The Deline of Art Criticism

In Chicago there is a perception that the city is not suffering as badly as other less media-centric markets despite widely reported redundancies in the last two years. The prominence and unabashed expansion of criticism websites, which aggregate opinion nationwide, like RottenTomatoes.com and Metacritic.com, cause some critics to feel the need to assert the very value of their profession.

For Chicago Tribune film critic and host of syndicated TV show At the Movies Michael Phillips, it comes down to a simple matter of quality over quantity. "Any jack-ass can have an opinion so you must provide evidence and argue in an interesting way," he said.

Phillips did point out that there was a positive to the democratization of criticism. Because of the sheer volume of voices on any particular film "it's not such a top down process anymore," Phillips said. He uses Metacritic.com to find film reviews of people in his field whom he admires but always after he has filed his own work.

Metcritic's Metascore shows "the critical consensus at a glance by taking a weighted average of critic grades," according to its website. The website uses the critic without compensation and places value on statistical, at a glance criticism, which may not give audiences enough.

Phillips says "informed subjectivity" is the best philosophy for current and aspiring art critics to abide by. Once an audience has been cultivated to a critic's particular quirks and taste they will flourish. "Nothing can replace the relationship with a specific critic. You can't force that relationship, casually," Phillips said.

Much of the amateur material on websites is subpar because there is a tendency to mimic established critics, who ultimately have the edge because according to Phillips they have their own voice. Individuality, in combination, with specific knowledge is supreme. "People have short attention spans today and nobody should be wasting anybody's time," he said.

Way Back in 2003, The National Arts Journalism Program's study Reporting the Arts II, analyzed arts coverage in 20 newspapers and determined that nationwide arts coverage was declining, but said about Chicago, "what might amount to a seismic shift in the cultural landscape of a smaller city seems to register here as little more than anecdotal change."

This study reasoned that since Chicago was (and remains) a major center for all forms of art, the reporting of that art would remain viable. In other words, they supposed a direct correlation between the strength Chicago's art scene and the amount of coverage that would be subsequently devoted to art. Much has changed in the proceeding seven years and their hypothesis now seems short-sighted.

The Tribune Company, which owns 23 television stations and 12 newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in December 2008. Its cross-town competitor the Chicago Sun-Times followed in March 2009, disclosing at the Federal bankruptcy court that it had a $344 million operating loss in 2008, on a revenue of $324 million. Layoffs at both newsrooms have been widely reported and in many cases established critics were among the first to be sacrificed.

Alan Artner who was the Chicago Tribune's visual arts critic for over thirty years was let go last April, a choice that left Chicago without a full time visual arts critic. Artner still writes freelance for the paper. Michael Phillip's calls thie decision "complete bull-shit."  To leave a city the size of Chicago, a city with an undeniable artistic streak, without a full time art critic belies the state of the industry today to Phillips. "If they're going to can the art critic, all bets are off," he said. "There's much pressure on all of us to be viable and useful to our bosses."

Artner was not comfortable talking about the specifics of his job loss and said, "For facts about my situation you'd have to speak to the people who actually decided to eliminate the position of art critic at the Chicago Tribune." Artner was hesitant to discuss his personal feelings and said, "I'd give only opinion colored by loss, which might be enough for reality TV, but is worthless for a story."

Artner is pessimistic about the future of arts criticism, whose purpose was "to inspire, inform, provoke, guide or instruct" but today feels the quality of criticism on blogs and other websites is lacking a necessary purity of purpose. "The writers' compulsive expression frequently outstrips meaningful content, and the absence of layers of editing often allows self-advertising to replace reliable description and judgment," Artner said.

A recent study that said between 60 and 80 percent of the Millennial Generation sleep next to their cell phone is evidence for Artner that "a daily or weekly introduction to visual culture is disappearing because the young are attracted to other things."

Michael Phillips said that while there are certainly fewer and fewer full-time critics he has some optimism about the future. "I think eventually people will reassess the value of criticism, which will stop the bleeding at some point," he said. Phillips decried the recent saturation of reader-driven content as "simply not good enough." He used tripadvisor.com, a website that aggregates reader reviews of vacation destinations, as an example outside of arts journalism as to why expertise will always be required.

To solve the issue Chris Jones wants to see the mainstream press aggressively promote its writers. "Who's writing the reviews is such a key component of what gives the media its value. It's the single thing you can't get anywhere else," he said.