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Home , Architecture criticism, Dave Marsh, Robert Christgau, Robert Hilburn

A History of Rock

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When do we say television becomes a better writers Ian Dove and John dailies in their lowest-common-denom- cultural reality? Around 1948, right? Rockwell until Rockwell came on staff inator caution resisted more recalci- And when did in 1974. trantly than the upmarket slicks. But I radio columnist Jack Gould begin his By then—beginning with Richard believe the third reason was most move to TV coverage? November 16, Goldstein of , whose important. was supposed 1947, with a review of the Theatre Guild Pop Eye column began in 1965—rock to be for kids. production of a play called John criticism was epidemic. It was a staple Well, right. In the ’50s, rock and roll Flaherty. Nor was Gould alone. John of the nascent alternative-weekly busi- was for kids. But even then that meant Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune ness, de rigueur in short-lived lifestyle older kids, which is to say teenagers— was only the most prominent of count- incipient adults. You’d think some jour- less TV scattered at dailies It was, of course, the nalistic visionary would have tried to nationwide by the early ’50s. instill the habit in this When do we say rock and roll ’60s. The New demographic. Any failure to do so cer- becomes a cultural reality? Around tainly rests more with such factors as 1955, right? And the first rock at a Journalism was in the the demon television and the imminent daily paper? The locally beloved, air, along with loose talk demise of Western civilization than rock nationally obscure Jane Scott, who was criticism or the lack thereof. Still, some 45 on September 15, 1964, when she of freedom, revolution alert, thoughtful, entertaining music reviewed a Beatles concert, commenc- reviewing might have made a differ- ing a long, effusive career at the and astrology. ence. Yet neither arts editors, with their Plain Dealer. Nationally, middlebrow prejudices, nor general edi- however, this meant nothing. I’m aware monthlies like Eye and Cheetah, raison tors, with their hardboiled ones, seem to of two generalists—downtown colum- d’etre in such -going-commer- have considered it. nist Al Aronowitz of the New York Post cial as Paul Williams’ seminal Thus rock criticism underwent a and, crucially, critic Ralph J. Crawdaddy, Robert Somma’s cerebral journey rather different from that of Gleason of the , Fusion and ’s gonzo . film (which was helped along, as TV later gray eminence at — You could read it in Life (Albert criticism was later, by the movies’ links who wrote about occasional- Goldman), (Ellen to theater and hence literature). Strictly ly. No doubt there were others, as well Willis), Saturday Review (Ellen speaking, had a prehistory as classical dabblers (one was Robert Sander), and Esquire (myself). And of in the trades, as did rock criticism, with Micklin, who ceded ’s rock beat course, rock criticism was the backbone rhythm-and- proponent Paul to me in March 1972). But dedicated of the most successful magazine startup Ackerman of Billboard the key name. critics? In the dailies? In the ’60s? Not of the late ’60s, Rolling Stone. Movie fan magazines began with bloody likely. Stringer-turned-major- So why were the dailies so slow to Photoplay in 1911; date their musical domo Robert Hilburn wasn’t hired to catch up? Beyond the home truth that, counterparts to the swing magazines of replace forgotten stringer Pete Johnson artswise, the dailies are always slow, the ’30s or 1943’s Hit Parader. But by at the until 1970. The there were three reasons. First, the spe- 1920, with the 1915 release of Birth of a insufficiently legendary Lillian Roxon, a cial hold of on the high- Nation a benchmark, the dailies had a hip and sharp-tongued version of Scott brow sensibility should never be under- lock on the critical appraisal of cinema till her death in 1973, was a pop special- estimated. Since opera and symphony in America, where the traditional news- ist at Australia’s Sydney Morning seem the embodiment of genteel cul- paper standards that defined it as movie Herald for years before she joined New ture, of every kind, jazz reviewing predominated. York’s Daily News in 1971. The New York included, has always gotten short shrift At the new music mags and alterna- Times relegated its occasional daily rock critically. Second, rock criticism’s ’60s tive weeklies, no such standards were in coverage to the dreadful freelancer Mike strongholds were mostly underground place. It was, of course, the ’60s. The Jahn until 1972, then shared it between or counterculture, a formation the was in the air, along

140 REPORTING II with loose talk of freedom, revolution Maslin never wrote about music and however. Multiplatinum demigod and and astrology. None of us was getting Holden is now a film and theater critic punk godmother both resisted singer- paid much, and few had actual jobs or who occasionally deigns to praise adult songwriter gentility and arena-rock believed we needed them. There was a pop and/or dismiss anything pomp with rebel poses, terse song forms world of necessity out there, and before liked by kids. and hard beats, and got hosannas in long it would step on our necks; in the Countering Rolling Stone at a lower both Stone and Creem as a result. meantime, however, rock criticism was level of profitability was Creem, which Different as they were, both magazines a literary haven. Even at Rolling Stone, soon lured from California valued idealistic cunning and formal where former daily reporter John Burks to Detroit, where he set a wildly irrever- courage in not just the music they was charged with imposing order, the ent tone many others there emulated. praised but the writing they published— first reviews editor was only hired in Creem was born to be brash—even now auteurist gravitas had no more place in June 1969. wouldn’t aban- Dave Marsh writes with a chip on his the straight press than gonzo nose- don his doctoral studies for a full-time shoulder in the self-published, outspo- thumbing. career as an intellectual gadfly until kenly left-wing Rock & Rap My aim when I took over the Village 1972, and his standards were plentiful Confidential. But it got truly crazy once Voice Riffs section in 1974 was a synthe- and stringent. He wasn’t above rewriting Bangs started spouting copy and charis- sis—Meltzer meets Maslin, Holden submissions with no consultation (and ma. Except for Richard Meltzer, who meets Bangs. I also wanted more poli- little complaint). But when he was first appeared in Crawdaddy and was tics, more women writers and, please brought onboard to oversee a section Bangs’ only acknowledged rock-critical God, a few blacks and some salsa cover- that had previously come together ad age—as well as more ways of seeing hoc, he set himself against Stone’s black music, as the word “” became already entrenched culture of reverence. Rock’s commercial the latest way to imply that African- Marcus wanted fans who expected juggernaut became American pop wasn’t “artistic” enough. records to change their lives and got mad And though I didn’t succeed to the when they didn’t. He wanted, he says, impossible to ignore, as extent I’d hoped, the attempt proved “betrayal and outrage and enthusiasm.” prophetic in the weeklies and, by osmo- Standards established, he left in did the existing sis, the dailies as rock criticism grew up. early 1970, and before the end of the musical interests of The Voice’s Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll, year the job had passed to columnist which became official with a mailing to , the straightest of the old working journalists 24 close colleagues in 1974—and which Crawdaddy crew. A sometime record in its 2002 edition canvassed some producer, Landau by 1977 was manag- whose hair kept getting 1,500 critics and tallied ballots from 695 ing , an artist he had longer and whose of them—provided an excellent way to famously dubbed “rock and roll future” gauge this growth. in Boston’s Real Paper before their busi- mean birth date kept Hand wringing is always a tempta- ness relationship began. Relying heavily tion in retrospectives like this, and I’ll on writers from the Boston alt weeklies getting later. indulge before I’m through. Rock criti- as well as the Bay Area, Landau profes- cism was certainly more fun in the old sionalized Stone’s section while promot- inspiration, no colleague at Creem (or days, no matter how cool the tyros opin- ing an auteur theory derived from anywhere else) approached Bangs’ par- ing for chump change in netzines like Andrew Sarris. This turn from the pre- ticular brilliance. Unfazed by fame, yet PopMatters and think it is vailing Kaelism—an unsystematic so drunk on his own élan vital that his now. But let me accentuate the positive. responsiveness that valued lively writing attempts at cynicism were often endear- How did we get from a Beatlemania above all else—had the commonsensical ing, he wrote from an emotional, explic- that went without significant critical effect of insisting that the artist with his itly subjective laff-a-minute vantage consideration in the daily press to an or her name on the cover was express- that still offends prigs who consider the embattled megabusiness that attracts ing a vision traceable from to first person a sin. His unending passion locally generated reviews and features album. But it also reinforced the culture for music fed off his knowledge and into from the Portland Press Herald to The of reverence by paying obeisance to his insights. Creem continued to Fresno Bee? And this in addition to trusted mainstays, including many embody a culture of irreverence even scads of weekly leisure guides and a singer-songwriters whose less-than- after Marsh and Bangs had moved to shelf full of specialized national maga- meets-the-eye equivalents in film Sarris New York, in 1973 and 1976 respective- zines, including no fewer than three regularly roasted to a crisp. Much of ly. If Rolling Stone gave the world cash cows ruminating on hip-hop—a Landau’s cadre has faded away. Janet Springsteen, Creem provided early con- style many baby-boomers refuse to rec- Maslin and Stephen Holden both ended tributor . ognize as music at all—that are also, up at The New York Times, where This polarity was far from absolute, what a coincidence, the first ever to

NATIONAL PROGRAM 141 attract respectable numbers of African ric in them than any other journalistic ment at all, and this stemmed in consid- Americans to popular ? subclass. The punk upheavals, which erable measure from the history of rock The answer is basically simple. With kicked in shortly after rock criticism criticism outlined above. Rolling Stone a beacon, editors and established itself and were supported Personally, I think authenticity is a publishers slowly climbed aboard. far more enthusiastically by the press crock, and believe today’s rock-critical Rock’s commercial juggernaut became than by record companies or radio, orthodoxy is far too dismissive of pop impossible to ignore, as did the actually spawned a profusion of more-uncom- forms and audiences, even at the existing musical interests of working mercial-than-thou fanzines and an dailies—the terse song forms and hard journalists whose hair kept getting explosion of college music writing in beats early rock criticism championed longer and whose mean birth date kept official campus and insur- were explicitly pop usages. But there is getting later. Not that every hire gent publications. an editorial logic to reviewing R.E.M. advanced the craft. At the smaller Meanwhile, back at the dailies, punk rather than Rick Springfield, Lucinda papers, the popular music beat was (and put a permanent crimp in any hopes Williams rather than Mandy Moore— still is) often tossed to whatever ambi- that the geek in the corner with the ear- not just journalism’s principled commit- tious copyperson or local loudmouth phone head would automatically cough ment to aesthetic quality, which we of put a hand up. Nevertheless, canons of up the celebrity inches editors covet. By course assume, but the self-evident fact artistic quality, critical vocabulary, his- that music criticism’s reading audience torical overview and cultural commit- is a subset of music’s listening audience. ment quickly asserted themselves. The Consumers need Music is sensual, preverbal, counterana- aesthetic was hell on pretension and in gatekeepers far more lytic and sometimes pretty dumb (which love with authenticity, excitement and does not equate with bad). Except for the shock of the new. Although it valued now than when popular sometimes pretty dumb (which does formal imagination over technical skill, equate to bad), criticism is none of these it expected tuneful songwriting and reg- music was what got things, even in its blatant consumer- ularly got hot for strong tonsils or slip- played on the radio and service form. pery fingers deployed in the service of Yet with music coverage ensconced, form, authenticity or both. The prose made the charts. editors now dream of attracting the kids that articulated these standards favored their predecessors disdained rather a slangy informality that didn’t rule out than the alienated college students they academese unfit for use in a family the mid-’80s, a burgeoning indie-rock ended up hiring, who while less numer- newspaper. Blues-and-country-had-a- subculture had turned so-called “critics’ ous are an apter target. The hardboiled baby and Sgt.-Pepper-begat-the-con- records” into a staple of discretionary middlebrows at the desk still glance at cept-album proved handy origin myths. coverage, a deal sealed when Nirvana Billboard’s Hot 200, woeful shadow of With the circa-1976 advent of punk, the briefly made alternative a byword. Of its 1999 self though it may be, and won- Velvet Underground was anointed a course rock critics had to provide back- der why their paper hasn’t weighed in seminal band even though it hadn’t sold stage interviews and arena-pop reviews, on the new one by this Chingy guy (it is many records, which was a crucial para- although at the larger papers these tasks a guy, right?). Nor is there reason to digm shift. Most important, and most were often handed off to second- believe these touching dreams will dis- remarkable, was that rock criticism stringers, gossip columnists and enter- appear. Editors will always think they embraced a dream or metaphor of per- tainment reporters. But where a movie understand “the reader” better than petual revolution. Just as Marcus had reviewer was obliged to acknowledge their minions. Nevertheless, giving rock insisted, worthwhile new bands were the weekly blockbuster, the plethora of critics their head contentwise is in the supposed to change people’s lives, musical options made it harder for edi- best interest of everyone concerned— preferably for the better. If they failed to tors to dictate specifics. Big prestige readers and listeners, writers and musi- do so, that meant they didn’t, in the records— solo , say—were cians, captains of the music and jour- cant term, “matter.” widely reviewed. But surefire bestsellers nalism industries. These generalizations are so sketchy in low-prestige genres like disco, metal Rock criticism’s literary dimension they approach caricature; variations are and teenpop were counted less news- has been squeezed hard by a design- legion, exceptions innumerable. But worthy than the latest by R.E.M. driven journalistic marketplace where they sum up the ideology that underlies (launched as a critics’ band) or the print is seen as “gray.” In Rolling Stone, some gnostic gospel or other at Spin Replacements (never anything else). Spin, Vibe and every other national and Creative Loafing alike, and even in Disagreements between the cops on the music mag, review lengths have dimin- the dailies, where tastes and stylebooks beat and their sergeants at the desk ished inexorably, and the feature essay can get pretty hidebound, they pertain occasioned considerable friction, and has gone the way of the California con- big-time. From what I see at Pazz & Jop the superior officers often prevailed. But dor. Even in the alternative press, the time, rock critics have more rebel rheto- it’s remarkable that there was an argu- drive to transform “arts coverage” into

