Studio Dreams

My studio, pictured in the third frame from the right.

Studio Interior - easel and walls.

 Snow and my studio back door.  Gotta get those skirts on.

Studio Interior - north light and palette, easels.

When I googled artist's studio photos, it instantly struck me what were authentic and well-worked in studios.  Some were beautiful, and others cozy.  I dream of a studio that is big and busy.


Willem de Kooning and his studio in the Springs, Long Island.


The Parrish Art Museum.
Getty Images.
flikr.









Russel Chatham in his Livingston, Montana studio.  I follow his work.
h/t Loriann Signori.




The following link offers my sage advice on how to run your studio.  Spoiler:  don't be like Eric Satie.
Ten Life or Death Studio Tips, The Colorist.


I want to do a post on ten more tips.  Stay tuned.


I found this review of artist's studios at a blog named minutia: Artist's Studios.  My fave was Sigmar Polke's studio in Cologne, Germany.  I noticed he goes months without visitors - shades of Satie!


My studio dream is to build a big box connecting the north end of my current structure with high ceilings, north light and a deck.  I want limited or no windows to the south and west.  The trailer part will be office, framing and storage, which are tasks that are now done there in addition to being my studio.


I'm not complaining, though.  Many artists would be happy to have the space, and locale, of my wonderful studio.

Faroe Islands and The Ukraine - Take a Visit With Me

Webpage of Artist Pól Skarðenni, Faroe Islands

Do you remember when I brought to your attention the way that artist Sonya Johnson represents the Four Corners area of the American Southwest?  I am always amazed when an artist nails his or her landscape so well.  Let me bring you two more artists I saw this week whose works hit the mark artistically.


Pól Skarðenni is an oil painter whose images of the Faroe Islands are so fascinating that I wanted you to see them.  I haven't been to the Faroes, but I did spend a few months on the Aleutian Islands, and there is an affinity with that area in these paintings.  Hat Tip to Katherine Tyrrell, of The Art of the Landscape for making me aware of this artist.


The next artist came to me via the Follow tool in Blogger.  He is number # 347 in my follows, otherwise known as Sergie Kovyka-Aliyev.  Sergie Kovyka-Aliyev is from The Ukraine, and I envy his spare use of the pencil to render his landscapes.  He inspires me to go out and draw every tree I see.  He blogs at KOVYKA, Sky, Steppe.

Road Trip - An Artist's Reality Blog

Celeste Bergin and Casey Klahn
Photo Credit: David Burbach

The open road part of my road trip is over for now, and I am in Marin County. If you've never been to Marin, I will tell you that it is just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Fransisco, and one of the beautiful places in California. I am glad to be here.

On the way, I enjoyed stopping in Hood River, Oregon, which I blogged about the other day. The "When Bloggers Meet" photo of Celeste Bergin and I is posted above. Her post about the meeting is here. Then, I continued down the 5 through the great Willamette Valley. I couldn't help thinking about an artist friend whose landscapes define the Willamette for me, Marla Baggetta. It just so happens that Loriann Signori is interviewing Marla at her blog.

How can I get through Oregon without thinking about two master pastel painters, Kitty Wallis and Richard McKinley?

Further south along the 5 one travels through northern California. I well remember my climb of Mt Shasta many years ago. Today, she frowns at me as I pass by. Speaking of California mountains, blogger artist Terry Miura is posting his series about his annual plein air back country trip to the Sierras.

Tomorrow I drive onto the venue early in the morning and set up my booth. I hope to have pictures of that process for you as I continue this art fair reality series.

Quotes On Content

Melancholy
o/c, 1874
Edgar Degas

The post on content is finally written, but I have split it in two. While researching, I dug up some fascinating quotes by artists on content. Reference: artquotes.net.


"I'm painting an idea not an ideal. Basically I'm trying to paint a structured painting full of controlled, and therefore potent, emotion." Euan Uglow.

"The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it." Banksy.

"It doesn't matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said." Pollock.

"A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people." Degas.

"In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremble. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble." de Kooning.

Tomorrow: my thoughts on content.

In The Zone

After a 2-3 week hiatus, I hope I'm getting back "In The Zone." I had produced some great work, and then a few blocks stumbled me up - mostly schedule burps. Look for some postings of what's fresh off my easel, soon.

I often see great works being created by other art bloggers. When I am impressed by their current work, then it is obvious to me that they are "In The Zone" of creating their best work. I want to recognize this zonesmanship with a link, and I have invented a brevet to go with it. If you get one from me, don't think me disappointed with your past work - just very impressed with your current art!

