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December 14, 2006

Apollinaire: the critics of the critics of the critics

The arts consultant who goes by the alias "August Savage" wanted to know whether others have complained about the Time Out New York issue Judgement Day, in which artists, arts publicists, and artistic directors rated New York arts critics.

So I went a-googling.

August will be happy to learn that though people may not agree over whether there's any point to the exercise in the first place, they are unanimous in their skepticism over the results.

Among these people are fellow AJ bloggers Terry Teachout (scroll down to Tuesday Dec. 7 entry, "Turnabout") and Lee Rosenbaum, a.k.a. Culturegrrl, and dance critics Rachel Howard and Leigh Witchel. Witchel's DIY guide to critiquing critics is worth checking out.

Theatre blogger Playgoer's readers raise more objections to the judging criteria--and do a little experiment, where they eliminate "Influence" from the five criteria and see where that lands critics in the numbers game. [Update: One of the readers, Isaac Butler, has his own interesting post. In case you want to go there directly, here it is.]

Wicked Stage blogger Rob Kendt finds all this tableturning a dubious and guilty pleasure. But should we believe him when he also finds my name "preposterous"? Could people kindly lay off my name? It's not, in case you were wondering, a nomme de plume. It was my parents' idea--and one of their better ones. (But I should be charitable. If I'd been damned with a name as dull as mud--I mean, as Rob-- I'd probably be going around insulting people right and left too!)

Pop (music?) critic Jason Gross is uncomfortable with the whole premise that critics are out to nail artists and are now getting their comeuppance. He points out that many critics "care deeply about the artists."

Alright. That's the only substantive commentary I found. (There were complaints about the results for the food critics, too, but this being an Artsjournal blog, I think I'll leave those be.)

If anyone finds additional critics of the critics of the critics, please send the links my way. And, of course, I'm always happy to receive homegrown comments.

Posted by ascherr at December 14, 2006 11:26 PM

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