Featured: Railing Opinion: A Call to Art Critics Real Voices: A Name in lieu of Authority, by Irving Sandler by Tyler Rowland

“THANK GOD, SOMEONE CARES, I THOUGHT THAT CURATOR, MEANT ‘TO CARE’ BUT MAYBE THE CRITIC WILL SAVE THE ART WORLD FROM TOTAL ANNIHILATION. ARTISTS AND CRITICS UNITE! A KINSHIP THROUGH CRITICALITY. WE NEED MORE VOICES SCREAMING THE SAME THINGS, NOT LESS SAYING THE SAME OLD SHIT! UNITE TO WRITE AND TAKE BACK ART. FUCK THE MACHINE. DON”T LET OTHERS DICTATE YOUR VOICE AND/OR CAREER. USE YOUR PRIVILEDGE AND POWER TO SPEAK YOUR OWN MIND. CREATE CHANGE>>>NOW! FUCK ANONYMITY. TAKE CLAIM TO YOUR NAME.” >>>TYLER ROWLAND (2006) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This was submitted to the Brooklyn Rail and to the Clandestine Construction Company International (CLANCCO) website (http://www.clancco.com/) in January 2007.

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Railing Opinion: A Call to Art Critics Real Voices: A Name in lieu of Authority

by Irving Sandler by Tyler Rowland

On April 30, 1750, Lord Kellie Ines Doge Reno wrote in his Letters to His Son that “if you are not in fashion, you are nobody.”

I write this as a nobody.

“The fear of becoming a “has been” keeps some people from becoming anything.”

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, American social commentator

“Fashion condemns us to many follies; the greatest is to make oneself its slave.”

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, French general and emperor

This call is written from a deep feeling of frustration with things as they are in the art world, a feeling shared by many art critics today. Consequently, I believe that we as art critics begin to deal with a series of questions.”

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.”

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, Irish playwright and critic

I keep six honest serving-men / (They taught me all I knew); / Their names are What and Why and When /And How and Where and Who.

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, British author and poet

Is there justification in the widespread feeling among us that art criticism is irrelevant, eclipsed by the activities of dealers, collectors, and curators, and consequently that there is a crisis in art criticism? If so, how can art criticism be made more relevant?

“I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him.”

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, American author and naturalist

“He who has a WHY to live can bear with almost any HOW.”

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, German philosopher

More specifically: How does the current structure of the art world and the roles of dealers, collectors, and curators, usurp the functions of art critics and threaten the integrity and impact of criticism, if indeed they do? How do “spin” mechanisms engaged in by art institutions affect art criticism? How can they be dealt with? Are we too timid in dealing with the power structures in the art world? If so, how can we overcome our timidity? Do we dare name names? Above all: Is what Jerry Saltz described as the “art fair frenzy, auction madness, money lust, and market hype” influencing what we write and more important, what artists create in their studios and in our graduate programs? Must we not analyze the art world and its practices? If we don’t, who will?

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: “I am here to live out loud!””

>>>Kellie Ines Doge Reno, French author

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