142 REPORTING THE ARTS II “entertainment guide” is visible every- continue to hawk more hours of record- sume reader sophistication flattens too where. Only on the Net, where the few ed music than there are hours in a year much of the prose. Things are looser in critics with paying gigs suffer similar for years to come. Assuming the Re- the hip-hop press, but propagandistic strictures but hobbyists enjoy more lati- cording Industry Association of America myopia, compounded by permissive tude, are the gonzo first-person and the doesn’t destroy online music altogether, editing, renders even XXL and Vibe mad harangue tolerated. the Internet will make it easier to access, duller than they might be. The alt week- The musical marketplace, however, and for better or worse will help shift lies continue their wildly inconsistent exerts rather different pressures. No consumer focus from albums to individ- work, constrained more than ever by longer does rock or any other kind of ual songs. But there’ll still be more escalating newsprint costs and insulting pop seem a commercial juggernaut. Yet music than anyone can absorb, especial- word rates. And finding the provocative whether the villain be “electronic theft” ly anyone with other things to do. criticism you’d hope would be flowering or the shortsighted abandonment of This means that whether the on the Net—I could name a few random artist development in pursuit of the technological future is utopian or dra- obsessives, and there have to be more— malleable audience and the high-over- conian, the consumer-service aspect is harder than unearthing the one rivet- head blockbuster, the end result is the of rock criticism has been redefined. ing indie-rock album in a pile of same. And it’s not what self-serving Consumers need gatekeepers far more patched-together freebies. Informed doomsayers seeking punitive copyright now than when popular music was what gatekeepers do perform a social func- laws claim, either. Music isn’t “dying”— got played on the radio and made the tion, and they’re rarer on the Net than although maybe some fun pop kinds charts. They need people whose life- in college radio. will lose their juice once rich-and- work is seeking out good music of every In theory, and conceivably in prac- famous is bled to a husk by reality tele- sort and telling the world about it— tice, the dailies could help fill this need. vision. It’s just spreading out. maybe not literally, but with the linguis- The newspaper business missed its Before the downloading panic, the tic informality (and rebel rhetoric) the chance to define rock criticism at the key statistic about popular music was mood and ambition of quality popular outset. Even if it had been on point, the approximately tenfold increase in music still regularly demand. however, the rush of reality would cer- album-length releases between 1988 Thus we have the influential Blender tainly have outstripped the definitions. and 1998. The figure has dipped some, model—several hundred brief, graded Now that same business shares with but even if the current estimate of record reviews arranged alphabetically, Rolling Stone the opportunity to hang 27,000 new titles annually is correct, a format that traces back through on for dear life as it follows a story that’s almost every artist ever cut loose by a Entertainment Weekly to the Consumer never disappeared from human life major label—as well as innumerable up- Guide. Here, regrettably if predictably, whether it got into the papers or not— and-comers and going-nowheres—will uniform length and the refusal to pre- and, bet on it, isn’t about to now.

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 143 Subject/Object Firsthand Knowledge in Criticism

By Sasha Frere-Jones

Fiction critics are usually novelists. the club circuit. So without perceiving music works,” says Bruno, “it’s less Poetry reviewers are, with very few it themselves, musician critics can important that critics know much exceptions, poets. Nearly half of all art become champions of the obscure or about, say, harmony, than about record- critics are also artists. But when you the technically proficient simply to ing technology.” As Grubbs adds, “I look to the two commercial art forms realign the relation of their art to the have a decided preference for critics that earn more than these three art world and to alleviate their personal who understand the nuts and bolts of forms summed and cubed, something disappointment. Who can blame their given subject—not because years funny happens. Film critics are rarely them? Move the goalposts and the spent in the salt mine confer authority, directors or actors, and pop music crit- score changes. The problem here for a but rather because these things aid a ics are rarely musicians. And though writer’s powers of description. Think of some of my fellow musicians disagree, American Pastoral and Philip Roth this seems appropriate. Film and pop Pop is the eruption of an learning how leather gloves are crafted.” are art forms that work quickly, and With professional frustrations set through wide dispersal. Their impact unknown voice using aside, musician critics are well-suited leapfrogs training or literacy. To under- to enrich critical analysis with insights stand these forms is not necessarily to overlooked technology. into modes of production and the know their blueprints but to be able to material basis of an aesthetic, the latter absorb and understand their impact. an area of huge potential for pop criti- Because I am both a musician and a musician who wants to be a critic is cism: What equipment has enabled pop critic, I can count measures and that much musically innovative and what genres? What songs are being subdivisions more easily than someone socially rich pop music—especially quoted in which other songs, and how without any musical training. But my now—is a direct repudiation of the idea often? How common are certain rhyth- ability to identify time signatures of an apprenticed, learned craft. Just as mic patterns, and where did they first doesn’t necessarily put me ahead of any it would be a mistake to let, say, con- appear? Too often, though, the musi- other critic with good ears and a lot of servative economist Francis Fukuyama cian critic reaches for a form of self- energy. Pop music and film replicate review a book by Marxists Michael pity common to many craftspeople because of their immediacy. Image and Hardt and Antonio Negri—not that rubbing against the digital age. “You sound both have global transparency. such a blatant editorial mistake would try it” was the refrain I heard from You don’t need to know where Britney happen at a major newspaper in many musician critics, indicating dis- Spears learned her trade to participate 2004—professional musicians are pre- taste for both critics who don’t play an fully in her work, to access the zing of a cisely the last people who should instrument—critics could easily song like Toxic. And though an analysis review popular music. Pop is the erup- respond, “You try going to 200 shows a of the song’s chromatic loop-de-loops tion of an unknown voice using over- year”—and players succeeding in a might be pointed and interesting, it looked technology. Knowing how it musical field the musician perceives as will likely speak to a narrative of pro- usually goes is exactly what you inimical to their training. The trained duction that runs alongside the text don’t want. jazz improvisers resent the hip-hop but doesn’t necessarily relate to how Musician critics may let their pro- artists who don’t play an instrument the text lives and bounces around in fessional bias discolor critique some- but sell records, the hip-hop artists the world. times, but they also have a body of resent the rock bands who receive Pop is an art form built by and for material knowledge that can enhance more press coverage, the indie artists amateurs, who are sometimes remu- the discourse around pop music. resent the critics for pointing out nerated on a scale beyond the ken of Musician critics David Grubbs and where the indie artist went to college. professionals in any field. Faced with Franklin Bruno remind us that there Musicians, not surprisingly, take music this extreme social algorithm, profes- are fruitful ways for a musician to use fairly personally. sional musicians often resent their specialized knowledge as a booster for But so does everybody. That’s what time in expensive music schools and on analysis. “Probably, given how popular makes it popular music. Like others,

144 REPORTING THE ARTS II musicians and critics frame their expe- show with my 10 bucks? When answer- than the deep specialists. In the late rience in the first person. This is sym- ing that question, what constitutes 1960s, then-editor Greil Marcus pub- pathetically enhanced by the high expertise for the relevant critic? lished rock critic Lester Bangs in the degree of first-person subjectivity in Knowing how to play the guitar or, per- relatively new Rolling Stone, even pop. Multiply all of this and you see a haps, knowing how to listen to records though he had published very few high dose of informal subjectivity in in the same way as other listeners? “I pieces. Bangs—who himself wrote and pop criticism. (This variable is less could never have written about Lucinda recorded music and even thought of prevalent in , where a state- Williams’s Car Wheels on a Gravel ditching writing and becoming a full- ment such as “The big titanium bunny Road, for instance, because the sound is time musician—then used the high made me think of when I learned to so compressed I cannot stand to listen copy needs of various review sections to ride a bike” would not likely appear.) All to it,” admits bassist-writer Tim stay busy and develop his craft. And this first-person yammering is a good Midgett. “If I hadn’t had a hand in mas- while record reviewing is not the same thing for pop criticism, which has room tering a bunch of records in my life, I beast it was when Bangs started in for both high theorists and bedroom 1969, writers can still get a byline with diarists. The problem with a musician All this first-person almost no résumé. It is this unsuper- critic’s first-person complaining is not vised nature of pop criticism that has that it’s complaining—it’s the claim to yammering is a good allowed remarkable stylists and authority that, in turn, blocks percep- thinkers to work with more formal dar- tion. If a musician believes, prima facie, thing for pop criticism, ing and political chutzpah than their that he knows better, his critique is no which has room for both brothers and sisters across the aisles in more than an expression of pique and the book review section. an explicit rejection of the democratiz- high theorists and Most of the important figures in ing power of the music at hand. But if pop criticism—Robert Christgau, Greil the critic and listener can agree to occu- bedroom diarists. Marcus, —are not musi- pying the same unstable and overheat- cians but rather experts in hearing and ed ground, then anything is fair game— might not have that problem, but I have understanding lateral connections. Pop Althusser’s theory of ideological state it, and I have to be aware that my ears tends to saturate and bear the mark of apparatuses, the difference between are the way they are.” The average read- the present more than it boomerangs Chet Atkins’ and Steve Vai’s use of the er likely agrees with The Village Voice back and forth through time. A musi- whammy bar, and how it feels to buy critic and Burnt Sugar bandleader Greg cian craftsman is often the opposite your first stereo with your own money. Tate, someone whose musical expertise kind of agent, invested in the longitudi- This is all framed by the fact that has not hampered his critical faculties: nal history of a small niche. Whether an pop criticism is anchored by (or defined “I prefer critics with informed and pas- autodidact or a conservatory graduate, against) the reality that pop music is sionate ideas about the art they review, a musician comfortable with the pop mechanically reproduced and sold. can write engaging prose, and audience and willing to subordinate reader of pop criticism is a consumer in could care less about their musical pro- technical knowledge to the needs of a way that someone considering going ficiency. Those who only deal with the that audience would be a valuable critic to a gallery show is not. A minority may product have proven as insightful as indeed. Let’s hope we see more of this read pop criticism as prose or philoso- those with technical insight.” kind of critic, and soon. Blackberry phy, but to the larger audience it is a With some exceptions, informed rock is scheduled to peak in about betting broadsheet. Will I win, lose or polymaths have more to offer readers five minutes.