The brevet looks like this:



It is not a meme, where you recite five things, and then tag another blogger. It is just me saying, "way to go," and go look at this artist's great new work. If you receive this brevet, then feel free to post it at your blog, or just smile and chuckle. You're not required to link me back, either.

Who do I feel is in the zone right now? Definitely Harry Bell, of the UK, who blogs at Boogie Street. His series on the Tram in Prague is here, here and here.

The compositions he creates in his series on public transportation in Prague (and another "Night Station," as well) are really delightful. They feature the bold red side of a bus, figures all aboard, and set among the enchanting scenery of the old city of Prague. The buildings and streets are rendered mostly as abstract shapes, but also immediately recognizable. Simple, yet complex at the same time. His Vaporetto Series last year was a similar treatment of waterborne taxis in Venice.

Also, I won't award "Zone" brevets in retrospect, except just this once. I am very impressed with Loriann Signori's series from her trip to New Mexico, in the Southwest, recently ended. I want to credit her with an "In The Zone" brevet for being "on" while painting not just out-of-doors", but out-of-state, too! This is hard to accomplish, yet her capture of the colorfully lit SW desert is supurb.

Weblog Award

Presenting my choices for the Brilliante Weblog Award! Thanks to Pollocksthebollocks for the award.

Kudos to the following blogs that I have enjoyed reading lately:

1. Petra Voegtle
2. Tracy Helgeson
   
3. Deborah Paris
   
4. Lloyd Irving Bradbury
   
5. The Gang at Moleskine Exchange International, present party excluded
   
6. Adam Cope
7. Ann Nemcosky
   

Studio Spotlight

Custom Palette Table Seen in the Kitchen. Do You Have a Beer Refrigerator in Your Studio?

Too Much Sun from the West; Portable Tables, My Convertible Easel at Left, and My New Wall Easel Sitting on the Floor at Top Center.

Organizing Drawers and Table Tops.

Last week I posted on my new Studio Interior. I found these other photos from different angles, and post them now for your further enjoyment.

See other studios at Making a Mark-Art Blogs-Artists and their studios.

Art Review Weekly

The new posting project at The Colorist: a weekly review of art seen and appreciated. I'll be making these posts on the weekends, either Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Perhaps they will be weekly, but more likely they will be occasional.


Adam Cope - A Contemporary Artist's Personal Response to Prehistoric Cave Art.
A British artist living in France, Adam has painted the rock walls we revere for prehistoric art and has given us some revealing abstracts at the same time.


Mr. Zip - The Vaporetto Series
British artist Harry Bell has a new idea for an old subject, which is to organize water taxi commuters into compositions both formal and romantic at the same time.

Art Bump

Thanks to colored pencil rock star Nicole Caulfield for the widget idea that is playing on the right hand column. If you want the full-on Pollock DIY website, go here.

Here comes an old favorite post of mine:

Process Sketch - Italy

Bell Tower Process Sketch

Casey Klahn

Since I missed the Wolf Kahn pastel workshop in Manhattan, I decided to "channel" him through this sketch. He makes these squiggly lines with unpredictable colors, you see. The end result, though, is a rather built up set of layers, and an expressionist landscape that pleases the eye.

In fact, I have never done one like this, and when I finished it, I said: "How did I do that? It looks like a Wolf Kahn!" I guess it goes to the "seeing" operation. If you look hard enough, and long enough at art that you like, it will find its way down your arm and out your hand, eventually.

I couldn't be happier.

Another factor is the sketch paper. I'm used to working on (expensive) Wallis Museum stock, or Sennelier La Carte, both of which are sanded heavy stock. The regular laid paper allows the sketchy look.

The big difference between a WK and my own pastels (besides about $2,000) is that he is a little more interested in the scene, or nature, than I. He uses pastels as a drawing tool, and I make a finished painting. Indeed, I visualize WK's Oil Paintings when I make my Colorist American Landscapes.

I wrote somewhere in a comment (probably Tracy Helgeson's blog) that I made the effort to go see Kahn's art at the Ameringer-Yohe in New York, while I was in transit to Italy last summer.

I was rewarded with a ring bound catalog of their last Wolf Kahn pastel show. And, I had to suffer through the assistant (not the main staff person, who was top notch) describing the artist's layer build-up as probably done in oil pastel. (steam coming from my ears, here)

Back to my drawing. I also played a lot with the colors, by building up as many layers as the cheap paper would take. I was thinking of van Gogh's Auvers church, and looking for a complex of colors for the main building and tower. I was thinking of his letter where he describes the pink road in his painting.

