Douglas McLennan is the resident genius behind ArtsJournal. In addition to providing an indispensable daily digest of English-language news stories and commentaries on the arts, ArtsJournal also hosts “About Last Night” and a dozen other artblogs (all of which you can visit by scrolling down to the bottom module of the right-hand column). Now Doug has put together a special group-discussion blog called “Critical Edge: Critics in a Critical Age.”
Here, in his words, is what “Critical Edge” is all about:
Everyone’s a critic. And now that anyone has access to an audience through the internet, our computers have become a cacophony of people with opinions. Clearly not all opinions are equal. Traditionally, the influence of an opinion was closely tied to the venue in which it was published–how widely it was disseminated or how prestigious the publication was thought to be. With a growing flood of opinions available to all, some suggest that the influence of the traditional critic is waning, that the opinions of the many will drown out the power of the few. But in a time when access to information and entertainment and art seems to be growing exponentially, more than ever we need ways to to sort through the mass and get at the “good” stuff. The question is how? Where is the critical authority to come from? Some suggest that new social networking software that ranks community preferences and elevates some opinions over others will supplant the formerly powerful traditional critics. So what is to be the new critical currency? Stripped of traditional legitimacies, how will the most interesting critical voices be heard and have influence?
Doug has put together a wide-ranging list of participants, many of whose names will be familiar to you:
– Misha Berson, theatre critic, Seattle Times
– Larry Blumenfeld, jazz critic, The Wall Street Journal
– Caryn Brooks, writer
– Jeanne Carstensen, managing editor, Salon.com
– Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor, Rolling Stone
– Enrique Fernandez, critic, Miami Herald
– Tyler Green, art critic, Modern Art Notes
– Joseph Horowitz, author/orchestra consultant
– Chris Lavin, arts editor, San Diego Union Tribune
– Ruth Lopez, art and design editor, Time Out Chicago
– Maud Newton, book critic, MaudNewton.com
– Claude Peck, fine arts editor, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
– Inga Saffron, architecture critic, Philadelphia Inquirer
– Andras Szanto, former director, National Arts Journalism Program
– Jerome Weeks, book critic, Dallas Morning News
I’m participating, too.
“Critical Edge” is now open for business and will be up and running through Wednesday. To read our collective discussion of the prospects for criticism in the age of the Web, go here and start scrolling.