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 145 Classical Music Criticism at the Crossroads

By Joseph Horowitz

William James Henderson’s review familiarity with Longfellow’s The In spite of all assertion to the of the premiere of Dvorak’s Symphony Song of Hiawatha, which all liter- contrary, the plantation songs of “From the New World” in The New York ate Americans once knew]. It is a the American negro possess a strik- Times of Dec. 17, 1893, is one of the picture of the peace and beauty of ing individuality. No matter most impressive feats in the history of today colored by a memory of sor- whence their germs came, they American musical journalism. rows gone that the composer has have in their growth been subjected Henderson begins: given us at the beginning and end to local influences which have of his second movement. made of them a new species. That The attempt to describe a new species is the direct result of causes musical composition may not be It should not surprise climatic and political, but never quite so futile as an effort to photo- anything else than American. Our graph the perfume of a flower, yet us that this great era South is ours. Its twin does not it is an experiment of similar exist. Our system of slavery, with all nature. Only an imperfect and per- in American music its domestic and racial conditions, haps misleading idea of the char- criticism—the 1890s— was ours, and its twin never exist- acter of so complex a work of art as ed. Out of the heart of this slavery, a symphony can be conveyed was equally a great era environed by this sweet and lan- through the medium of cold type; guorous South, from the canebrake yet when there is no other way, in American classical and the cotton field, arose the even that must be tried. music. Critics were spontaneous musical utterance of a people. That folk music struck an There follows a detailed account— focused on the creative answering note in the American of origins and intentions, methodology heart. . . . If those songs are not and programmatic allusions—that to act—and so were con- national, then there is no such this day may be the most evocative ductors, orchestras thing as national music. It is a fal- description of Dvorak’s symphony ever lacy to suppose that a national song penned. No one has more eloquently and audiences. must be one which gives direct and put into words the polyvalence of the intentional expression to a patriotic famous Largo, in which the influences sentiment. A national song is one of plantation song and Hiawatha inter- that is of the people, for the people, mingle. “It is,” writes Henderson, “an But Henderson’s review is most by the people. The negroes gave us idealized slave song made to fit the remarkable where it deals with the this music and we accepted it, not impressive quiet of night on the question most debated about this work with proclamations from the prairie.” He continues: a century ago: “Is it American?” housetops, but with our voices and Boston’s critics would answer: No. To our hearts in the household. Dr. When the star of empire took Philip Hale, of The Boston Home Dvorak has penetrated the spirit of its way over those mighty Western Journal, Dvorak was a naive interloper, this music, and with themes suit- plains, blood and sweat and agony a “negrophile” susceptible to the notion able for symphonic treatment, he and bleaching human bones that “the future of American music has written a beautiful symphony, marked its course. Something of rests on the use of Congo, North which throbs with American feel- this awful buried sorrow of the American Indian Creole, Greaser and ing, which voices the melancholy of prairie must have forced itself Cowboy ditties, whinings, yawps, and our Western wastes, and predicts upon Dr. Dvorak’s mind when he whoopings.” New York critics disagreed, their final subjection to the saw the plains after reading “The none more inspirationally than tremendous activity of the most Famine” [Henderson here assumes Henderson: energetic of all peoples.

146 REPORTING THE ARTS II Henderson’s review is today incon- great era in American music criticism— spine. The symbol of classical music for ceivable in our daily press for three the 1890s—was equally a great era in millions of Americans was an Italian powerful reasons. The first is simply its American classical music. Critics were conductor, Arturo Toscanini. Never length—3,000 words. Our reading and focused on the creative act—and so before had a noncomposer enjoyed such editorial habits preclude such leisurely were conductors, orchestras and audi- living supremacy in the world of classi- exegesis. (Were Henderson’s review to ences. By far the most performed com- cal music, usurping the place of a be quoted in the Times today, not a poser in New York was Richard Mozart or Beethoven, Wagner or single paragraph would survive Wagner, who had died just a decade Richard Strauss. Never before had a untrimmed.) before. A living composer, Dvorak was conductor of such stature and influence Second, Henderson was intimately widely acknowledged as the city’s pre- been so fundamentally divorced from familiar with the symphony and its eminent musician (imagine such a the music of his own time and place. As composer before he sat down to listen thing today). Of paramount importance if by default, classical music ceded lead- to or write about it. A century ago New to Dvorak—as to Seidl or Henderson or ership in American musical life to gen- York’s leading musicians and critics res more vernacular. Popular music were members of the same community As if by default, proved the more significant, more dis- of culture. Contemporary accounts tell tinctive American contribution. us that no sooner had the symphony classical music ceded Certainly the American composer ended than Dvorak’s box was mobbed ceded leadership. However much Aaron by music critics falling over one another leadership in American Copland, through his writings as much in their eagerness to be the first to con- musical life to genres as through his music, tried to redirect gratulate him. Henderson received the attention, Americans remained fastened city’s most notable conductors, singers more vernacular. on the dead European masters. So, over and composers weekly at his home. His time, did conductors cede leadership. In great friend Henry Krehbiel of The New Popular music proved New York before World War I, a Seidl or York Daily Tribune—the acknowledged the more significant, Theodore Thomas or Gustav Mahler “dean” of New York’s music-critical fra- championed the living composer with ternity—was then the leading scholarly more distinctive missionary fervor. So, in Boston, authority on plantation song; he was a Philadelphia and Minneapolis, did de facto artistic adviser to Dvorak in American contribution. Koussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski and America, feeding him samples of Dimitri Mitropoulos. After 1950, how- “Negro melodies” and Native American ever, only rarely were conductors true chants. On Dec. 15—the day before the Krehbiel—was the creation of an tastemakers. Rather, American orches- premiere, two days before Henderson’s American canon. That is: It was gener- tras became marketing and fund-raising review appeared—Krehbiel published a ally assumed that, as in Germany, machines terrified of alienating their 2,500-word analysis of the New World France, Italy or Russia, the musical subscribers. Gone, too, were the great Symphony, based in part on discussions high culture of America would be classical music entrepreneurs of yester- with the composer and incorporating grounded by a native repertoire of year: visionaries like Henry Higginson, no fewer than 14 musical examples. sonatas, symphonies and operas. who invented, owned and operated the Henderson also had the benefit of In Boston the Symphony regularly Boston Symphony; or Oscar attending a “public rehearsal” of the performed the music of Boston com- Hammerstein, whose short-lived New World Symphony, also on Dec. 15. posers. No one pretended that they Manhattan Opera bravely defied the When it came time to file his review, he ranked with Mozart and Beethoven; no elitism of the Met. was ready. one cared. George Chadwick alone was Instead, the nation’s leading music But the third reason Henderson’s performed 78 times prior to Serge businessman was Arthur Judson, cre- feat is unthinkable today is the one that Koussevitzky’s arrival in 1924. In New ator of Columbia Artists Management, most interests me. Today’s music York Seidl hailed Edward MacDowell as who insisted that only the public could reviews are mainly about the act of per- a greater composer than Brahms. That lead taste. When the New York formance. Henderson’s review of the he was wrong is beside the point. Philharmonic’s gutless programming first performance of the New World But no great American symphony was challenged in 1931, Judson—who Symphony is silent on this topic. The was written, and no American canon was also the Philharmonic’s manager— name of the conductor, Anton Seidl, is materialized. Instead, American classi- could write, “I believe within the next not mentioned once. Nor is the reader cal music degenerated after World War few years the Beethoven Fifth, no mat- ever told what other music was played I into a culture of performance. Not ter how badly played, will be welcomed on the same program. In the proper American composers, but American because of the message it conveys.” order of things it simply did not matter. orchestras, and foreign-born performers Judson also advised, “There are certain It should not surprise us that this resident in America, comprised its composers like Bruckner and Mahler

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 147 who have not yet been accepted heartily a post-classical music of the future. tions and do homage with him to by the American public. . . . We can only But there is no predicting the the genius of Beethoven. go as far as the public will go with us.” topography of this new terrain, or Today the leadership vacuum its crucial impact upon the residual To his chagrin Henderson lived long remains. And yet, with the waning of classical music landscape it will enough to witness this genre of criti- modernism, important American com- diminish or synergistically refresh. cism and to groan in 1934, “Critical posers (and other American composers comment . . . is almost entirely directed alas less important) are reconnecting To chart the history of classical to the ‘readings’ of mighty magicians of with orchestras and audiences. The ero- music criticism in the is the conductor’s wand. . . . Can [the sion of high culture, the interpenetra- to discover a similar trajectory yielding public] ever again be trained to love tion of what had been elite and popular a comparable crossroads. Krehbiel, to music for its own sake and not because arts, may yet put classical music out of my mind, marks the apex—for his of the marvels wrought upon it by its misery. In my forthcoming history of intellectual distinction, for his cultural supermen?” Downes was a new critical Classical Music in America, I write: breadth, for his activist role in advising breed—a populist who advised the lay- and supporting Dvorak, in helping to man, in a 1941 essay, to “Be Your Own What does “classical music” engineer an “all-American” concert Music Critic.” This trust-the-public atti- mean today? If the term is to retain movement, in studying and promoting tude ran parallel to Judson’s wait-and- anything like its old aplomb, it the folk and indigenous music of many see admonitions on repertoire. must refer to a moment now past During my own short tenure as a and to its attendant prestige and Granted, befriending Times music critic, I discovered that I influence. What comes next in did not believe in the vast majority of these post-classical times? We will the artist or impresario the musical events I was sent to cover— find out. Certainly we will not and I feel quite certain that a abandon Bach and Beethoven. risks imbalanced Henderson or Krehbiel would have Bruckner’s symphonies will contin- judgments. But what found New York’s concert fare of the ue to furnish cathedral experiences late mystifyingly superfluous. I in the concert hall. But this tradi- personal judgments are did not think that I was a particularly tion, on its own, can only diminish. good Times music critic, nor did I think Renewal, if renewal there will be, not imbalanced? that a Times music critic was a particu- will likely come from the outside— larly good thing to be. I could not accept from a postmodernism freed from nations, in annotating the programs of the paper’s capitulation to a degenerate the pantheon and its backward the New York Philharmonic, in trans- status quo. I could not abide its insis- pull. The possible convergence of lating German and French librettos as tence that critics not write in the first old ways and new will greatly part of the fruitless but enlightened person, and the linked prohibition on depend on composers and other campaign for opera in English, in tire- consorting with those they wrote about. persons determined to lead taste. lessly lecturing and teaching profes- The latter restriction—more an attitude What the composers may con- sionals and laymen. More than a than a coherent policy—was vaguely tribute remains an open question. writer he was an organizer, a doer. The understood to be as venerable as the . . . Equally unknowable, equally culture of performance sidelined crit- Times itself. And yet Henderson did not crucial is the coming contribution ics as it did composers. In New York keep his distance from musicians and of the tastemakers—the people they were reduced to chronicling musical institutions—and neither, for who run orchestras and opera com- Toscanini’s concerts as rites of tri- that matter, did Olin Downes. As far as panies, write about them, broad- umph. As chief music critic of the I am aware, the arm’s-length rule origi- cast and record them. Traditionally, Times, Olin Downes felt called upon to nated with Harold Schonberg, who America’s high-cultural currents testify: became chief music critic in 1960. And have benefited from the shaping neither Harold nor anyone else on the initiatives of individuals of vision— The first Toscanini concert of music staff seemed to share my discom- or submitted to the vicissitudes of the season by the Philharmonic fort with third-person pontification. the market. . . . Symphony Orchestra took place In retrospect the third person was [Steve] Reich, [John] Adams, yesterday evening in Carnegie Hall. already a terminally embattled posture [Gidon] Kremer are not “classical This meant an auditorium again of “objectivity” during the years—1976 musicians.” Rather, they are eclec- crowded to capacity with the most to 1980—I was forced to employ it. tics for whom neither Europe nor impressive audience of the sea- The third-person omniscience of a the concert hall represents the son—an occasion when music Henderson or Krehbiel was girded by measure of all things musical. lovers in all walks of life assembled their confident grasp of music’s trajec- Unquestionably they point toward to hear Mr. Toscanini’s interpreta- tory and its necessary future. By the

148 REPORTING THE ARTS II late 20th century there no longer music need to know how and by whom Our fractured times require leader- existed a cultural consensus to do the orchestras and opera companies are ship from institutions, from com- girding; the mainstream, or what was run. They need to discern whether posers, from conductors, from critics— left of it, was crippled and diffuse. programming is captive to marketing once, long ago, a more bonded Today, in an even more variegated and and development or—as at Harvey community. For all of us in music the confused cultural environment, first- Lichtenstein’s Brooklyn Academy of moment is undeniably difficult—but person opinion is inescapable even at Music, where I toiled in the 1990s— also opportune. the Times. Logically this concession whether it constitutes a creative initia- dictates a more engaged critical pres- tive, galvanizing marketing and devel- ence. Granted, befriending the artist opment in its wake. They need—like “Criticism at the Crossroads” was com- or impresario risks imbalanced judg- Alex Ross in The New Yorker—to com- missioned by the Music Critics ments. But what personal judgments mand the full cultural landscape, to Association of North America and are not imbalanced? know where the high-low synergy is Columbia University’s National Arts There is a classical music crisis. It cooking. This degree of knowledge is Journalism Program for “Shifting Ears: is artistic and economic, sociological possible only via immersion and advo- A Symposium on the Present State and and institutional. It cannot adequately cacy—the charged posture of W. J. Future of Classical Music Criticism,” be surveyed or understood on the side- Henderson reviewing the New World Oct. 16 and 17, 2004, at Columbia’s lines. Those who write about classical Symphony 110 years ago. Graduate School of Journalism.

