Art blog explained

An art blog is a common type of blog that comments on art. More recently, as with other types of blogs, some art blogs have taken on 'web 2.0' social networking features. Art blogs that adopt this sort of change can develop to become a source of information on art events (listings and maps), a way to share information and images, or virtual meeting ground.

Art blog entries cover different topics, from art critiques and commentary to insider art world gossip, auction results, art news, personal essays, portfolios, interviews, artists' journals, art marketing advice, and artist biographies. Some artists use art blogs as a form of new media art project.

Art blogs may also serve as a forum to reach out to anybody interested in art – be it painting, sculpture, print making, creative photography, video art, conceptual art, or new media. In this way, they may be visited not only for the practitioners of different forms of art, but also collectors, connoisseurs, and critics.

Mainstream media

In 2011, art critic Brian Sherwin interviewed art critic Mat Gleason of Coagula Art Journal for Faso.com's FineArtViews blog. The interview between Sherwin and Gleason focused on contemporary art criticism and the role of art blogs in present-day art criticism among other issues. Gleason suggested to Sherwin that art blogs and the development of new media have become a "blow" to traditional print art magazines. Gleason and Sherwin also discussed how bloggers form a "pack mentality" based on region and perceived significance.^{[1] [2]}

On 28 April 2009, Art Connect produced an in-depth interview by Peter Cowling for Art Connect and Jessica Palmer of Bioephemera. The interview, titled "It is not Really Bloggers vs. Journalists, You Know,"^[3] pointed to five trends that were shaping the communication and discussion of art on the internet and that the real picture was much bigger than just the bloggers vs. journalists that had been discussed to date. These five points were:

• Media convergence will continue to improve consumer choice, providing a better match between desire and availability.
• Content producers are just that. Consumers care less about how and where they can get the content they want. What they do consistently care about is the quality of the content and whether the content is produced to their timescales.
• The content producer-to-content consumer relationship is changing. Requests for feedback and further debate have been partially overtaken by things like conversations, and further fragmentation will certainly occur.
• Information technology and systems, provided as commodity (pay-as-you-go) services. Such services range from processing and storage, through to credit card processing and super-fast content delivery.
• The economic downrun.

On 8 January 2009, Regina Hackett, art critic of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, noted in her article "Art blogs hit Wikipedia"^[4] that commercially run, mainstream media-supported art blogs face issues of acceptance among the independent art blogging community.

On 7 January 2009, The Village Voice art critic Martha Schwendener suggests that art blogs have helped shape a more laissez-faire climate for art writing. "Art blogs have created a new, largely unedited, admirably 'unprofessional'—hence, democratic—venue for people to speak their minds, gossip, or theorize about art."^[5]

In September 2008, the Brooklyn Rail contributor James Kalm produced an article titled "Virtually Overwhelmed.".^[6] A practicing artist and video blogger himself, Kalm says about art blogs, "The art blogosphere is a work in progress, and you’ve got to be vigilant of hidden agendas. As with anything online, take it with a grain of salt. Have fun, speak out, but don’t let it cut too much into your studio time; you might end up in a twelve step-program."

In the November 2007 issue of Art in America, Peter Plagens contributed "Report from the Blogosphere: The New Grass Roots."^[7] Plagens convened a round table of veteran art bloggers, who conversed via email on a range of questions, aimed at getting a better understanding of what art blogs were, how they were run, and their relationship with the mainstream media.

In an October 2007 article for Artnet Magazine, critic Charlie Finch suggested that art critiques and reviews by art bloggers are overrated and lengthy, and implied that the art blogging community was overly insular.^[8] The article includes several ad hominen arguments against specific art bloggers, and ventures the opinion that art blogs "have no readers".

In the January 2005 issue of Art in America,^[9] Raphael Rubinstein mentioned several blogs in the magazine's "Front Page" section, where he penned a brief, annotated survey of 12 art blogs that he found "to be worth regular visits.". Rubinstein opined that "art-related blogs" had not, at the time, become as consequential as blogs in other fields such as poetry or politics.

Academia

In December 2008, the art blog The Dump,^[10] where the new-media artist Maurice Benayoun dumped hundreds of undone art projects, was the first to become a doctorate thesis in art and art science in and of itself: Artistic Intentions at Work, Hypothesis for Committing Art Université Pantheon Sorbonne (6 December 2008). This PhD was directed by Prof. Anne-Marie Duguet. Jury: Prof. Hubertus von Amelunxen, Louis Bec, artist, Prof. Derrick de Kerckhove, and Prof. Jean da Silva.

In May 2010, The Dump – Recycling of Thoughts, a contemporary art exhibition curated by Agnieszka Kulazińska at Laznia Art Center (Gdańsk, Poland) presented 9 artists whose works were derived from The Dump blog project list.^[11]

Other coverage

Other coverage of art blogs includes interviews of art bloggers, reviews of art blog sites, and recommendations of favorite sites. Art Connect has produced around 90 reviews of art blogs and undertakes interviews with art bloggers.^[12] The Courtauld Institute of Art, in London, maintains a list of recommended art blogs.^[13] Directories such as Yahoo! Directory and BlogCatalog maintain a list of user-submitted art blogs.

