Pursuing New Digital Strategies...
Having been (allegedly) superseded by “new digital strategies” at the Sydney Morning Herald, I’ve decided it’s high time to pursue my own on-line re-invention. As of this week I’m shifting my mailouts to Substack, which is not only an Internet mailing service, but an intellectual community of writers who have decided to take matters into their own hands. I’m determined to keep these postings free for anyone who wants to read them, but Substack has the extra advantage that readers may subscribe for any amount they choose. It’s a free contribution, not an electronic begging bowl as one finds at The Guardian. There are no obligations on readers.
At the same time, I’m linking everything with Instagram at @jmcdartcritic, a move I should have made a long time ago. If it seems I’m the last person in the room to join up, it’s partly because I’ve never been fond of social media. Just as I’ve always preferred a test match to a 20-20, I’m attracted to the long form of the game, not the short, sharp jab. I realise, of course, one can use this facility to direct readers back to longer essays and reviews, and that’s what I’m finally doing.
I’m still writing film columns and occasional features for the Australian Financial Review (look out for a Yayoi Kusama piece in the AFR Magazine on 12 October), and am negotiating for a regular weekly art column elsewhere, but at present my main focus is on changing the way I connect with an online audience.
I owe the SMH a debt of gratitude for jolting me out of my comfortable routine, and forcing these changes, which will ensure the independence of these postings. In recent years, even though I tried to avoid compromises, I knew that certain paragraphs, sentences, phrases and even words, would be censored from the version of the article that went to print and on to the paper’s website. This necessarily plays on one’s mind. The saving grace was that I could always publish the unexpurgated pieces on my personal site, but towards the end the Spectrum editor suggested that we “agree” on a version for both platforms. This would have effectively meant surrendering to whatever cuts they wanted to make – which was never a possibility. It would have been a bit like the Ukraine agreeing to peace on Putin’s terms.
I’ve titled the Substack site, Everything the Oz artworld doesn’t want you to know, because this was exactly the problem with the SMH. I suggested story after story, sometimes with specific ideas as to how we should go about it. The usual response was “Yeah, yeah, we’re onto it." The result was zero, or even worse – a feeble piece of disinformation pretending to be ‘balanced’. The balance was between an evidence-based assessment and the self-serving propaganda one finds in official press releases, taken as gospel truth. Perhaps it’s only me, but in all my years on the job I’ve never encountered a press release that had anything critical to say about a project or an exhibition.
Journalism is not just a tit-for-tat collection of statements, it’s a process of assessing the data and asking the right questions. How, for instance can the Powerhouse Museum be “saved”, when the recent heritage report allows a free hand to gut the building?
The SMH nowadays doesn’t expect its critics to be critical. In fact, it doesn’t see the need for critics at all when press releases have all the necessary information. Readers don’t want to be burdened by all that negative stuff. They really shouldn’t have to think about anything! Why does the critic have to spoil people’s fun? Why can’t they simply be allowed to enjoy a show, like seals slapping their flippers together and barking approval? Why should we distrust all those nice arts professionals whose integrity is beyond repute?
Anthony Daniels, AKA, Theodore Dalrymple, once wrote: “If someone were to start a Society for the Prevention of Thought, he would swiftly make a fortune from the subscriptions.” This apparently, is what the SMH is attempting, but perhaps they’re charging too much. Or maybe the established tabloids have already beaten them to this market. It’s all very well to dumb down to try and match these populist organs, but there’s the irritating problem of all those long-established readers who keep complaining and cancelling their subscriptions. Snobs! Élitists! Don’t they know what’s good for them? Turn off. your mind, relax and float downstream, as the Beatles sang.
I’ve always believed the role of the media is to act as the ultimate safeguard within a democracy – questioning and challenging the claims put forward by politicians, bureaucrats, corporations, sporting organisations, self-styled entrepreneurs, and even cultural institutions. When the media gives up on this task, preferring to believe everything they are told by the powers-that-be, we have gone into a sad, dangerous spiral. People in Russia or China might read a newspaper sceptically, knowing it contains only what the government wants you to know, but in Australia we poor naïfs still like to believe the press is on our side, devoted to keeping the bastards honest.
With most media ownership concentrated in private hands with distinct political agendas, and the decay of “truth” as a standard in the age of social media and Trump, we’re now living in a very different landscape. What we have is a selective media, which chooses to take on certain issues and ignore others. They may hammer the previous government over RoboDebt, or demand Albo comes up with solutions to inflation or the housing crisis, but there are plenty of other topics that are taken at face value – as mere entertainment or distraction.