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 149 Reflections of an Outsider Critic

By M.J. Andersen

In the fall of 2002, Robert Melee’s ested, somewhat informed, and would same breath, they work to justify their mother was for sale. The cost was like to know more. Often, we also have jobs. Small wonder, then, that most $6,000 an hour, during which time you no clue about how to evaluate much of placed a premium on the freedom to could do with her as you chose. what we see. Outsiders sense that more simply describe work and attempt to Evidently no takers emerged. And it is might be said about the work of Robert place it in context. Fully two-thirds of no surprise, considering the frightful Melee than “Yuck.” (Eeeee-uw! for those polled claimed a kind of booster figure Mom cut at the opening of instance.) And so, for help, we turn to role for themselves. The real stunner Melee’s show “You Me and Her’’ at the the critic. Usually we do not turn to the was that only 27 percent felt it impor- Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York’s insiders who write for such specialty tant to determine the quality of the art Chelsea neighborhood. For there she they described. Job insecurity may sat, in an elevated glass box, clad in Pity the poor mainstream account for some of the reluctance to nothing more than a boa and fishnet judge. But not all. It is therefore worth hose. art critic. He or she tills asking whether the working conditions A grappling with Mommy across that confront most critics today have many media, Melee’s exhibition includ- marginal soil, despite an produced a kind of critical vacuum (the ed paintings, mobiles and video pieces. explosion in art produc- occasional diatribe notwithstanding), The ensemble functioned as a kind of and whether that in turn has led to a creepy burlesque show on parent-child tion in recent years. decline in what art aspires to, even as relations, with an indictment of subur- the quantity of art itself soars. bia thrown in for good measure. High as journals as Artforum, Art in America or the yuck factor was, inscrutability ran a ARTnews—lovely as those folks may A critic who is inclined to sort solid second: I visited the show one be—but to critics writing for main- through and judge, to evaluate tech- afternoon when Melee’s mother was stream publications: the newspapers nique, ponder an artist’s intent, discern absent, and wandered through with no and general-interest magazines that ori- attempts to grapple with or reject fore- sense of who the specified “Her” might ent us quickly on a range of subjects. bears, has her work cut out for her. No be. (A transsexual in a fright wig? Or Pity the poor mainstream art critic. coherent movements in the making of was that her actual hair?) He or she tills marginal soil, despite an art currently exist. At the same time, art I am not, by profession, an art critic. explosion in art production in recent history is long and growing longer. A But as an editorial writer for a mid- years. The National Arts Journalism tradition once confined largely to draw- sized daily, I am convinced that visual Program’s 1999 study, Reporting the ing, painting and sculpture fractured environments have more to do with our Arts, found that mainstream publica- decades ago, spawning a variety of new cultural identity, and hence our politics, tions allot to the visual arts the least forms: conceptual and performance than most public-policy devotees might space of nearly any art form. (Film is the pieces, earth works, video art. The 2002 allow. And so I look—at museum shows, big leader.) Not surprisingly then, for Whitney Biennial suggested that the at work in galleries, at billboards, movie the critic, economic insecurity is part of parameters for what may be considered posters and window displays, even at the game. NAJP’s The Visual Art Critic art are broader than even the most up- color schemes in hotel lobbies (where (2002) found that most practitioners at to-date critic might allow. The biennial mauve, I am glad to report, has at last the more than 250 publications studied featured, among other things, a project died a much-deserved death). are freelancers. Of those who have full- by the Auburn University School of If we can speak of “outsider” artists, time positions, many are obliged to Architecture to make houses for the why not outsider critics? I consider cover other subjects. rural poor out of recycled materials. The myself one of the latter, and will admit Overwhelmingly, critics reported show’s curator, Lawrence Rinder, to all the implied deficiencies. The feeling a burden to explain why visual asserts that the bounds of artistic prac- beauty of this designation is that it cov- art mattered. In other words, not only tice and experience are even more capa- ers most people who make up the do art critics feel perpetually called on cious than the biennial survey proposed. potential audience for art: We are inter- to justify the work they review; in the This explosion of forms has

150 REPORTING THE ARTS II occurred alongside a proliferation of modernism, much of the theory became must still be made. New hierarchies will styles within media. As the critic incestuously entwined with the new be unavoidably established. Often the Raphael Rubinstein argued in a March work, a development that the Mod- “de-skilled,” the shocking and the simply 1, 2003, essay for Art in America, recent ernists have much to answer for. Piece baffling are raised up in what is finally a years have brought forth so many styles after piece could not be understood parody of the democratic impulse. The in painting alone that it has become except as an expression or extension of sometimes-comical result is that art impossible to keep track of them all. An theory. And for that, a viewer often had exhibitions, claiming to have trampled inability to survey the entire landscape to look outside the work itself. Thus on the distinction between “high” and in one medium (and these days, that Robert Melee’s recent output did not “low” art, instead have cemented it. landscape is international) makes it dif- intrinsically divulge that his mother was Unable to “read” the objects or ficult for a critic to speak with authority. the subject—literally a piece of work. enterprises offered up for their inspec- On what basis, then, should he or she The movement continues to affect art tion, bewildered viewers are apt to presume to judge new work? students, many of whom can be decide the problem is with them: Some of the best conversations I observed trying to work out its premises Perhaps the surest way to know that a have had on this subject have been with in forms lame and lamer. thing is art is if you cannot understand curators, who, perhaps surprisingly, it. For such audiences, art by definition express sympathy for the position of Without judgment, remains high art. They know that the contemporary art critics. The lack of true low art of our time flourishes safely clear trends is confusing and difficult critics will never off the premises, at neighborhood arts- for the critic, acknowledges Judith and-crafts fairs and at the local multi- Tannenbaum, curator of contemporary convince their editors plex. No matter how much theory we art at the Rhode Island School of that the visual arts throw at it, the distinction between high Design Museum. But it is healthy for and low art resists erasure. Critics who art. “It gives people room to go in their matter very much. A duck this problem only increase own direction,” she notes. By contrast, their travails. during the post-World War II era, when world of equivalents is critics such as Clement Greenberg laid nothing to write Faced with so many intertwined out the rules for what successful dilemmas, what’s a mainstream art crit- Modernist art should be, “a lot of stuff home about. ic to do? was left out.” I say, more judging. In some ways the curator’s task For postmodernists, grand pro- I say this with all the authority of resembles the critic’s. An unremitting nouncements are beyond contemplat- your uncle in Abilene, but I say it all the and unrealistic attentiveness to the new ing, since master narratives are all sus- same. The world grows increasingly is required, along with continuous self- pect, and every attempt at assigning crowded with representations of reality. instruction in what has come before. values betrays a form of hierarchical Which ones have urgent meaning? Do Curator and critic both attempt to find thinking (e.g. Mozart is better than any of them ensnare us in falsehoods? meaning within a realm of shifting stan- Madonna) that serves the interests of How shall we know what to prize? dards. Curators, however, must choose the powerful. The critic who attempts to These are not idle aesthetic questions what to show: They perceive certain judge under such circumstances is at but questions intimately bound up with connections, imply value of some best uninformed, at worst a lackey of our dreams and our ideas of how to kind, decide what is worth looking at those better left unnamed. Yet while live—ideas that shape our public policies. and why. postmodernism’s chief assumptions The culture wars of the 1990s But the mainstream critic is limited have lately been under assault, little in demonstrated a fierce hunger for a dis- to what museums and galleries offer, the way of a bigger, better idea has come cussion of values. Unfortunately, when usually in a given geographic area. to take their place. We might say no to the skirmishes involved the visual arts, Critics who wish to encourage local pro- postmodernist thought while feeling crude judgment frequently rushed in to duction of art while also raising ques- unclear on what we might instead say fill a void. With forthright critical dis- tions regarding value must walk a very yes to. cussion of artistic values so routinely fine line. Not judging is the easiest path. Postmodernist ideas have influenced lacking, defense of free speech became Moreover, philosophical support for not curators as well as artists, of course, and the fallback position. And it ended up judging is easy to find. with some positive effects. More women sounding surprisingly feeble. It is not When artists inevitably rebelled and black artists have broken through, only the curious viewer who longs for a against the dictates of Modernism and as have aspirants with no classical train- discussion of values in art; no one tried out a number of alternatives, criti- ing. But attempts by museums and gal- craves judgment more than artists cal thought also changed course. leries to appear more inclusive are not themselves. Spend time with a few of Lumped under the catchall title of post- all they may seem, for in the end choices them and you will see how true this is. A

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 151 thoughtful critique can move and chal- aspects of culture. But it is just as (for example, is the work skilled or de- lenge an artist even if it is fiercely rejected. important for them to see as much skilled, and how good is it on those The best critics will always try to actual work as possible. Editors should terms?), how can they speak with a keep themselves open to new work and therefore move heaven and earth to consistent voice—and therefore some new ideas. But in the end, a passion for give writers more travel money. credibility—from week to week? art entails preferring one attempt to Creative ways of doing this might be One answer has been found by another and being able to say why. found by transferring some dollars out Jerry Saltz, the almost compulsively Without judgment, critics will never of the film budget, for example, or occa- readable art critic for The Village Voice. convince their editors that the visual sionally combining the art critic’s role Saltz inserts himself into his work as a arts matter very much. A world of with that of the travel writer. kind of art-world Candide, managing to equivalents is nothing to write home Editors reluctant to invest should be both insider and outsider at once. about. look up the studies. The National The critic-as-character strategy does All discussions of cultural values Endowment for the Arts’ Survey for have limitations, since it sacrifices a impinge on one another. An arts critic Public Participation in the Arts, con- clearly worked out aesthetic for some- writing with some insight about, say, a ducted roughly every five years, found thing more provisional. In hands as painter’s attempts at self-portraiture can in 1997 that 68.3 million people—or nimble as Saltz’s, though, it is rarely engage those who may not have thought slightly more than a third of all boring, and enough to give even the much about painting but have struggled American adults—had visited an art most unschooled reader the courage to with how to see themselves. Art that museum or gallery at least once in the go out and look. challenges the power of museums to previous 12-month period. It was the Saltz, it turns out, would not dream pick winners and losers can be shown to highest level of attendance among of not judging. Saying critics should not resonate with many people’s experiences seven benchmark activities, which judge, he once wrote, “is like saying of corporate life. The formal qualities of included going to concerts and plays. bakers shouldn’t bake.” Today’s art crit- a piece of sculpture can evoke questions To experience art, unlike TV and even ics must work from an inevitably limit- about nature or spirituality. film, people must go out and see it. ed base of knowledge. But so must Critics who pursue such connec- everyone who lives a life. The critic who tions should, in the long run, find relief Even with better support from edi- does not dare to question Robert from their perceived burden of having tors, art critics will continue to dwell in Melee’s Mommy extravaganza, or try to to justify art. Those who succeed will an insecure world. If, every time they explain what is wrong with it, might be need to be well grounded in the encounter new work, critics must first better off baking pies. humanities and to keep abreast of all grope for a set of standards to apply