Postscript: Thanks Robyn Sinclair for the photo reference for the Italy sketch.

Artists Get Exposure

Just by way of news, here are some exposes of some of our friends in the art blogging community. You will be impressed and won't want to miss either one.

• Jafabrit - Guest Bio @ PTB Blog.
  
• Lloyd - Artist paints world as he remembers it - TV spot in Chicago.

Lloyd's TV spot wouldn't play for me. Perhaps some cunning expert could rip it and put it on You Tube for those of us without the absolute latest player.

Moleskine Project Blog

My Moleskine and Library Table

Here's your call, Moleskiners! Get your sketch linked at the nifty blog called MoleskineProject, and while you're doing that I'll be trying to figure out where my Moleskine is!

While I'm at it, you might wish to visit the very cool Sully's Design Studio, which is the blog of Kim Coles of Indiana. Her link is: I'm With Sully. I liked her top 25 movies post for the pure fluff of it - and her fave is a John Wayne movie that my father also favored.

Darkness Gone?

New Memorial Design, USS Oklahoma

USS Oklahoma, Pearl Harbor

The author William Manchester wrote a cracking good book, his personal memoir of his USMC service in the Pacific, Goodbye Darkness, a Memoir of the Pacific War, 1980. If you're after a dynamic read about the Pacific Theater battles of WWII, this is your best choice. He skillfully weaves himself throughout all of the island campaigns, even though his participation was limited to three of the island battles. A great idea by a great author and an even greater military man, having earned the Navy Cross. (The Navy Cross medal was designed by James Fraser, who sculpted The End of the Trail, as well)

Today we remember during Pearl Harbor Day the treacherous attack by Japan on the US fleet in Hawaii back in 1941. That may seem like an eternity ago for my younger readers, but consider that our veterans of this battle still walk among us. I can't miss them because they stand about twelve foot tall (in my mind's eye). And those are the clerk typists and dining room orderlies. The guys with combat jobs stand even taller. You might take a little time today to consider the painful and sacrificial toil of that Greatest Generation.

On the art front, the design for a new memorial has been made. I gather that Kevin King is the designer. The battleship USS Oklahoma was sunk in that Dec. 7th battle, along with the better known USS Arizona and several other capitol warships. Here's my congratulations for this memorial to the veterans of that infamous day and that courageous ship. Their strife is honored by many today.

Bloggers on Pearl Harbor Day.

Karlson/Gray

I am happy to announce that I will be participating in a landscape exhibit at the Karlson/Gray Gallery in Langley, Washington in January of 2008.

The Karlson/Gray was formerly the Gaskill/Olsen, which enjoys a long and fine reputation in the Seattle & Puget Sound region. A noteworthy element of the Langley location is that it anchors the southern end of Whidbey Island and that area is an artist's colony. Perhaps the biggest in the state.

On a personal note, hanging next to my own work at the Karlson/Gray Gallery will be the oil paintings of Whidbey Island landscapes by Pete Jordan. Pete's work is well-known in our region, and I am having a hard time finding the words to say how fantastic it is. Let's just say incredible and top, top, top drawer. Further, Pete is a friend and mentor of mine since the days when I only dreamed of being a working artist. His advice and encouragement has been a tremendous boost for me, and now he's going to have to suffer hanging with me at his home gallery. I am humbled.

Also, his spouse Joan Govedare is a Raku Potter whose work is featured at the Karlson/Gray, and over the years I have bugged/volunteered with Joannie at the Bellevue Art Fair and other venues. Those were the days when I wondered "how do you break into these art fairs?" Both hers and Pete's art grace our own home, and so I am happy that we'll get to be in a show together. A milestone for me.

Did I mention that you will (probably) have to ride the ferry to get there?

Karlson/Gray, 302 First Street in Langley on Whidbey Island.

Celebrate!

Happy Artist's Day! Celebrate by making art, buying art, or even just re-hanging that art you already own and enjoying it. Go to a museum at lunch. Buy a new box of crayons for the kids. Woo-Hoo!

Click on the gif above to watch the fireworks burst.

Linky - Linky- Greety

Casey Klahn in Studio

The post title is blogger slang for saying "greetings" to the visitors coming in from Alyson Stanfield's ArtBizBlog, where she has a post entitled: Artist's Blogs to Fall in Love With.

