I'm embarrassed by the art blogging community's reaction to Charlie Finch's recent rant on ArtNet. Why respond at all, especially if the reaction is as vitriolic as the rant that precipitated it?
In any case, who has time to keep up with all the art blogs anymore? There are hundreds worth reading, but there are also thousands of books and magazines to be cracked and untold hours of living away from the computer to be done, including those spent in - oh, yeah! - the studio. Shrug off Finch quietly and get on with things.
In other art blogging news, one of my recent drawings is featured in the Pittsburgh installment of "The Blogger Show." That exhibition, at Digging Pitt Gallery, opens on November 10th, with a reception on December 8th.
Tonight, however, the NYC installment of the show opens at Agni Gallery. A number of artists who blog (and well) are included in the show. I plan on stopping by to check out the work.
6 comments:
I agree with you on Finch. He's just a pundit. Like all pundits it's best to ignore him.
Hi, Bill.
It was nice to (briefly) meet you last night. I had to run to an opera that a friend was singing in and so didn't have time to chat. I would have liked that.
Congratulations on the show. I hope to see more of your work in future shows.
YAY HH! I appreciate this post.
Here's a question: Do you feel like you're a part of a community by being someone who blogs? I must say, I don't.
I just got my first antagonistic comment on my blog. Fun.
Great meeting you too, Sir. Hope the opera was terrific. Ah, what eclectic tastes these art bloggers have.
Hi, Molly.
In response to your question, yes and no.
I have, in the past, felt that I was part of a community of bloggers, particularly when I began HH in 2005. At that time my posts focused on environmental updates and ecology, and I was therefore connected to a different group of bloggers.
When I first started reading art blogs, there were not that many of them. I knew only a few art bloggers worth reading, and met a few of them in person. As the blogroll continued to grow, however, I had to start paring down my blog reading and, so as not to feel like I was neglecting virtual friends' writing, I made a point of lessening my blogger interaction - I became a lurker, in other words. I began commenting only rarely (and only on a select few blogs) and I stopped reading most of the comments sections, as I found them (and still do) dominated by one or two belligerent voices.
But I'm being a bit hypocritical. I enjoy receiving comments here and sometimes even ask for them. I find the feedback of value.
Bill Gusky's remarks about the value (and pitfalls) of art blogs are on the money. If you haven't read them, I recommend it.
So there you have it. I just recommended a bit of writing by an art blogger commenting just above. I suppose there is something of a community sense in this mess, but it's vague yet...and maybe that's for the best. If all the artist/writer types were friends (or congenial acquaintances), their opinions would be sure to raise eyebrows. We're better off being dismissed as loud mouth morons than to be a clique, I feel.
The principal values of blogging, for me, are a) working out kinked ideas that are, in turn, poured into the studio and b) assembling a catalog of skeleton essays, ideas that maybe one day can be more fully explored for publication elsewhere. Without HH, I wouldn't have been invited to write reviews for the ArtCal Zine or be submitting articles (to be published in '08) to NY Arts. It is a springboard to "getting out there" for me. If becoming part of a community is part of "getting out," so be it, but I presume it will be a community more wide in scope.
That's a petty, nasty little bit of writing. By the way, who's Charlie Finch? (snort)
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