152 REPORTING THE ARTS II When Dramaturgs Ruled the Earth

By Robert Brustein

Once upon a time in America, theater Bazaar and The Village Voice. And there for higher theatrical standards and criticism was a universal practice. was also Theatre Arts Magazine, a rela- greater dramatic complexity. Now I had During the 1960s and ’70s, every news- tively high-circulation journal totally a visible weekly platform, right next to paper and commercial magazine had devoted to stories about the American Stanley Kauffmann’s film column, from regular drama critics, and most small theater. which to inveigh against the vulgarity publications and scholarly journals The beginning of my time at The and greed of the commercial stage. devoted significant space to what was New Republic corresponded with a My timing was fortuitous, for my happening in . resurgence of highbrow criticism in a very first review, in September 1959, At the time, four major newspapers field that most intellectuals had previ- was of an event that proved to be a bea- were being published in the city, each ously scorned. It was a time when young con of the off-Broadway movement, the with an influential reviewer. True, there Living Theatre’s production of Jack were not as many as in previous It was a time when Gelber’s The Connection. All of the decades, when seven newspaper critics major newspaper critics had panned ruled Broadway. But the shrinking of young Turks at smaller this Beckett-inspired play about the the newspaper world didn’t diminish its publications were narcotic haze of drug addiction. But fascination with the stage. The pages along with a number of other critics that The New York Times now calls Arts agitating for a whole from smaller publications, I found this and Leisure were then known simply as play to be a breakthrough in its natural- the Theatre section, devoted primarily new kind of theater— ist staging and writing as well as a to reports on plays and interviews with engaged, experimental, gauntlet thrown in the face of the whole playwrights (today, the same pages are theater establishment. It was the very largely devoted to features on action impudent, irreverent opposite of a well-made Broadway arti- movies and warring rap stars). During fact; Pirandello-like, it invaded the that period, The New Yorker, Time and and smart. audience’s space, not only breaking Newsweek were growing almost as influ- through the fourth wall but following ential as the dailies; George Jean Turks at smaller publications were agi- you into the lobby. Between Donald Nathan was still holding forth in tating for a whole new kind of theater— Malcolm’s review in The New Yorker and Esquire; and even the little magazines engaged, experimental, impudent, irrev- write-ups in The Nation and The New were beginning to have some impact. erent and smart. Broadway had gotten Republic, the play managed to catch on Before I began reviewing for The tired. At one time it had combined pas- and capture an audience—perhaps the New Republic in 1959, Stark Young and sion for musical megahits with toler- first time that small-press reviewers had Eric Bentley had been its well-respected ance for more serious work, whereas been able to overturn an unfavorable theater critics. Mary McCarthy was now it seemed more and more driven by mainstream judgment. scorching theatrical earth for the the box office. If there was any art or During the early ’60s the most influ- Partisan Review; Richard Hayes was intellect to be found in New York the- ential drama critic was writing not for composing very stylish columns for ater, you had to look off-Broadway. the Times but for the New York Herald- Commonweal; Harold Clurman was ful- I came to The New Republic very Tribune, namely Walter Kerr. Kerr was minating brilliantly in The Nation and much under the influence of my prede- an intelligent critic whose eloquent Kenneth Tynan was just beginning his cessor, Eric Bentley, who in 1946 had prose style embodied decidedly legendary tenure at The New Yorker, stunned academics and intellectuals by Philistine views, further limited by his bringing cosmopolitanism, passion and identifying the playwright as a “thinker.” strict Catholic upbringing. Always ready wit to that magazine’s rather empty I added my two cents in 1958 with a to praise some escapist musical or urbanity. In addition to regular reviews, piece called “The Theatre Is Losing Its domestic comedy, he persistently articles on the theater were frequently Minds,” along with some analytical arti- panned anything by the great mod- being featured in such publications as cles on the current Broadway scene for ernists Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov and Harper’s, The Atlantic, Life, Harper’s Commentary and Harper’s that pleaded Pirandello; totally missed the boat on

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 153 Marat/Sade; and declared, after seeing same time, artists and intellectuals alike theater workers or the mental health of Waiting for Godot, that Samuel Beckett were becoming annoyed with the stran- so many sensitive artists. So I turned was “out of touch with the hearts and glehold maintained on the arts by The down the offer and recommended minds of the folks out front.” New York Times, which, despite Walter Stanley Kauffmann for the job. In short, Kerr was a perfect foil for Kerr’s influence with theater insiders, It was a favor for which he may us young Turks. And our ranks were always had more influence with ordi- never forgive me. Stanley was appointed definitely swelling. The scholar-critic nary theatergoers. Brooks Atkinson’s and lasted about a year. After a highly Richard Gilman took over Richard successor at the Times, Howard contentious season, in which he Hayes’s position at Commonweal and Taubman, was proving even more tone- annoyed Broadway producers by asking then left (to be replaced by Wilfrid deaf than Kerr to the exciting new to review previews, he was replaced by Sheed) to become the drama critic for things that were happening on the New Walter Kerr, responding to the Times’ Newsweek, one of the earliest examples York stage. An impudent new mood was invitation to leave the Herald-Tribune. of an intellectual covering theater for a in the air, symbolized by Joe Heller’s The revolt was over. A few years later, mass magazine. the Times would consolidate its return Gilman left his Newsweek job to join to traditionalism when Kerr moved to my faculty at Yale School of Drama. The It is one thing to write the Sunday section and the paper’s lively universalist Jack Kroll took over dance critic, Clive Barnes, took over the his position and maintained Newsweek’s screeds about the daily post. literate posture, blending Gilman’s vulgarities and The ’60s was also the decade when intellectual weight with his own pop- the resident-theater movement was ulist energies. John Simon wrote serious stupidities of a powerful moving into full gear with the financial and scholarly theater reviews for The aid of the Ford, Rockefeller and Mellon Hudson Review before New York maga- cultural behemoth. It is foundations, not to mention the bud- zine encouraged him to sink his fangs quite another to take ding National Endowment for the Arts. into unsuspecting actors and play- Barricades were being built between wrights. Meanwhile, a new periodical responsibility for critics from smaller publications and called The New York Review of Books nonprofit theater on the one hand, and had appeared during the newspaper the results. the major critics and the commercial strike of 1962-63, started primarily in stage on the other. My confrontation revolt against the Times book review Catch 22, Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor with Walter Kerr over Jonathan Miller’s section. The noted literary critic Strangelove, Nichols and May, and Paul production of Robert Lowell’s The Old Elizabeth Hardwick became the New Sills’ Second City troupe, that was Glory at The American Place Theatre York Review’s regular biweekly theater apparently below the threshold of these was typical. Kerr dismissed it out of critic, writing tough-minded articles reviewers. A long advertisement in the hand. I found it one of the finest of the that, if somewhat short on theater Times, instigated by Philip Roth among year and an occasion for rejoicing that a knowledge, at least treated the stage as others, called for a radical change in the major American poet was writing for a forum that was missing a great oppor- quality of that paper’s cultural writing, the stage. My review concluded with a tunity. Susan Sontag replaced Mary and to everybody’s surprise the editors mock challenge to Kerr: I offered to McCarthy as the resident theater scold seemed to take notice. stop reviewing Broadway musicals if he of Partisan Review. The scholar-trans- At least that was how I interpreted would agree to stay away from off- lator Albert Bermel began to review for the moment in 1965 when I was Broadway experiments. The New Leader. All shared a pro- approached by Clifton Daniels, the Kerr treated my proposal with the nounced distaste for the profit-driven Times’ managing editor, who inquired disdainful silence it probably deserved. products of Broadway and a desire to whether I might be interested in And his attitude was even more lofty endow American theater with some of becoming the paper’s theater critic. when—after abandoning my critic’s job the quality it had traditionally enjoyed Flattered as I was by the proposal, daily for the next 13 years—I moved to New in Europe and Russia. reviewing was clearly not in my future. Haven to start the Yale Repertory As theater critics, we were making Theater notices in those days had to be Theatre. Kerr wanted to come up and the same kinds of demands on plays as completed between the falling of the review our productions. I wrote to him literary critics were making on books curtain and the rising of the sun, and I that these were essentially the workshop and intellectuals on general culture, was unable to write that fast. More projects of a developing company, and questioning the reputations of the importantly, though I had no hesitation as such should not be subjected to the enshrined and proselytizing for under- about speaking my mind from a seat of hit-flop standards of the commercial estimated new talent. We were feeling relative powerlessness, it was quite theater. Would he kindly stay away? our oats and beginning to share our another thing to be responsible for the Kerr replied, “I will respect your wishes. efforts with a much wider public. At the potential unemployment of so many I wish I could respect your manners.”

154 REPORTING THE ARTS II Ouch. A few years later, forced by the stopped reviewing plays. vaguely parasitical about our critical funding climate to depend more and It is hard to say with any accuracy feeding off of big Broadway reputations. more on national recognition, I would why the intelligentsia lost interest in the We needed them, not just to exercise be humbly begging Kerr to come. He theater just as it was in the process of our vocabulary of scorn but to provide did, and wrote reviews that were rarely reform. One reason, surely, was what us with a negative context. We also more than mildly patronizing. many consider to be the collapse of needed their reflected glamour. (In an As for reviewers in cities supporting Broadway. It is one thing to write article called “Ann-Margret and the resident theaters, they were mostly screeds about the vulgarities and stu- Critics,” Rocco Landesman, a theater would-be Walter Kerrs who had cut aficionado before he became a their teeth on pre-Broadway tryouts Broadway producer, shrewdly analyzed and Broadway tours. For a while, we Somehow, people of the motives of small-publication critics, tried to foster critics’ learning, scholar- extraordinary talent— saying that we were secretly as ship, style and knowledge of theater starstruck as anyone else.) process through a DFA program in playwrights, directors, I suppose I was naive to believe that drama criticism at Yale. Yet most of our the new resident-theater movement students couldn’t find newspaper jobs actors, composers, could attract the kind of critical minds when they graduated (Michael Feingold designers—continue to commensurate with its ambitions. First of The Village Voice was a notable of all, who would provide these New exception), probably because the editors work against the odds. Yorkers with travel money for trips to didn’t want anyone more informed than Minneapolis, Louisville or any of the their readers. As a result, I finally had to other “remote” places where plays were admit defeat and let Yale’s criticism pro- pidities of a powerful cultural behe- being produced? Partisan Review? The gram devolve into a program in literary moth. It is quite another to take respon- New York Review of Books? From time management. sibility for the results. For years to time, my own theaters—first the Yale The critics whom I most wanted to Broadway had been synonymous with Repertory Theatre and then the evaluate our work—and that of non- American theater and attracted huge American Repertory Theatre in profit companies forming all over the audiences. But now it was buckling at Cambridge—invented pretexts for intel- country—were my former colleagues. the knees, felled by escalating ticket ligent writers to come see our work, But now that America was finally devel- costs and diminishing creative excite- though rarely in their capacity as critics. oping the kind of theater they had been ment. Box-office sales had fallen precip- We invited the likes of Lizzie Hardwick, calling for—dedicated to art, not profit, itously. The flops outnumbered the hits. Harold Clurman, Eric Bentley, and to works of high literary sensibility The commercial theater was ceasing to Susan Sontag to lecture, direct, or write rather than mere entertainment—those create, or even attract, the major stars plays. Michael Feingold, Albert Bermel needed to do the work of evaluation whose names could keep box offices and Stanley Kauffmann spent time with were headed elsewhere. Hardwick, humming. And even leading play- us in Cambridge as adapters, translators Gilman, Sheed and others went back to wrights such as Miller, Williams and or panelists. None of these eminent peo- book reviewing and general critical Albee were finding it hard to get com- ple ever wrote about any of our produc- essays; Sontag became a novelist; and mercial production. If their plays finally tions or, to my knowledge, those of any Bentley occupied himself writing plays. did reach Broadway, they were usually other resident company outside of Jack Kroll was a constant visitor and panned—and this time not by their old New York. an intelligent analyst of resident theater, antagonists but by The New York Times. Instead, the work of my theater and though even he was not allowed to review Indeed, after 1979, when I had returned of similar ones throughout the nation everything he wanted. William A. Henry as reviewer for The New Republic, I felt was being reviewed by the local media, III, a gadfly of Yale Rep while he was compelled to defend the same play- who were applying the same standards undergraduate theater critic for the Yale wrights I had once criticized, sometimes to Shakespeare and Beckett as to the Daily News, later developed into a very if only to counteract the perfunctory commercial claptrap being shuttled to cogent critic of plays produced outside way they were being dismissed by Frank and from a greatly weakened Broadway. New York for Time magazine. John Rich, who had developed unprecedent- In an article called “Where Are the Simon would have come more often if we ed power as the latest critic for the Repertory Critics?” I called for a new had provided him with a limousine, but Times. Combining Atkinson’s gravitas kind of critical mind, one capable of rec- we knew he hated any deviation from a with Kerr’s show-biz savvy, along with a ognizing that a resident theater was not traditional approach to the classics. The bit of Simon’s vituperation, Rich was a show shop turning out hits and flops others showed very little interest in our becoming known as the Butcher of but rather a living organism of artists work or that of other resident theaters. Broadway. developing alongside audiences. I Indeed, by this point they had mostly There had always been something begged for the critic who could recog-