Casey and Vincent at a Paint Out

So, welcome if you're new here. My blog is a process-type space where I post about "Colorist Art", in a new and modern sense. Also, things that I enjoy, such as art history that isn't too stodgy. An example would be my posts on Vincent van Gogh (who I interview here).

You know, there are precious few photos of the old keener, van Gogh. He hated the camera so. Here's an image he allowed me to have of our virtual visit in Paris, but only of his back.

Vincent and Moi Hold Forth

Another popular subject here at The Colorist is the medium pastel, which I favor. Here's a post about my chums in the pastel world. If you like, see my post about the founding pastelist herself, Rosalba Carriera.

My art can be viewed by clicking on My Artworks.

Now, I'll be going back to Alyson's blogs list and finishing my tour of bloggers to love!

Rothko-ized

I have become Rothko-ized! Now, I am a fully functioning zombie in the Mark-Mode.

Just kidding. I will be "out of pocket", as the hip people say, for the next three weeks. On the road for Bellevue, Park City and Sun Valley. Reports will be posted at
the Endless Summer Art Fair.

You are owed a better end to the Rothko study. Sorry, I'm not ready for the definitive post, yet. I will have some down time between driving stretches, and maybe I'll get to post a little.

The quick things I can share are my pre-conclusions. Greenberg and that whole gang (including MR) were so impressed with abstraction being the break-out style for modern art that they felt they needed to push it to it's absolute limits. I'm not sure if we have reached those limits, yet. The cracks in that infrastructure developed before the Abstract Expressionist school could run its course.

I disagree with the dialectic that insists abstraction is the end-game of art. There are some solid values to abstraction, and it is fundamental to art as a historic continuum, and as a rudimentary part of the formal structure of art itself. I love the stuff, personally.

Rothko was a huge figure on the American landscape, whose color field art did a better job of breaking away from figuration than Pollock's art, IMHO. Not to compare too much, but the lack of line and the forwarding of the element of color are why I say MR is better. Action painting, as absolutely fantastic as it is, is still very dependent (Pollock's work) on the line.

Let's see. Now that I've dug this big hole, I guess I'll have a fine job ahead of me to fill in the rationales! I don't want to leave you with a comparison between JP and MR. That's too far off the mark for understanding the Abstract Expressionists.

Let's leave you with this awesome photo of The Irascibles, a group of artists otherwise known as the Abstract Expressionists, or the New York School. I wanted to photoshop myself in there as an interviewer, but I didn't want a lawsuit from the photographer. Perhaps you'll just have to imagine that part.

Image of the Abstract Expressionists known as The Irascibles.http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/images/abstexp_irascibles_lg.jpeg
"The Irascibles" (photo by Nina Leen, 1950, for Life magazine) Front row, left to right: Theodore Stamos, Jimmy Ernst (son of Max Ernst), Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko. Middle row: Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin. Back row: Willem De Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, and Hedda Sterne.

Note:
Want to know more about Hedda Sterne? Fascinating. She is the last surviving member of this famous photo.

POLLOCK

The Ed Harris Movie About

Our Artist

See the trailer for Pollock, here. Two thumbs up says Casey Klahn of Davenport, Washington. Of course, this comes from a guy whose standard movie fare is Scoobie-Doo and Cinderella. Any "grown-up" movie will float my boat, I guess.

As I was watching this DVD, first on our old Magnavox, and then on a little 13" red Dora The Explorer TV which seemed to run the disk better, I took notes to share with you. At first, I was fairly critical, probably because I wanted something else from the movie. I wanted a run through of the Who's Who among Abstract Expressionists.

They did feature Lee Krasner, of course. In fact Marcia Gay Harden won best supporting actress for her role as Pollock's artist "stand-by-your-man" wife. Val Kilmer puts a face on Willem DeKooning. Clement Greenberg, Peggy Guggenheim, and Betty Parsons are important non-artists in the plot. Other artists featured were William Baziotes, Franz Kline, and Helen Frankenthaler, but I missed the references to them. Perhaps I needed name tags on them.

My interests run more towards JP as a member of the Abstract Expressionist movement. That's probably because he's not my favorite artist of that group. I have focused on him first this month because of his historic place in the AE-ists. He is the most famous one, after all. My favorite? Mark Rothko. Go figure. He's the one who masters color in abstraction, IMHO.

