, which hardly allows any distance from the subject of criticism. The narrow line between private and professional relationships also makes independent criticism difficult. Who likes to write too critically about friends? Besides, you want to be invited to more events and get jobs.
I meet a critic from the Manhattan Art Review, Sean Tatol, in the Café Gitane downtown. He tells me that he moved from San Francisco to New York just a few years ago, which gave him the necessary critical distance from the local art scene. He also receives a monthly stipend that currently covers his living expenses and enables him to work full-time as an art critic. In his blog, Tatol primarily reviews exhibitions in smaller galleries that are not usually written about. Using a five-star system similar to Google’s, his ratings range from “awful” (one star) to “great” (five stars).
Who likes to write too critically about friends? And besides, you want to keep getting invited and getting jobs.
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He gives the print series Punctum by the German-Austrian painter Anselm Kiefer, which is currently on display at the Gagosian Gallery, two stars, which means “bad”. The critic justifies this in five sentences, beginning with: “I can’t take Kiefer’s heavy-handedness seriously. Ooh, it kind of looks like the rubble of Germany after the war, I’m so scared!!” (I can’t take Kiefer’s clumsiness seriously. It leaves the impression of a landscape of rubble in Germany after the war.) I have to laugh as I read it and feel like I’m listening to an acquaintance picking apart an exhibition he’s just visited. Tatol evaluates the subjective aesthetic experience he has during a gallery visit and refrains from analysis or even political discourse. This makes his texts seem spontaneous, honest and somehow casual. And it is precisely this quality that makes them controversial and creates access. Such criticisms arouse the desire to agree or disagree – and, what is probably most important, to form your own opinion.
Since my stay in New York, my Google bookmarks have expanded to include not only the “Manhattan Art Review” but also the website “Downtown Critic”. In a little more detail, but sometimes no less critically, various authors discuss exhibitions primarily in the US, but also in larger European cities such as Paris or Berlin. New Models is another format for independent art criticism. The platform is dedicated to phenomena surrounding post-internet art in audio formats. Although some of the exhibition reviews and interviews do not have the desired distance from the subject matter and sometimes slip into self-reflection, the podcast format, which is financed via Patreon (a crowdfunding platform), is a notable player in the field of independent online art criticism. New Models also clearly shows a strong interweaving of the cities of New York and Berlin. The hosts of the platform, Caroline Busta and Lil Internet, moved their center of life from New York to Berlin a few years ago, which benefited a colorful mix of topics and guests.
In any case, the networking between the two cities in the field of visual arts is remarkable. Historically, New York only became the cultural hub it is today due to the migration of persecuted artists from Europe during the Second World War. However, since the cost of living and rent for less established artists has become almost unaffordable, the city has increasingly lost relevance as a production location. Exchange and residency programs, such as those offered by the DAAD and FullBright, have enabled many New York artists to spend their first time in Berlin. Some of them have stayed because of the comparatively low cost of living and good public funding structures. They have become a defining part of the Berlin art scene, but at the same time maintain contact with the much more lucrative New York art market. “Produce in Berlin, sell in New York!” is the saying.
In summary, the potential of digitalization for critical writing and reflection on art is far from being exhausted. On the Berlin-New York axis, formats are emerging outside of institutions and publishers that make people want to engage with art.
Charlotte Eitelbach studies fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts and spent a summer semester at the Pratt Institute in New York with a FullBright scholarship.
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