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 155 nize that the actor he praised in Waiting ferocity, and both engaged in the kind of a chance to praise some English for Godot may have been the same one rough-and-tumble rarely displayed out- import—but in a desultory way. Even he had panned the previous week in side of gladiatorial combat. And Kevin The Village Voice cut down its once- Twelfth Night, that there were links Kelly of , perhaps hefty reviewing staff. The heyday of between plays and performances capa- because he hadn’t been invited, would American theater criticism seemed to ble of being appreciated by a discerning reserve his own comments for future be officially over. intelligence. Most of the local reviewers reviews of our work. I’m not foolish enough to ring death I spoke to about this issue complained Looking back, though, I believe this knells for the American theater or for that they lacked the space and/or the was a very healthy act of catharsis that, American theater criticism. Somehow, editorial support to offer anything more without perhaps changing any minds, people of extraordinary talent—play- than snap judgments and a synopsis of demonstrated the fact that there were wrights, directors, actors, composers, the plot. alternatives to the prevailing system of designers—continue to work against the My final effort to change the prevail- reviewing. The event also showed that if odds. And there are still people of intel- ing intellectual climate took place in there was discontent with the state of lect, writing for Internet organs like 1992, when the American Repertory American theater, there was also consid- HotReview (Jonathan Kalb) or in Theatre ran a symposium on critics and erable dissatisfaction with its criticism. cheeky journals like The New York Sun criticism. The weekend symposium was Did anyone care? Certainly, to judge (Jeremy McCarter), or even for mass- intended as an opportunity for a num- by the dwindling amount of space being circulation dailies like Newsday (Linda ber of critics to sit on panels with the- devoted to plays in newspapers and Winer), who are responsive to the more ater artists and, through discussions magazines, interest in the theater was adventurous expressions of the form. In about the nature of American theater diminishing among the general public. academic journals, Elinor Fuchs and criticism, air their disagreements. Time and Newsweek had virtually Arthur Holmberg are always worth Following an amiable keynote address dropped their regular drama coverage. reading for their scholarship and wit. by Benedict Nightingale, former Sunday The last theater article I can remember Whether these people will manage critic for The New York Times, the blood being published in Harper’s was a to establish the kind of influence began to flow. Frank Rich had been screed aptly called “Theaterophobia” by enjoyed in the past is doubtful. But if invited but declined—wisely, no doubt, the movie critic David Denby. After there is one thing we have learned over since he turned out to be a major target. Frank Rich abandoned daily criticism to time, it is that theater criticism cannot There had been, for example, a back- become an op-ed writer, the Times lost simply be the negative expression of a stage feud going on between him and much of its interest in the theater, as disgruntled voice railing at lifeless Jack Kroll ever since Rich anointed him well as some of its power, and at present objects. It has to recognize, endorse, with the title Jack-the-Hype, an appela- has given up its Sunday theater column and advance the possibilities of renewal. tion Kroll took the opportunity to rebut as well. The New Yorker continued to Without this, criticism becomes simply in public. Jules Feiffer took ferocious cover theater—mainly when John Lahr, another mode of performance, and the exception to John Simon’s exceptional who spends half his year in London, got critic another actor gesticulating in the void.

156 REPORTING THE ARTS II Thoughts on Architecture Criticism

By Robert Campbell

My favorite definition of a critic is by “framed” experience. When you look at a more recently to architecture. It too has the French author Anatole France, who painting, you see it in a frame. It is become frameable and signable. We wrote, “A good critic is one who framed off in space. When you go to a have found a way to rip the building out describes his adventures among master- movie, it begins and ends. It is framed of its context in time and space. The pieces.” off in time. Buildings, however, are change here, of course, came with the That’s the ideal. Good criticism isn’t framed neither in time nor in space. arrival of contemporary media, especial- a judicial system or a system of punish- They exist in relatively stable relation to ly with the invention of photography in ment. As a critic, you shouldn’t be pri- their spatial context, especially the con- the nineteenth century and the rise, marily a member of the taste police. You starting about 1930, of architectural should be a fan, an appreciator, an photography as a profession of highly enthusiast, someone able to awaken It is the quality of the skilled practitioners. Photography is the your readers to the wonder of the world world of interactive removal of context. A photograph of a as it is as well as the wonder of how work of architecture frames it off from much better it could become. My spaces that matters the world and freezes it at a single favorite example in any field is the moment in time. American critic Randall Jarrell, who most, not the aesthetics We now live in a culture so pervaded wrote about poetry with a sense of of this or that by media that we barely notice it. It is a shocked and delighted discovery. It’s world of framed images in our maga- easier to raise people’s standards by individual building. zines, on our screens, and increasingly in admiring what’s good than by knocking our imaginations. We have therefore what’s bad. come to think of buildings as we think of Architectural criticism is in some text of other buildings. And they exist paintings. We think of them as existing ways unique. Other critics are, to a large indefinitely in time. not in a specific time and place, but in extent, consumer guides. They help you It’s helpful to remember that this the worldwide media stream of images. decide which play to see, concert to used to be true of painting as well. I’m often reminded, in this connec- attend, book to read or restaurant to try. Before the Renaissance, a painting tion, of the Smith house, designed by the Architecture is not “consumed” in the invariably existed in some permanent architect Richard Meier and built in the same way. Except in the case of an occa- relation to a cultural and physical con- mid-sixties on the coast of Connecticut. sional spectacular and heavily hyped text. Perhaps it was an altarpiece, inte- I’ve never been there, and neither has new art museum, we don’t normally buy gral with its church, meant not as an art- anyone else I know. But it is familiar to a ticket to see a building. The question, work to be appreciated in isolation but every architect in the world, at least therefore, is why have architecture crit- rather as an illustration of the meaning those of my generation, through photo- ics at all? What is their purpose? of Christianity. Or it was a mural, or a graphs by the great architectural pho- I think it is to stimulate a conversa- floor mosaic, or a decorative frieze, all of tographer Ezra Stoller. tion in society about what constitutes a them permanently attached to some In this case, it seems to me that the good place for human beings to live and larger place and system of values. image, not the house, is the end product work in. A work of architecture must Then it dawned on someone in the of the design process. The house always be understood as a contributing Renaissance that you could take the becomes merely a means to the image. part of something larger than itself. It’s painting off , frame it, sign it and The image is a far more potent and rare that it can usefully be evaluated as send it out to the marketplace, where it influential presence in world culture. an isolated art object. could be sold. Painting changed forever. Inevitably, once that’s realized, architects For that reason, I think architecture Now you could talk about an Uccello or begin to design with an eye to the even- critics go astray when they imitate critics a Kandinsky as a commodity, as a brand- tual photograph. of other arts. The experience of works of name product. Art exists in order to be appreciated. art other than architecture is normally a Something similar has happened It is a grave error, but one commonly

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 157 made by critics and others, to believe the living and working quarters of the expressed them emphatically. And the that buildings exist primarily for the artist. But such works are very much the Times encouraged definite opinions. She same reason. A building is a work of art exception. Most art is framed off. Most recalls that the editor who gave her the too, but of a different kind. Which art is also useless. Indeed, Robert job, Clifton Daniel, would often say in brings me to my own definition of archi- Rauschenberg defines art as that which the early days, “Make up your mind, Ada tecture. It’s this: Architecture is the art has no use. But architecture can neither Louise. Make up your mind.” Huxtable of making places. The places may be be framed, nor can it (with rare excep- had little difficulty in doing that, because rooms and corridors, or streets and tions) be useless. she was a dedicated modernist. She squares, or gardens and golf courses. As Buildings exist in relation to other wrote in an era when modernism was far as I’m concerned, they’re all architec- buildings. Together they shape the still fresh, and the battle to establish it ture, because they are all places made spaces, both indoors and out, in which over historic styles was still in progress. for human habitation. we live our lives. It is the quality of the The pale ghost of early modernism’s And that’s how you experience archi- world of interactive spaces that matters social agenda, based on socialist political tecture: You inhabit it. You don’t merely most, not the aesthetics of this or that beliefs, was still present. So was the look at it or walk around it. You inhabit individual building. As the Luxembourg movement’s infatuation with the it—either literally with your own body or architect Leon Krier has suggested, machine. figuratively with your imagination—as when an architect designs a building he Huxtable was the public voice of the you look up, perhaps, at a window and or she should think, “I am making a modernist consensus in American archi- imagine yourself to be inside looking piece of the whole world.” tectural culture. She was also, coming as out. she did from an art history background, You inhabit with all your senses. a dedicated preservationist who Think of a visit, let’s say, to a church in New styles of despised new buildings that revived an Italian hill town. You enter the architecture now older styles. When, in 1970, she won the church, and suddenly the air is cool and first Pulitzer Prize ever given in the field humid. The ache in your knees speaks of appear every few years of criticism (and later, in 1981, received a the steps you have climbed to get here. MacArthur Fellowship), she solidified The intense sun outside is replaced by and enjoy a brief run of the status of architecture criticism as a the shadowy cave of the church. Sound fashion. They then fail beat for major newspapers. here is more hushed, yet more reverber- Today the old modernist unanimity ant. You hear a motorcycle start up out- to disappear. has disappeared. New styles of architec- side, making you feel how intensely you ture now appear every few years and are inside. You’re starting to smell the It is the shift from thinking about enjoy a brief run of fashion. They then candles now. Light draws you toward architecture as the making of places to fail to disappear. We’ve seen styles called the altar. As you move across the floor, thinking of it as the making of frameable postmodernism, deconstruction, blob you realize it’s been carved into a kind of aesthetic objects that has made architec- architecture, modernist revival, new landscape by many people walking over tural criticism so much more problemat- urbanism and neoclassicism. We’ve seen time. And as you move, you begin to ic today than in the past. It is possible to notable architects become fascinated have the primal experience of architec- establish criteria with which to evaluate with, among many other themes, tecton- ture—perceiving that space configures the quality of a place. But it is difficult, ic-plate movement, linguistic analysis, and reconfigures around you as you to say the least, to assess the merit of an fractal geometry, climatic sustainability move through it. arbitrary formal exercise. As a result, and junk materials as primary sources Not too much of that experience is there is today no consensus about what for architectural form. purely visual. Yet in the media culture, “good” architecture is. We’ve seen a revival of architecture’s we pretend to ourselves that framed That wasn’t always true. The profes- being perceived as an elitist cult activity images can wholly represent places. sion of architectural criticism as now to be appreciated only by the knowing, There are, of course, some kinds of practiced was begun by Ada Louise in-group aficionado. We’ve witnessed, by art that resemble architecture in being Huxtable, the New York Times critic contrast, a powerful reversion to the tra- unframed. Installation art is precisely a from 1963-82. There had been a couple ditional, a move that is certainly a reac- reaction against the framed object on of notable predecessors—Montgomery tion against the confusion and, to many the white and placeless museum wall. Schuyler in many publications from people, incomprehensibility of contem- Such art interacts with its context. One 1880-1914 and Lewis Mumford in The porary styles. An example would be a thinks, for example, of Donald Judd’s New Yorker in the 1930s and 1940s—but place like Princeton, which is now anx- work in Marfa, Texas, where his art is Huxtable was the first full-time profes- ious to restore the “brand image” of the inextricably involved not only with the sional architecture critic writing for a school as established by its neo-Gothic preexisting town, its landscape, and its newspaper. architecture of 100 years ago. And we’ve history as a military base, but also with Huxtable knew her values and also seen, in the work of someone like