In short, I first had trouble with the movie's stereotyped take on Peggy Guggenheim, who was the super-rich patron and gallery owner. Typical power wielding, "you totally need me" gallerist that pulls the strings. Same with Clement Greenberg, the famous art critic biggie who "made" Pollock what he was.

But, after watching the tragic life play out, I did begin to soften my criticism. Ed Harris is a good student of the artist, who only chose to try his first effort at movie direction because nobody else had the understanding level that he did of the great American artist. And then, he took his movie all the way to academy award acclamation. Not bad for a beginner - I would say the parallels to the originality of JP are there.

Go rent this movie if you haven't done so already. It's a rare contemporary movie about the courage of artists who live to paint originally, at any cost.

Trivia Note:

Mark Rothko entries on Google - 1,040,000
Jackson Pollock entries on Google- 1,430,000
"Casey Klahn" entries on Google- 1,510
I have a long, long way to go...

(data collected May 9th, 2007 @ 9 AM)

Mark Harden's Artchive

Mark Harden's Artchive has a page titled Theory and Criticism, which looks to be a fine collection of writings by known critics who expound on known artists and their artwork.

I guess I have been giving this well known site (Google seems to always take me there!) short shrift because I kind of don't like the graphic layout of the art listings there. In all fairness, though, it is a great website and resource for studying and thinking about art.

Here's the link:
http://www.artchive.com/critic.htm

Art Critic Pool - Art Criticisms for Trade

Detail of Yellow Trees in a Blue Forest
Pastel on Board
Casey Klahn

What do you think of a pool where we artists can trade critical pieces written about one another's art?

This is what I mean: one artist offers to write a one sentence, one paragraph, or one page art criticism of your corpus (or a given show, or whatever) and you offer to do roughly the same thing in trade regarding their work.

There don't seem to be as many critics functioning anymore, and it can be a worthwhile tool in your portfolio to have a third party wordsmithing about your art. (I promise not to use the word "wordsmithing" in my critique).

Here's what I'll do. I will take your e-mails for opting "in" to the Art Critic Pool, and I will offer you a match-up with another artist in the pool who is after about the same length of piece. For instance, Johnny writes me and wants to offer a three paragraph short essay about another artist's work (viewable on a blog, or website or even in a mailed packet if you're that into it), and Jane writes to offer a one pager as a trade with someone and I link them up via e-mail. They can decide if it will be a peachy trade or not, and if not, get back to me and re-enter the pool.

You won't get a document as authoritative (supposedly) as that from a professional art critic, but those types are few and far between, anyway. However, a third party written essay about your art is, at face value, a working tool that many artists can use. And, a petite essay from another artist (read: arts professional) is what it is - most likely an honest testament to the quality of a given artist.

One of the byproducts of the Abstract Expressionist movement is the revision of the influence and authority of the scholarly or vocational art critic. I am not prone to say something like, "here's your chance to stick it to the man," but each artist will do with this product what he will.

I would not, for my own part, present this as anything other than an essay written by another artist. By the same token, pick up any one of the many artist's monographs in your own library and take a look at the testimonials written by regular schmoes just like yourself. Or have a look at the membership of any number of arts concerns, and feel a little self-empowerment in the fact that you work body-and-soul in the field of fine art. You count.

Do this to participate:

1. Post an e-mail to me at caseyklahn@msn.com.
   
2. Important: this e-mail will be changing shortly to one at Hughesnet, so check this post for my address update before you post.
   
3. Put the words: "Art Critic Pool" in the subject line so I don't flush it as spam.
4. Offer to write a one sentence, or a one, two, or three paragraph review or even a petite essay, if you are really good at writing.
5. Have a written one or two sentence description of yourself as the potential author of this piece. Such as: "Casey Klahn, full time artist and self-published art essayist." Well, I'll have to work on that one ;=}
6. Send no money at this time. I always wanted to say that. Actually, this whole thing is free gratis on my part, and barter system (or filthy lucre, if you must) among essay traders. Of course, I get to chose the best writer I see to trade with me.
7. Of course, I can't guarantee any match-ups or products.
   
8. If I get swamped by e-mails, I will be looking for volunteers to split the effort with me.

Writing an Essay Links:

English Works! on Essays.
http://custom-writing.org/blog/writing-tips/112.html
http://essayinfo.com/essays/critical_essay.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_critic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_criticism
How to say nothing in five hundred words.

