{"id":380,"date":"2006-12-14T23:26:08","date_gmt":"2006-12-15T07:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp\/2006\/12\/apollinaire_the_critics_of_the\/"},"modified":"2006-12-14T23:26:08","modified_gmt":"2006-12-15T07:26:08","slug":"apollinaire_the_critics_of_the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/2006\/12\/apollinaire_the_critics_of_the.html","title":{"rendered":"Apollinaire: the critics of the critics of the critics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The arts consultant who goes by the alias &#8220;August Savage&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/2006\/12\/an_arts_consultant_responds_th.html\">wanted to know<\/a> 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.<br \/>\nSo I went a-googling.<br \/>\nAugust will be happy to learn that though people may not agree over whether there&#8217;s any point to the exercise in the first place, they are unanimous in their skepticism over the results.<br \/>\nAmong these people are fellow AJ bloggers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/aboutlastnight\/archives20061203.shtml\">Terry Teachout<\/a> (scroll down to Tuesday Dec. 7 entry, &#8220;Turnabout&#8221;) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturegrrl\/2006\/12\/critical_mass_everyone_loves_j.html\">Lee Rosenbaum,<\/a> a.k.a. Culturegrrl, and dance critics <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rachelhoward.com\">Rachel Howard<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leighwitchel.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/12\/critiquing_the.html\">Leigh Witchel<\/a>. Witchel&#8217;s DIY guide to critiquing critics is worth checking out.<br \/>\nTheatre blogger <a href=\"http:\/\/playgoer.blogspot.com\/2006\/12\/time-out-rating-critics.html\">Playgoer<\/a>&#8216;s readers raise more objections to the judging criteria&#8211;and do a little experiment, where they eliminate &#8220;Influence&#8221; from the five criteria and see where <em>that<\/em> lands critics in the numbers game. [<strong>Update: <\/strong>One of the readers, Isaac Butler, has his own interesting post. In case you want to go there directly, <a href=\"http:\/\/parabasis.typepad.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/reviewing_the_r.html\">here<\/a> it is.]<br \/>\nWicked Stage blogger <a href=\"http:\/\/thewickedstage.blogspot.com\/2006\/12\/critical-condition.html\">Rob Kendt<\/a> finds all this tableturning a dubious and guilty pleasure. But should we believe him when he also finds my name &#8220;preposterous&#8221;?  Could people kindly lay off my name? It&#8217;s not, in case you were wondering, a nomme de plume. It was my parents&#8217; idea&#8211;and one of their better ones. (But I should be charitable. If I&#8217;d been damned with a name as dull as mud&#8211;I mean, as Rob&#8211; I&#8217;d probably be going around insulting people right and left too!)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.popmatters.com\/pm\/blogs\/crazedbythemusic_post\/criticizing-the-critics-the-art-of-revenge\/\">Pop (music?) critic Jason Gross<\/a> 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 &#8220;care deeply about the artists.&#8221;<br \/>\nAlright. That&#8217;s the only substantive commentary I found. (There were complaints about the results for the food critics, too, but this being an <em>Artsjournal<\/em> blog, I think I&#8217;ll leave those be.)<br \/>\nIf anyone finds additional critics of the critics of the critics, please send the links my way. And, of course, I&#8217;m always happy to receive homegrown comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The arts consultant who goes by the alias &#8220;August Savage&#8221; 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 [&hellip;]<\/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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}