158 REPORTING THE ARTS II the Dutch architect and writer Rem Lee Bollinger put it in a spring 2003 dral. When it’s democratic government, Koolhaas, a kind of slummer’s delight in talk on journalism in general, it is to it’s the capitol. When it’s the corpora- the worst excesses of populist, capitalist mediate between confused experts on tion, it’s the office tower. sprawl development. the one hand and common sense on the Take office towers: One may think of In this swamp of multiple and arbi- other. them, especially ones built in recent trary viewpoints, where does the critic In no way do I mean to play down decades, as being inexpressive of values. find a place to stand? It’s no longer pos- the purely architectural merits of build- They are simple boxes of leasable space. sible to be, as Huxtable was, the voice of ings. We can all delight in mastery of They look like the carton the real build- a clear consensus that believed in itself metaphor, craftsmanship, invention, ing came in. But that, of course, is pre- with an almost messianic fervor. In the light and space, and in the way a build- cisely the value they broadcast so elo- absence of a fixed set of values against ing, like a poem, can comment on its quently: that what matters in the world which to appraise a building, how does a predecessors and thus join the great nar- is commerce and nothing more. Where writer make value judgments? What, to rative of architecture history. There is all the party-hatted spires of older sky- ask the question once again, is the pur- this and much else besides. But those scrapers like the Empire State and pose of an architecture critic? joys aren’t enough. Chrysler Buildings were a metaphor for I would argue that the only answer a kind of joyous individual aspiration to that question is to abandon our habit under capitalism, the boxtops of today of looking at architecture as a frameable The critic should come speak of a more collective, anonymous art like painting, and to see it again, as as close as possible to corporate culture. we did before photography, in a larger That’s just one example. Arch- context. We have to reach outside archi- drowning in sensual itecture is always eloquent, not just a tecture to find the values by which to slide show. We should be asking, though, judge it. It sounds corny to say, but it’s experience, only then whether it’s eloquent about the values time to remember that architecture is striking out for the that matter long-term. Only when we about how we should live on our planet. ask that question will we recover from It is about where we live, not what we shore of some kind of our infatuation with each passing visual look at. I suggest that the future of style. architecture lies in re-attaching it to formulation. The British critic J. M. Richards these larger issues. once wrote, “Architecture cannot You can summarize these issues with Nor do I suggest that the critic progress by the fits and starts that a suc- the one world “health”—personal health, approach a building with some kind of cession of revolutionary ideas involves. social health and planetary health. predetermined checklist of qualities Nor, if it exists perpetually in a state of Architecture can, for example, help keep against which it should be measured. revolution, will it achieve any kind of us from being obese by creating walka- Not at all. As I suggested in the fantasy public following, since public interest ble, bikeable communities, or by offering of visiting an Italian hill town, your first thrives on a capacity to admire what is enticing public stairs instead of hiding duty as a critic is to immerse yourself in already familiar and a need to label and them behind the elevator, or by keeping the work. Values have to be placed on classify.” us in touch with the natural world. It hold while you do that. A building can We must ask architects to first imag- can help preserve democracy by creating be good in ways that never would have ine a better world and then supply the settlement patterns that draw different occurred to you until you were there. buildings that will help to create it. kinds of people into public places where The critic should come as close as possi- Buildings must be placed, and under- they mix, meet and learn about one ble to drowning in sensual experience, stood, within a web of larger values. another’s concerns. It can help preserve only then striking out for the shore of When that happens, the public—some of the planet by curbing the kind of mind- some kind of formulation. whom suspect that architects have “rev- less sprawl development that destroys But when the formulation comes, it olutionary values” and subscribe to a nature while poisoning the atmosphere must be to place the building within the private set of aesthetic beliefs nobody and maximizing consumption of plane- framework of a larger world of values. else understands—may once again tary resources. As the landscape architect Reuben become appreciators and supporters of Spelling out those aims is the work Rainey once eloquently put it, “Design good architecture. of another essay. The purpose of this one is, in essence, giving form to value.” That In its landmark 2001 study The is to point a way out of the current mess has always been true. The world we Architecture Critic, the National Arts of values-free aestheticism. The role of build is a readable graph of the values of Journalism Program came up with some architectural criticism, unlike that of the people who create it. Often it’s a sobering facts. Of the 40 critics sur- other kinds, is to make connections graph of power. When the king is in veyed, 32 disagreed with the statement, between architecture and other values. charge, the palace is the biggest build- “Generally speaking, we can be proud of Or as Columbia University President ing. When it’s the cardinal, it’s the cathe- the new built environment we have

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 159 developed over the past 25 years.” Of the really believes we are living in a great era NAJP survey understand this. Much of 10 American buildings the critics liked of architecture. their writing crosses the border between best, none was completed later than When we succeed in reconnecting architecture and broader social and 1939, an amazing 65 years ago. I don’t architecture to the needs and values of environmental issues such as ecology, fully agree; I would certainly place the the larger world, that disbelief will end. sprawl, urbanism, planning and preser- Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, by So will the skepticism of the public. vation. Like President Bollinger’s jour- Louis Kahn, on that list. But the larger Interest in architecture will grow. So will nalists, they are seeking to mediate point is true. For all the fuss over isolat- the number of architecture critics, now between expertise—in this case, that of ed avant-garde works like Frank Gehry’s pathetically few. the architects—and the common sense Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, nobody The critics who responded to the of the larger public.

160 REPORTING THE ARTS II The Fine Arts on TV

By Donald Munro & Joshua Seftel

The woman’s lips are lush and insis- Of course, such a claim would be pure in Minneapolis, says general television tent. “I confess I love that which caress- fiction. For the most part, TV simply coverage of the arts has decreased over es me,” they say. The tightly framed shot ignores such subjects as theater, dance, the past decade. Even classical music— of her face is a pretty good way to snare visual arts and—God forbid—poetry. one of the fine arts thought to be best- your garden-variety channel surfer. Her And when the attempt is made, it often suited to television—dropped 8 percent mouth is full and sensuous, her voice falls flat. A fixed camera tries to capture in terms of media-participation rates dramatic and beckoning. “Stand up and a theater performance. A dancer keeps between 1992 and 2002, as compared look at me, face-to-face, friend-to- getting lost on a dark stage. A large and to 1982-1992. The 2002 Survey of friend,” the lips continue. And even resonant painting looks flat and unin- Public Participation in the Arts indicat- though we simply see a person talking— ed that only 18 percent of the popula- no sex, no violence, none of the frenetic tion, or 37 million people, viewed a clas- stuff to which television audiences are How dare this show sical music performance at least once on said to be addicted with the passion of be so intriguing—and TV, video or DVD in a 12-month period. crack addicts—there’s something about “We can presume that the media, by the intensity of her delivery that makes so fluent in the and large being a for-profit media, don’t the moment compelling. Even the most see there’s a profit in this,” says Gray, cit- disinterested observer might linger. language of television— ing a study he and Joni Maya Cherbo Can TV cover the fine arts? Sure it that it tricks me into conducted for the National Endowment can. But it’s so rare we’ve almost forgot- for the Arts based on the 2002 survey. ten it can be done. As the lips segment watching something “And the non-profit media became a continues, it’s a mystery as to what it’s smaller percentage of the total.” all about until we are introduced to about poetry? So much for the giddy assumption, Robert Pinsky, a former United States when cable first appeared, that more poet laureate, framed in a more stan- teresting on the small screen. channels would mean better coverage of dard interview shot in which we can see “I think that arts programming on such niche markets as the fine arts. his entire face and upper body. “The commercial television doesn’t necessari- How much “A” is left in the A&E net- medium for a poem,” he says, “is breath.” ly work,” says Shari Levine, a vice presi- work these days? Yes, the subject is poetry. On televi- dent and executive producer at Bravo. As for network TV, you can pretty sion. This piece—on WGBH-TV’s “It just doesn’t have a big enough audi- much forget about it, except for such acclaimed Greater Boston Arts, which ence. We’ve done opera in prime time— holdovers as the venerable Sunday features people from all walks of life the viewer wasn’t interested.” Morning show on CBS, which still man- reciting the words of Sappho and oth- Though Levine says there aren’t ages to work in an arts-related segment ers—is devoted to what some would hard statistics available on how much most weeks. consider to be among the least telegenic Bravo has shifted away from fine-arts On one hand, some think that the of topics. You can almost sense the casu- offerings in the last five years, she notes less arts coverage on TV the better, sim- al channel surfer, for whom fine-arts that the network—which is home to ply because the medium can’t do justice coverage on television is synonymous such shows as Queer Eye for the Straight to the subject. “Normally television— with stuffy Masterpiece Theatre reruns Guy—now positions itself as a main- even public television—should be kept and poorly lighted ballet recitals, recoil- stream-entertainment channel. Even as far away from art as a convicted child ing in horror. How dare this show be so when audiences do flock to, say, The molester should from a neighborhood intriguing—and so fluent in the lan- Three Tenors on PBS, most of their playground,” wrote Christopher Knight, guage of television—that it tricks me members are over 55—not the a fine-arts critic for the Los Angeles into watching something about poetry? sort of viewers that commercial net- Times, in 2003. “Mass culture thrives It would be nice to think that poetry works crave. on piety, genuine or fake, and piety suf- is being covered in seductively creative Charles M. Gray, a professor of eco- focates art.” Others say it might be more ways on television all across the country. nomics at the University of St. Thomas useful to think of television not as a sub-

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 161 stitute for experiencing the arts first- documentary approach. That collabora- est opera to a segment on the most stat- hand, but more as a preview. For no tion includes a long pre-shooting dis- ic of sculptures. Think about how much matter how inferior it is to the real cussion, so the videographer under- money a television network puts into thing, it can pique the interest of the stands the dance well before filming broadcasting a professional football audience. Gray’s research also indicates begins. “When you’re really able to see game—the myriad cameras, the top- a strong link between media exposure dance is when you aren’t trying to treat notch direction, the fancy graphics. and attendance at live events; someone it as a live art,” she says. Then again, Compared to the craft and expense of who’d seen an orchestral performance Corbett adds, the bigger the budget, the such endeavors, arts programming, for on TV was thus more likely to better the chance that a visually sophis- the most part, is like a Friday-night high attend a live concert. ticated mainstream audience will pay school football game televised on cable Then there’s the issue of the arts attention. “Equipment has everything to access, using a stationary camera from requiring context and background, do with it,” she says. “Lighting has the press box. Such a presentation especially among audience members everything to do with it. The higher-end might get the job done for die-hard fans who didn’t have childhood exposure production you have, the better it’s and the players’ parents, but for every- through their parents or from a strong going to be.” one else, it’s so unappealing you can’t educational influence. “Arts are complex Stephanie Stewart, the series pro- move your remote finger fast enough. things to consume,” Gray says. “They’re ducer of Greater Boston Arts, says that Yet TV can pull through despite its not like potatoes and meat. We have to lately it’s become more of a challenge to limitations. Programs such as Sunday develop what you might call ‘consump- Morning, Greater Boston Arts and the tion skills.’ The media can be an impor- cancelled Egg have regularly trans- tant piece of that.” So much for the giddy formed the fine arts into compelling tel- Something’s better than nothing, it assumption, when cable evision. Yo-Yo Ma’s six-part Inspired by seems. Bach film series, coproduced by PBS, Are there any art forms that TV is first appeared, that racked up awards at the Berlin and able to portray well? While classical Venice film festivals. The PBS series Art: music and opera can sometimes ade- more channels would 21 garnered strong reviews for produc- quately translate, theater is a challenge. mean better coverage of ers Susan Sollins and Catherine Tatge The exception might be plays with very and director Charles Atlas, who “let the small casts; an Albee drama might such niche markets as artists do the talking on their own come across better than a play by behalf, both in the studio and at various Shakespeare. The visual arts are diffi- the fine arts. How much exhibition venues,” Christopher Knight cult, too. “If I were a painter, I would “A” is left in the A&E noted in an L.A. Times review. cringe to see my work on video,” says Sometimes it’s about finding a Boston choreographer Caitlin Corbett. network these days? strong narrative in an arts story, such as Then again, she adds, capturing live when Sunday Morning delved into the dance on TV isn’t exactly a breeze mystique of the Baroque painter either: “How can you? It flattens the raise money for arts segments on her Artemisia Gentileschi, who became the essence of it.” show. “It takes an enormous amount of It Girl of the art world after interest in At one low-budget extreme, dance perseverance to continue making arts her was sparked in the . The result can seem terribly static on television— for television, given that arts do not gar- was strong on biography—including the faraway and disengaged—with one or ner large audiences and so need to be scandal of what reads today like a mod- two fixed cameras providing almost per- justified on other, non-market-driven ern-day date rape. With such a fascinat- functory visuals. At the other end of the terms,” she says. “Even in public broad- ing character, the story had extra “zip,” spectrum, though, TV’s penchant for the casting, making this case just keeps get- says executive producer Rand Morrison. close-up can destroy its overall look and ting harder.” And while the cost of pro- At other times, it’s about using the feel. “Then you’re missing all the chore- duction has come down in recent very limitations of the subject matter to ography because you have to look at the years—shooting and editing are cheaper make a compelling visual story. sexy dancer,” says Corbett, whose Caitlin by meaningful margins—Stewart notes Consider when Greater Boston Arts Corbett Dance Company juxtaposes that experienced producers may be chose to do a piece on a postage-stamp everyday movement with cutting-edge forced out of the business if their exhibition. When the producer and modern dance. “You wind up not doing salaries are cut too severely, causing cameraman arrived at the gallery a few justice to the work.” production values to suffer. days before the exhibit was to open, Corbett says the best dance pieces You can’t help but imagine, then, they found a harried curator, a room she’s seen on TV are those in which the that if enough resources were put into with blank walls, and postage stamps all videographer collaborates with the cho- covering the fine arts on TV, almost any- over the floor. There was nothing to film. reographer instead of taking a purely thing could look good—from the stuffi- The producer ran to the store and