Angst:

"I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like."
Gelett Burgess (1866-1951).
"Then we went to Matisse's studio. He's one of the neo, neo Impressionists, quite interesting and lots of talent but very queer. He does things very much like Pamela's [Fry's 7-year-old daughter]."
Roger Fry (1866-1934), British art critic. Letter to his wife, 1909.
"I am now completely Matissiste . . . after studying all of his paintings I am quite convinced of his genius."
Roger Fry. Letter to Simon Bussy, 1911.
"What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism."
Octavio Paz (1914-), Mexican poet.
"Art criticism everywhere is now at a low ebb, intellectually corrupt, swamped in meaningless jargon, distorted by political correctitudes, anxiously addressed only to other critics and their ilk."
Brian Sewell (contemporary), British writer, Evening Standard, November 10, 1994.
Thanks ArtLex.

Extreme Navel Gazing:

Clement Greenberg.

Current Art Market, Criticisms

Lisa Hunter, over at The Intrepid Art Collector, a while back had this post called Star Power:

... who determines whether art is good. Today, the market itself tends to make stars, giving top dealers and collectors (like Charles Saatchi) the role once reserved for curators and critics.

A museum director confided to me that the market has "pushed museums to the side as arbiters of taste." Nowadays, the public already has an opinion about which new artists are "important" before a museum exhibit can be organized. Only a few museums, like the Whitney, even dare try. It's a fool's errand: If they show artists who aren't the annointed stars, people think the curators are out of touch. If they show the reigning favorites, everyone snipes that the curators are in the pocket of the dealers.

A generation ago, high-brow critics like Meyer Schapiro and Clement Greenberg wrote intelligent criticism that anyone could understand with a bit of effort. They provided a framework for asking questions, so a viewer could learn to evaluate art for himself. Today's scholarly criticism is often obtuse, theoretical, and unhelpful. (I was looking at an art history graduate program recently, and the Art History Department could have changed its name to the Michel Foucault Department without having to alter a single course description.) Newspaper critics may be excellent --especially Jerry Saltz and Tyler Green -- but reviews are case-by-case and don't provide an overall framework, so insecure collectors rely on a thumbs up/thumbs down for each individual show.

Or they rely on dealers, which takes us back to the market creating the stars.

Is there a better way? How should novices learn about contemporary art? Do we leave them, sink-or-swim, to figure it all out for themselves? Or is the art world failing them and, ultimately, itself?
Our previous discussion raised interesting questions about who determines whether art is good. Today, the market itself tends to make stars, giving top dealers and collectors (like Charles Saatchi) the role once reserved for curators and critics.

A museum director confided to me that the market has "pushed museums to the side as arbiters of taste." Nowadays, the public already has an opinion about which new artists are "important" before a museum exhibit can be organized. Only a few museums, like the Whitney, even dare try. It's a fool's errand: If they show artists who aren't the annointed stars, people think the curators are out of touch. If they show the reigning favorites, everyone snipes that the curators are in the pocket of the dealers.

A generation ago, high-brow critics like Meyer Schapiro and Clement Greenberg wrote intelligent criticism that anyone could understand with a bit of effort. They provided a framework for asking questions, so a viewer could learn to evaluate art for himself. Today's scholarly criticism is often obtuse, theoretical, and unhelpful.
(I was looking at an art history graduate program recently, and the Art History Department could have changed its name to the Michel Foucault Department without having to alter a single course description.) Newspaper critics may be excellent --especially Jerry Saltz and Tyler Green -- but reviews are case-by-case and don't provide an overall framework, so insecure collectors rely on a thumbs up/thumbs down for each individual show.

Or they rely on dealers, which takes us back to the market creating the stars.

Is there a better way? How should novices learn about contemporary art? Do we leave them, sink-or-swim, to figure it all out for themselves? Or is the art world failing them and, ultimately, itself?

I like her overall thesis, about the failure of art criticism. If this is true-that the critical career is lacking in potency, then there is a vacuum for advice about art based on a theoretical structure. This set of values, or art critical theory, has been a service to art patronage who look for some sort of rational basis for which art should be considered good, and which should not.

I think, though, that one would have to effectively indict "the market" in order to fully prove this thesis. The free (art) market does respond to the forces of shared "taste". What is wrong with that? Doesn't the art critic serve a master, too? The university, or some periodical or news media, together with it's readership and advertisers, are the constituents of the professional art critic. You'll notice that I didn't say: "artists" there. Where do they fit in? I would say that the artist's interaction with his buying market should be valued as a viable critique of art. There are filters there, too.

What do you think?