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From: JJ Category: Art Date: 16 January 2008 Time: 05:40 PM Review: "Joining the party late, but better late than never. I was reading some old art magazines I got in a charity shop (one of the first friezes, an Artforum from around 1980 and a Flash Art from the same period) and was startled by the clarity of prose and reasoned value judgements in their reviews. I do not read many art reviews in current art magazines or even newspapers, and this is because I usually find them boring and written in a kind of art speak that it is hard to get through and often just discussing the issues in the art rather than the experience of looking at it. Either that or they are regurgitations of press releases sometimes called previews. Now there are exceptions (some/many of the reviews of Searle, Dorment, Collings, Schjeldahl), but generally I am not compelled to pick up an art magazine and read it. Like many artists I will flick through them in a bookshop to check the ads to see who’s doing well, but I can’t imagine laying out my own actual money for one. I am an artist and passionately care about art and you would think I would make a good customer for frieze et al, and yet my feelings about current art magazines are decidedly tepid. Although you seem to dismiss Ben Lewis’s criticisms as tabloid junk, perhaps it should concern you that his views are not dissimilar to what I think is a widespread feeling amongst many young and old artists: that the art world is a cosy collection of people who help each other, hand out prizes and reviews to their drinking buddies, don’t seriously debate whether any of the art is really excellent, and which puff up a few stars while excluding those outside their network. I don’t think there is a vast conspiracy and am aware these views are often the bitter talk of the mediocre or unsuccessful artist. Yet I have some sympathy for them. The feelings I have at the Frieze Art Fair are mixed to say the least. There is pleasure in the abundance of art, a happiness perhaps that all this economic activity might one day trickle down to me, and excitement about all the interest in ART. But then again seeing all the networking, and botoxed rich folk and the same galleries and the minor celebs at the opening, and the VIP areas, I veer towards sadness that the thing I care about has become a plaything for people with megamoney and little discernment - another area which is just like everything else, full of hype and capitalism. And the people who hold power in the artworld often seem to be exactly like people who are powerful elsewhere: those with money, those from fancy places like Oxford (like me), old Etonians, and those good at making those with power feel good, sycophants and hangers on. So I suppose those on the outside of the glamorous party with their noses pressed against the glass would rather think it a conspiracy, when really like much else it is not, just those on the inside are quite happy to be there and there is only room for the most tenacious to get in. And yet how many, loosely speaking, negative art reviews do you read in art mags? Is that perhaps because it is hard to face someone you have spoken negatively about at the next night’s PV? You dismiss (well, not Searle) cheap decisions on good and bad, yet actually trying to decide on a set of criteria to judge, value, or even just to explain likes and dislikes is hard and vital to the whole creation and reception of works of art. It is what artists (and collectors, curators, and gallerists) are doing all the time. So I wish academics and art magazine editors would stop being aghast that people might ask them to say whether they like something or think it is any good, for it is a perfectly valid place to start or finish. I hope the frieze gang will not just dismiss my views as grinding axes or jealousy or whatever else might make them not have to worry about them, for genuinely I am happy that they and I are part of this glorious jamboree that is art now, and which they have done much to build. All in all it is a great time to be an artist, I just wish that things could be even better, and some of our shared passion for art was expressed in ways that made sense to me and which I wanted to read. I wish that more dumb, angry, negative, or silly criticism appeared on their pages, and that diversity wasn’t so narrowly defined. Otherwise I might just begin to think the whole thing is a conspiracy to keep prices high and avoid crunchy credit. " JJ