162 REPORTING THE ARTS II bought a large magnifier while the cam- odd-shaped nose of a man, the big plas- art in itself. eraman dug through the back of his van tic-rimmed glasses of a woman, the silver In many ways, fine arts will always and found a pane of clear glass. They hoop earring caught in a sliver of one be an awkward fit on TV—unless some- laid the stamps on the pane, placed the thing pretty strange happens to the curator on one side with the magnifier nation’s drinking-water supply and in her hand, and shot the interview You can’t help but Super Bowl-sized audiences start tuning through the glass. The result was a visu- imagine, then, that if in to 30-minute segments on disaffect- ally arresting interview that featured the ed abstract-expressionist painters. In artwork in the foreground and the cura- enough resources were that case, production values would tor in the background, playfully distort- become so lavish that it would be hard ed by the magnifier as she spoke about put into covering the not to make art exciting. But the hope the stamps. fine arts on TV, almost remains that by taking a creative And then there’s poetry. If WGBH approach, even a niche market can be can make it look good, isn’t there hope? anything could nurtured. Even by the finicky standards of a “I don’t think the good old days are medium that values the visual above all look good. behind us, but I do think we have to else, the Greater Boston Arts segment on come up with some antidotes to the poetry comes across as good television. frame. People are drawn to people. relentless demands of the market when When the first woman—with those com- Stewart, at WGBH, never stops it comes to the arts,” Stewart says. “In a pelling lips—recites the opening line, the thinking about the visual, no matter celebrity-driven society, can you name a image itself draws the viewer in. what genre is being presented. For her, living artist who is a household name? There’s no doubt that the pull of this that’s what sets TV apart. And even The problem is engendering the interest piece, and of others created for the series, though it might make the job tougher, it of a broad audience and of funders is visual. We drink in the details on the also makes possible—when the stars despite the fact that no one will get very real faces we see in front of us: the and funding align—arts coverage that is rich from it.”

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 163 Below the Radar Covering the Arts Underground

By

A line that snakes around the block are increasingly suspicious of them— happening in their community—at the for hours leads to a manhole, through partly because their cultural world is most basic level that’s their job.” which people climb down to an aban- being ignored. What’s a paper to do? Those stories don’t often come doned 19th-century train tunnel filled “You can’t really cover something prepackaged as press releases or as list- with a tunnel-themed art-and-video unless you have someone who’s invest- ings from regular advertisers and well- show; no newspaper covers it. More ed in it,” says Jeff Stark, editor of established venues. Flyers—especially than a thousand people crowd into a “Nonsense NYC,” an e-mail omnium- in record stores, no matter what medi- warehouse basement in which artists gatherum of unusual and uncategoriz- um they’re promoting—and word of are displaying their work everywhere, able New York events, which is sent out mouth are the traditional tools of the musical and acrobatic performances are underground, but new culture is happening in multiple rooms, and the “If you’re interested in increasingly publicized, discussed and bar is serving absinthe; no newspaper evaluated on the Internet—sometimes has even been notified that it’s happen- covering the arts, you on e-mail lists like “Nonsense NYC,” ing. A truck with a sound system pulls have to be going out to sometimes on Web sites. As Robert up to the front of the public library, and Kimberly puts it, “An Internet presence 100 people sitting on the steps abruptly find them. They don’t is the reverse of a mass mailing: You burst into an elaborately choreographed only have to create it once for anyone five-minute dance routine, then dis- come and find you.” to see it.” perse; organizers are careful not to let Kimberly runs a Weblog called “Las the news media know about it. At a every week with the note that “you do Vegas Arts and Culture” that he started “subway party” in San Francisco, a not have permission to use any of the in the fall of 2003 to cover his city’s reporter introduces himself as being listings for your commercial publica- scene, which he thinks its newspapers from The New York Times, tries to tion.” Stark has been on both sides of neglect. “This will sound terrible, but I interview participants and finds himself the underground/journalism divide. A don’t subscribe to the local papers,” he shunned as a tool of the corporate press. former editor at Salon.com, he’s also says. “I don’t find anything of interest There’s always more interesting art one of the people behind the Mad- in them.” He launched the site, with going on in any city than a newspaper agascar Institute, a wildly inventive free software from Apple and a free has room to cover. Especially in the last Brooklyn arts collective that had never account from Blogger, in response to a 10 years or so, the arts and culture been mentioned in the Times until the specific event: Survival Research Labs, underground has fallen out of touch group’s director, Chris Hackett, injured the infamous Bay Area robots-and- with newspapers to the point where himself and attracted the FBI’s atten- explosives group, had planned a large- dailies and even alternative weeklies tion with an accidental explosion in scale performance in Las Vegas, “and a may not be in the loop about signifi- January 2004. lot of people didn’t know about it—and cant artists and events, while the “If I was a music editor at a major they were people I knew would love it. Internet is becoming the preferred daily,” Stark says, “I’d never hire anyone I thought, this is the final straw.” source of information for young read- who didn’t go out at least four times a Heidi Calvert, who runs the multi- ers. Artists who operate below the week. Journalists can get really lazy— purpose art space Bluespace, in Los radar may not know how to seek out they think they know about a city Angeles, says she doesn’t read the publicity from traditional print media; because they’ve lived there for a while, papers either, especially for coverage of they may simply not care about “valida- and they forget that there are new peo- art, and doesn’t have much hope of tion” from the press. In some cases, ple arriving and trying new things. If newspapers’ covering her scene any- especially if the circumstances of their you’re interested in covering the arts, time soon. “We’re just doing it our- work are legally dodgy, they may you have to be going out to find them. selves. The artists go around passing actively try to avoid press coverage. At They don’t come and find you. Papers out flyers, and we use Tribe and the same time, the smart young audi- should be interested in finding good Friendster and Myspace and ences that newspapers want to court stories and interesting things that are Livejournal to promote our events.

164 REPORTING THE ARTS II Even the L.A. Weekly is picky about The contents of the “Squid List” about it within the fold of the arts sec- what they cover—maybe you have to rarely overlap with those of the print tion. Find the space and go with it.” know someone there or you have to be newspapers. “Just look at what the Conversely, there’s the problem of connected with celebrities.” papers cover,” Beale says. “We’ve got what to do about artists and events In Portland, Ore., James Squeaky the underground art scene, but San organizers who actively shun publici- runs a Yahoo! mailing list, “pdxshows,” Francisco’s got an established opera, ty—not on ideological grounds but for people who want to get the word the symphony, SFMOMA [San because they’re legally dubious. “House out about informally organized hap- Francisco Museum of Modern Art]— shows—that is, bands playing in some- penings—mostly music, but sometimes by the time they’re done with that, one’s basement—in particular, run into other art events. He notes that the they’re not going to drill down to any of problems with police knowing about Portland Mercury, one of two local the good stuff. I’m sure they’ll be writ- them ahead of time,” Squeaky says. weeklies, covers some of the same terri- ing about Survival Research Labora- Some kinds of events become more tory, partly because its music editor is tories in 20 years; if Lawrence open to publicity over time, though. As thoroughly keyed into the local scene: Ferlinghetti does something now, of an example, Beale cites Santacon, the “We’re fortunate to have the Mercury tradition of having dozens of people in in Portland, but I haven’t quite figured Santa Claus suits running amok across out how to get those events into good “There has to be an a city: “In the early days we definitely hands at the Willamette Week.” editor who’s there for didn’t want any press—we had a lot of That’s a constant complaint from problems with the cops back then. Now artists and event organizers who writers to say, ‘Okay, go I think police departments know about haven’t dealt with print media in the it and don’t care.” past. They don’t know where to start or ahead and run with it.’ ” In any case, the consensus is that whom to call or what form to use for newspapers should try to be respectful their information, and papers make it of artists’ wishes—and that reporters difficult to connect with the right per- course it gets written about. To me the and newspapers that have demonstrat- son. Some journalists are so lazy they newspapers are pretty far away. ed an ongoing commitment to the won’t get around to anything that Especially in cities that have only one underground arts world are much doesn’t come from a paid publicist. paper, there’s such an obligation to more likely to find their subjects coop- Another Portlander, artist and occa- cover all that mainstream stuff.” erative. “Keep an open mind,” Cotner sional journalist Tiffany Lee Brown, One source of the problem is that says. “Don’t have preconceived notions. notes that “part of the wall between newspapers traditionally have their Know when to keep your mouth shut. these events and coverage is simply a arts coverage neatly arranged in cate- And once you get in the community, be presentation issue.” She consulted with gories: film, music, theater, visual arts friendly—most people are genuinely the local group 2 Gyrlz Performative and so on. But a lot of underground art happy to talk about what they do.” Arts to help them understand how to doesn’t fit easily into any section. It can Notes Stark: “The number one thing to deal with the press for their hard-to- be amorphous and event-based, and it do is what MTV did, and what all the classify “Enteractive Language often only happens once. As Beale puts magazines that have been successful in Festival,” and notes that “with a great it, “The film critic gets a screener, the getting younger readers have done: deal of determination and focus on the drama critic goes to the preview; what Bring on younger people. You’ve got to part of the organizers, 2 Gyrlz was able do you do with this? If you’re going to listen to them and let them be part of to get some mainstream media cover- cover it, you almost need an ‘other’ sec- the news organization. If you want age for the festival—a lot of which tion. It’s outside the established art people reading your listings to be made sense and was accurate.” world—the point is not to make money smart 23-year-olds who go out a lot, But other artists and events pro- selling it.” then you’d better have a smart 23-year- ducers aren’t so well-equipped. David Stark has less patience for newspa- old who goes out a lot editing Cotner, who writes about avant-garde per editors who can’t find a spot to that section.” music for L.A. Weekly—and sends out cover worthwhile but uncategorizable It’s also vital to avoid the error of a weekly e-mail list, “Actions,” which events: “If it’s that good, make room for separating coverage of newer, edgier catalogues experimental performances it! I’m sorry for that music writer who art from a grayer “conventional” arts all over the world—says that “there has needs to push their story back a day, or section. In practice it can make young to be an editor who’s there for writers to that fifth film that was opening that readers trust newspapers even less. “I say, ‘Okay, go ahead and run with it.’” weekend that isn’t going to get written hate when newspapers launch those And he notes that artists who don’t about, but if you’ve got a good story, spin-off boutique papers that are sup- have regularly scheduled events (and run it! I think that we journalists want posed to do a better job of reaching out press releases going out on a regular everything to be in neat little sections, to young people and the arts,” Stark basis) can be a hard sell. but our readers don’t care as much says. “It only ghettoizes them into this

NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 165 substandard thing, and it ends up look- class and education and employment their comfortable little boxes. That’s ing like a pathetic advertising grab.” and subculture, and they tend to pre- part of the reason I want mainstream Brown also argues for covering every- vent us from experiencing a wide range media coverage—it opens the doors to thing interesting in the same place: of art. I welcome publications and people being able to discover some- “We have social categories based on events that get people to crawl out of thing new and possibly mind-blowing.”

166 REPORTING THE ARTS II NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 167