{"id":1294,"date":"2009-11-18T21:22:55","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T05:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/11\/thursday_links_-_california_ho\/"},"modified":"2009-11-18T21:22:55","modified_gmt":"2009-11-19T05:22:55","slug":"thursday_links_-_california_ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/11\/thursday_links_-_california_ho.html","title":{"rendered":"Newspapers with art critics: California shines"},"content":{"rendered":"

The two best art critics still employed by a U.S. newspaper who don’t work for the New York Times are both in California: Christopher Knight<\/a> at the LA Times and Kenneth Baker <\/a>at the SF Chronicle. <\/p>\n

There are no art critics on staff at daily newspapers in Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Dallas and Houston, among others. The admirable Douglas Britt<\/a> works for the Houston Chronicle on contract. Even though he has the output of two staffers and has brought the paper back into the national discussion, the Chronicle has not said it will restore the position.<\/p>\n

A newspaper art critic differs from colleagues at art magazines in one essential, and it’s not that the former is less savvy than the latter, although that is frequently the case. A critic at the newspaper aspires to a general audience. The chance to hook somebody with a review who’s flipping pages to get somewhere else is tantalizing.<\/p>\n

Without newspapers, those accidents appear to be less likely to happen, but there is more depth and range in each separate field, with Web sites available to run on a constant scroll across the face of cell phones.<\/p>\n

In that context, art coverage in Golden State newspapers remains golden. <\/p>\n

Here’s Knight on MoCA<\/a>. As ever he’s making the case for Los Angeles:<\/p>\n

But this is not just a promotional treasure-house show. Installed
\nchronologically by chief curator Paul Schimmel, it also tells a story —
\nalthough one that’s rarely heard. The postwar rise of American art is
\npaired with the simultaneous rise of Los Angeles, from shallow
\nbackwater to cultural powerhouse. (more<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kenneth Baker is more detached. He makes his case artist by artist and doesn’t care about regional positioning:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Expatriate American painter Cole Morgan works like a
\nman keeping a journal, jotting down scenes, images and incidents for a
\nstory that never gets told… The studio wall – a catchall for
\nreminders, sketches, mementos, little visual gimmicks – may be (his)
\nultimate subject…Morgan’s work can seem annoyingly mannered at times,
\nbut his fondness for making it never comes into doubt, a quality found
\ntoo rarely in contemporary art. (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"colemorgansf.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Interesting that Morgan’s work shares so much with SF’s Squeak Carnwath<\/a>. Mannered is a good word for her work as well, but Baker has come to appreciate her enough to overlook it: <\/p>\n

Things
\nmake their way into Carnwath’s paintings as they do into anyone’s
\nconsciousness: by intrusion, by triggering memories and ricocheting off
\nthe mental walls of habit and fixation. (more<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"squeakcarnwath.jpg\"
Also from Baker, bad news for the Berkeley Art Museum<\/a>: <\/p>\n

A
\nshortage of funds has prompted UC Berkeley to abandon its plan to
\nconstruct a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive downtown.
\nThe building, a distinctive and innovative design by Tokyo architect
\nToyo Ito estimated to cost $143 million, was to replace the museum’s
\npresent, seismically endangered quarters on Bancroft Way, completed in
\n1970. (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Baker
\nand Knight are stellar, but also solid is Robert Pincus at the San
\nDiego Union-Tribune. His recent piece on Tara Donovan says it all. <\/p>\n

Sample:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The
\nquestion — How did she do it? — has different facets to it. There’s
\nthe technical aspects of how to get thousands of pins to form a cube
\nwithout adhesives (density and gravity are what does the remarkable
\ntrick) and how thousands of straws stay in place when stacked (some
\nadhesive here).<\/p>\n

But there is also the bigger issue: How are these works so
\nmuch greater than the sum of their parts? The best word for it might be
\nalchemy. A wall of straws, “Haze,” doesn’t look like straws — it
\nresembles a meteorological event, shifting clouds or fog. Scotch tape
\nbecomes a field of delicate forms, looking like a bed of underwater
\nflora. (more<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Knight,
\nBaker and Pincus are all veterans. Britt in Houston represents critics
\nof the next generation. For them, there is no room in the old media
\nlandscape, and the new can’t come soon enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two best art critics still employed by a U.S. newspaper who don’t work for the New York Times are both in California: Christopher Knight at the LA Times and Kenneth Baker at the SF Chronicle. There are no art critics on staff at daily newspapers in Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Dallas and Houston, among others. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}