Should Art Critics Collect?

If they have enough disposable income to buy a few things, how can they not? If you love art, you need to gaze at some of it on your own walls.

But kudos to Jen Graves of the Seattle's alternative newspaper, The Stranger, for having the courage to explore in depth an ethical quagmire that may discomfit some writing colleagues, but that needs to be discussed.

She got into the topic of critics' personal collections through a worst-case scenario: a local colleague who allegedly requested gifts of art from the artists he reviewed. Since I have not independently attempted to verify the truth of these allegations, and since the critic denies it, I'll let you click the above link to learn the name and the details.

Of course critics should never ask artists for art. Nor do I believe it's ever acceptable to accept a gift of art, even after a review has already been published. I further believe that there is an inherent conflict of interest in critics' collecting art in the fields about which they write.

In practice, though, I'm not quite that pure: I can't deny myself possession of at least some pieces for my personal delight. I own some contemporary art, all of it purchased.

I am a very small collector: I have just a few things that my husband and I have bought over many years. Since I'm primarily a journalist, not a critic, I'm only a sporadic gallery-hopper and my face is not well known among the dealers in my price range. I believe that the few I've done business with did not know who I was when I bought.

I would never accept a gift from a source; I would certainly never accept the gift of an artwork from an artist or dealer. And there's one more stricture I place upon myself: I will not write about an artist whose work I own. I consider that to be a conflict of interest as well.

Since I own relatively inexpensive works and only a few, that's never created much of a problem. When I win the megabucks lottery and buy this, I may have to change my reportorial beat. Maybe I'll write about tennis.

Jen goes into great detail about practices in the field, including the policies of specific publications. She has broken the taboo against criticizing colleagues. I'd call it a must-read.

March 9, 2007 12:00 AM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

Highlights from my writings and broadcasts: 


MY BOOK
The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf)

IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NY TIMES OP-EDS:
For Sale: Our Permanent Collection (museum deaccessions)
Fashion Victim (Chanel at the Met)
Destroying the Museum to Save It (Barnes Foundation)
Reassembling Sundered Antiquities (Parthenon marbles)

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Los Angeles' New Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia's New Perelman Building
The Walton Effect: Art World Is Roiled by Wal-Mart Heiress

Tricks of the Auction Trade

The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress

Upside Down and Backward, Yet Tame (Boston ICA)
Edith Wharton's Library Is Now an Open Book
Extreme Makeover: Smithsonian Edition (American Art and Portrait Gallery renovation)
This Museum's Expansion is Simply Effective (Minneapolis Institute)
Truth in Booty: Coming--and Staying--Clean (antiquities controversies)
A Betrayal of Trust (NY Public Library's art sales)
The Lost Museum (MoMA's art sales)
Endangered Species (single-collector jewel-box museums)
Money in Motion (the Guggenheim's finances)
The Fine Art of Genocide? (appraisals of Hitler's art)

LA TIMES OP-EDS:
Make Art Loans, Not War
Museums Can't Compete (public collecting endangered)

ART IN AMERICA:
Refreshing the Smithsonian (the renovated SAAM and NPG)
The Atrium That Ate the Morgan (Renzo Piano's addition)
Hot Pots and Potshots (controversies over museum antiquities)
Musings on Museums (book review of "Whose Muse?")

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO:
Criticism of AAM's Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO:
Guggenheim Director Steps Down
Philippe de Montebello's Retirement
Fall '07 Art Auctions
Metropolitan Museum's "Age of Rembrandt" Show
Commentary on the Art Market
Tour of Sculpture Gardens, with Slideshow
Audio Commentary on the Met's New Greek and Roman Galleries
Glenn Lowry's Unorthodox Compensation Package
Commentary on the Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Museums' Purchase and Sale of Eakins' Works (about one-third of the way into the program)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' sale of Eakins' "The Cello Player"

BBC-TV:
Impressionist/Modern Auction at Sotheby's

more of me elsewhere

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on March 9, 2007 12:00 AM.

Getty Appoints Panel to Determine Whether Italy Should Get "Goddess" was the previous entry in this blog.

More on the Getty's "Aphrodite" Acolytes is the next entry in this blog.

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