What Jerry Saltz v. MoMA means for art in America

One of the more delightful things about being a critic, is that it provides a platform from which to push one's principles to an audience. For some years now one of art's best-known critics, New York magazine's Jerry Saltz, has used his position to question the Museum of Modern Art's commitment to artists who happen to be women. Most recently Saltz has taken his campaign away from his usual, traditional outlets and has conducted it almost exclusively via Facebook and through his email list. I wonder: Is this new, intensely-focused art criticism a positive development? [Photo: Saltz at a Creative Time benefit.]

First, some background (if you've followed all this, skip down to the next boldfaced section): Saltz first examined the male-female discrepancy in MoMA's paintings-and-sculpture galleries shortly after MoMA re-opened in 2004, when he was writing for the Village Voice. He's raised the subject periodically ever since. (Nearly three years ago Saltz moved to New York magazine, a tabloidy magazine typically more concerned with socialites' hemlines than intellectual examination.)

Over the last several months Saltz has taken his case to new media. Saltz has posted tidbits about artists who are women and MoMA's installations to his Facebook page and he's invited his 5,000 'Facebook friends' to pile on. They have.

Eventually MoMA spokesperson Kim Mitchell, responded to Saltz and his commenters. (Saltz, wanting some pickup in the blogosphere, emailed Mitchell's response to writers such as Ed Winkleman and me on June 3.)

"Hi all, I am (Kim Mitchell) Chief Communications Officer here at MoMA. We have been following your lively discussion with great interest, as this has also been a topic of ongoing dialogue at MoMA. We welcome the participation and ideas of others in this important conversation. And yes, as Jerry knows, we do consider all the departmental galleries to represent the collection. When those spaces are factored in, there are more than 250 works by female artists on view now. Some new initiatives already under way will delve into this topic next year with the Modern Women's Project, which will involve installations in all the collection galleries, a major publication, and a number of public programs. MoMA has a great willingness to think deeply about these issues and address them over time and to the extent that we can through our collection and the curatorial process. We hope you'll follow these events as they develop and keep the conversation going."

Two weeks later, Saltz sent an open letter to MoMA chief curator Ann Temkin, a letter that he also emailed out to a broader audience. (For the sake of tidiness, I've included the email in the jump.) Temkin agreed to have a drink with Saltz. After that meeting Saltz typed up his remembrance of the conversation, posted it on Facebook and again sent it out to his email list. (Winkleman also posted Saltz's thoughts here. Go ahead and take a look -- I'll be here when you get back...)

So aside from the gender-equality-at-MoMA issue, an issue well-worth discussing, does the Saltz Campaign merit further consideration? Yes. I'm uncomfortable with what the Saltz Campaign says about the arts in America and what it means for art criticism in today's fast-shrinking commercial media environment. (When it comes to arts journalism, there is nothing but commercial journalism, plus a few unfunded lone-rangers such as, well, me.) Here's why:

Once upon a time the authority of the mainstream-media art critic came from a carefully-managed professional distance from the art world, from an apartness that made emphasized independence. (Aside: I'm not talking about academics or social-climbers who write for the art-ghetto magazines. Their M.O. is apparent.)

Saltz has been in the vanguard of critics who have turned that traditional posture upside-down: He has never made any pretense of being anything but an art world guy first and a journalism-world guy second. Saltz writes for the mass media and he teaches at art schools. Like no other art critic in journalism he derives his authority from his deep involvement in and passion for a geographically-specific art world. Last year Saltz even co-hosted a political fundraiser with a New York art dealer. If a Los Angeles Times or Time magazine critic did that, he'd likely be fired faster than you could say conflict-of-interest.

Saltz has carried on his MoMA-and-gender campaign from an insider-who-cares position. It is because of his insiderhood that Saltz has been able to pursue the MoMA issue via places only accessible to, well, insiders: Amongst his Facebook friends and his email list.

So here's why Saltz's approach to the MoMA-and-gender issue makes me uncomfortable, even a little bit sad: Once upon a time critics were eager to explain to non-art-ghetto audiences why the art and art-related subjects that were important to them should be important to other people, to people outside the art world. Saltz is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. He has significant outside-the-art-world credibility. He has either been unable to or he has chosen not to use that credibility to emphasize or elevate the importance of the arts in the broader culture.

Given the dwindling of arts journalism and, in particular, the death spiral of mainstream art criticism, I'm concerned that more and more art criticism will look like the Saltz Campaign. When the ghetto is interested in talking with only the ghetto, how and why should anyone with a less specific interest in culture care about what we think is important? When art lovers talk only to those already in their circle, the circle will shrink.