Almost everything to do with arts and heritage falls into this category. If the NGA wants to spend more than $14 million on one shiny sculpture, that’s cool. If the APY Artists Collective claim they have been exonerated of all wrongdoing even when there is an extensive report yet to be released, that’s OK. If nobody goes to Sydney Modern even after its rechristening as “Naala Badu”, let’s keep quiet about that. If the state Labor government betrays their election promises and embraces plans for the Powerhouse Museum that will end up costing more than $2 billion for an entirely negative result, let’s give it a go and see how it pans out.
These are not trivial issues, but in the mainstream media they’re just ‘arty-farty’ stories that need not be featured. They certainly can’t be compared to the vital investigative pieces the SMH prefers, about which type of tomato sauce is best, or how to remove nail polish. These are the things readers have been hanging out to know.
Although I’m forever ranting about how major topics are being ignored or given the nicey-nicey treatment, the vast majority of stories and reviews I’ve published over the years, have been positive. If I had to put a ratio to it, I’d say at least 10 to one, maybe 20 to one. It’s not easy to categorise a review as straightforwardly positive or negative – as the Rotten Tomatoes film site requires – because most reviews will be nuanced, picking up on good and bad points, strengths and weaknesses. For instance, one may have serious reservations about the Archibald Prize every year, but there are always works that stand out from the crowd.
Criticism at its best is a branch of literature, requiring insight and creativity, although I’d put it on a lesser plane than the imaginative investment an artist makes in bringing a work into the world from scratch. The critic is almost always gifted something to engage with – an exhibition, a performance, a film, a book. The topic focuses the mind, from there it’s a matter of what one can do with it. This is the creative bit, and the processes are remarkably similar to those experienced by artists and musicians.
The critic never simply says “good” or “bad”, “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it”. Value judgements are crucial, but so are arguments. It’s only criticism if the writer can tell you why they have arrived at a particular judgement.
The idea that we can dispense with critics is a recipe for the degradation of our culture. It allows arts institutions a free hand, presuming they will always do the right thing with supreme expertise. Corruption, nepotism, laziness, incompetence are ruled out in advance. It’s no longer possible to suggest an exhibition is boring, poorly thought-out, or of questionable value. The actions of those in power become absolute, along with their choices as to how to spend public money, and which artists should be favoured by public collections. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, kiddo. We know what’s best!”
When things suddenly go crash, and a million dollar scandal ensues, it’s inexplicable. How could such a thing happen?
So much writing that pretends to be criticism is merely spin. One sees this at the movies, where a Hollywood blockbuster is always greeted with a bunch of rave “reviews” from hand-picked influencers who have been wined and dined by the studios. Give it a week or two, and mainstream reviews will provide a more realistic assessment. Anyone who reads these ‘first responder’ reviews and goes along expecting a masterpiece, might find they’ve been sold a pup.
In a world devoid of criticism everything is the same, everything is wonderful – until you go and see something that feels like a complete dud. Eventually, audiences begin to distrust what they read, and simply stop going. I’ve found that even when I’ve been damning about an exhibition, people will still attend, either out of curiosity, a determination to disgree, or just to make up their own minds. Disagreement actually creates audiences, whereas dull conformity makes readers’ eyes glaze over. Give them headlines such as “Enjoy nightclubs? Try this monumental new art installation”, and they don’t have a clue what it's all about.
For these reasons and more, I’m going to use this site to argue that criticism matters, and that it’s essentially a positive, constructive activity that contributes to the health of the greater culture. I invite you to put on your scuba gear and join me in the deep end.
So much for the manifesto. The only new piece of writing I have for you this week is a review of Francis Ford Coppola’s monumental folly, Megalopolis. This is one of those films that seems more and more impossible as it progresses from one incoherent, pretentious scenario to the next. The final product is such an extravagant shambles it deserves some kind of special Academy Award, perhaps for ‘Worst film by an all-time great director’. But hey, that’s only my view. By all means, go along and disagree. According to the press release it’s magnificent.
PS. I need to say a big thanks to everyone who sent me letters over the last 2-3 weeks, and to all those who made their thoughts crystal clear to the SMH. It’s been touching and inspiring. There are some brilliant writers out there!
As I’m still being asked where the cranky letters should go, you can find the addresses archived at the end of my previous newsletter. I won’t list them here as I am moving on.