List of notable art blogs

• A Year of Positive Thinking^[14] is published by artist and activist Mira Schor, "a cheerful postscript" to her book of essays on art, culture and politics called A Decade of Negative Thinking.
• Art F City, founded by Paddy Johnson, is an officially non-profit art blog that covers new art in New York. At The New York Times, Holland Cotter named AFC as a blog that "combines criticism, reporting, political activism and gossip on an almost-24-hour news cycle."^[15]
• The Dump by French new media artist Maurice Benayoun delivers hundreds of undone art projects^[16]
• Hyperallergic, founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009. The site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful and radical thinking."^[17]
• NEWSgrist,^[18] maintained by artist Joy Garnett, began in March 2000 as an e-zine devoted to the politics of art and culture in the digital age. For four years, it was distributed entirely by email subscription.
• PORT, co-founded in 2005 by Jennifer Armbrust and Jeff Jahn (who still maintains the site), PORT^[19] focuses on critical content related to the Portland art scene. PORT describes itself as "dedicated to catalyzing critical discussion and disseminating information about art as lensed through Portland, Oregon." In the November 2007 Art in America roundtable Plagens described PORT as, "the closest thing to the virtues (paid critics, office help, etc.) of a print art magazine on the Internet....". In 2007, Tyler Green described PORT as, "The undisputed champ of the regional art blogs" on Off Center, the Walker Art Center's blog.
• The Silo^[20] is maintained by art critic and poet Raphael Rubinstein. A revisionist "dictionary" of contemporary art aimed at challenging existing accounts of art since 1960 offering a fresh look at some well-known artists, The Silo was originally funded by an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital Arts Writing Grant.
• Two Coats of Paint,^[21] founded by Sharon Butler in 2007, is dedicated to contemporary painting and related subjects and received a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writing Grant in 2013–14.
• Wooster Collective^[22] was founded in 2001. This site focuses on ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world. Updated by Marc and Sara Schiller, the site also offers podcasting with music and interviews featuring street artists.

Notes and References

1. http://faso.com/fineartviews/27987/fineartviews-interview-mat-gleason-art-critic-and-founder-of-coagula-art-journal "FineArtViews Interview: Mat Gleason — Art Critic and Founder of Coagula Art Journal"
2. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/26/fineartsviews-interviews-_n_828719.html "FineArtViews Interviews Mat Gleason, Art Critic/Founder of Coagula"
3. Cowling, Peter and Palmer, Jessica, "It is not Really Bloggers vs. Journalists, You Know", April 2009 Web site: Extraordinary Art Blogs Series, Part seven: It is not Really Bloggers vs. Journalists, You Know | art blog reviews . 2009-04-28 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090701133911/http://www.loveart-gallery.com/art-blog-reviews/2009/04/27/extraordinary-art-blogs-series-part-seven-it-is-not-really-bloggers-vs-journalists-you-know/ . 1 July 2009.
4. Hackett, Regina, "Art Blogs Hit Wikipedia." Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 2009. Web site: Art blogs hit Wikipedia | Seattle Arts News and Reviews – seattlepi.com . 2009-01-19 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20110720231949/http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/art/archives/159041.asp . 20 July 2011.
5. Schwendener, Martha, "What Crisis? Some Promising Futures for Art Criticism." The Village Voice, January 2009. Web site: New York Art – What Crisis? Some Promising Futures for Art Criticism – page 1 – Village Voice . 2009-01-07 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20090116123956/http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-01-07/art/what-crisis-some-promising-futures-for-art-criticism . 16 January 2009.
6. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/09/artseen/brooklyn-dispatches-virtually-overwhelmed Kalm, James, "Virtually Overwhelmed." Brooklyn Rail
7. Plagens, Peter, "Report from the Blogosphere: The New Grass Roots." Art in America, November 2007. http://madsilence.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/the-future-of-the-art-blog/
8. Finch, Charlie, "A NOT-SO-VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY" artnet Magazine, Web site: A Not-So-Vast Right Wing Conspirancy – artnet Magazine . 2009-01-16 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20090418041306/http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch10-26-07.asp . 18 April 2009.
9. Rubinstein, Rafael, "Art in the Blogoshere." Art in America, "Front Page," January 2005. Web site: Archived copy . 2009-01-09 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20080807172818/http://www.firstpulseprojects.com/frontpageaia.pdf . 7 August 2008.
10. Web site: The-dump. www.the-dump.net. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20180212143100/http://the-dump.net/. 12 February 2018.
11. Web site: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia. Studio. eMart. www.laznia.pl. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20160314081644/http://laznia.pl/index.php?iddzial=9&idwpis=525. 14 March 2016.
12. http://www.loveart-gallery.com/art-blog-reviews/ Art Connect review of art blogs
13. List of art blogs recommended by the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, Web site: Courtauld Institute of Art : Book Library Useful Links . 2009-01-10 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20081029201701/http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/booklibrary/collections_services/links.shtml . 29 October 2008.
14. Web site: A Year of Positive Thinking – Mira Schor. ayearofpositivethinking.com. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20110707202156/http://ayearofpositivethinking.com/ . 7 July 2011.
15. Holland Cotter,"Lost in the Gallery-Industrial Complex," New York Times, 17 January 2014.Web site: Holland Cotter Looks at Money in Art – the New York Times . . 2017-02-26 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20170729010753/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/arts/design/holland-cotter-looks-at-money-in-art.html . 29 July 2017.
16. http://www.cgw.com/Print.aspx?Page=/Publications/CGW/2009/Volume-32-Issue-4-Apr-2009-/Without-Bounds.aspx
17. Web site: Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20180323204905/https://hyperallergic.com/. 23 March 2018.
18. Web site: NEWSgrist – where spin is art. newsgrist.typepad.com. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20180323152450/http://newsgrist.typepad.com/. 23 March 2018.
19. Web site: PORT: portlandart.net – Portland art + news + reviews. portlandart.net. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20171121025150/http://www.portlandart.net/. 21 November 2017.
20. Web site: The Silo by Raphael Rubinstein. thesilo.raphaelrubinstein.com. 23 April 2018. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20180322094709/http://thesilo.raphaelrubinstein.com/. 22 March 2018.
21. http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/ Two Coats of Paint
22. Web site: Wooster Collective. Wooster Collective. 23 April 2018. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20151027052728/http://woostercollective.com/. 27 October 2015.