\nSunday’s Los Angeles Times headlined “Critical
\ncondition,”<\/B><\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A> about the death of arts criticism. The Times subhead
\nsummarizes the gist of the story: “Once almighty arbiters of American taste, critics find their
\npower at ebb tide. Is it a dark time for the arts, or the dawn of a new age?” <\/P>
\n
Coincidentally — well, not so coincidentally — ArtsJournal publisher and editor Doug <\/P> So what happened? When Pew’s generous funding ended a couple of years ago, NAJP was The short version is that the Columbia J-School, like most universities these days, while McLennan, who is on the NAJP advisory board (he’s also a former fellow, as I am), noted “The news of the demise of the NAJP is very sad indeed, and yet another sign that serious “At a time when life is becoming ever more drenched in business and politcs of the most “This is deeply disheartening news — for a nation, a culture, and a profession that have been “It dramatizes for me the state of a society that has deeply misunderstood its values and “My fellowship time at the NAJP — which came during and after the trauma of 9\/11 — was of The NAJP fellowship was invaluable for me, too, and I’m deeply grateful for the chance it “The critic is the Artist-Prophet’s harbinger and apologist. As the cultural phenomenon of the “Even in the ‘higher’ arts, the corporatocracy of global capitalism will require a new kind of “This should not surprise anyone. Art will always be culturally isomorphic with the larger
\nArts critics used to wield tremendous power as American tastemakers, their
\nwords forming the crux of the cultural sphere and their opinions read as seriously as those of
\npolitical commentators. These days, cultural tastes are controlled mainly by savvy marketers, and
\ncritics have become ever more marginalized, frequently reduced to bleating from the sidelines and
\nbegging for a return to serious cultural discourse.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\nMcLennan also reported Sunday on the death of the National Arts Journalism
\nProgram<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>. In a mass email to more than 100
\nwhat had been rumored among them: <\/P>
\n
\nAfter an outstanding 11-year record of advocating for and promoting the
\ncause of arts journalism, the National Arts Journalism Program -\u2013 the only program in America
\ndedicated to the advocacy of arts journalism — is being closed down at the Columbia
\nSchool of Journalism<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/images\/najpPHOTO.gif\")
<\/A>The NAJP’s major funding for many years had come from grants from
\nthe Pew Charitable Trusts. But due to a change in Pew’s focus and, reportedly, a decline in its
\ninvestment income, the grant was not renewed. McLennan’s message continued:
\n
\n
\nleft with the considerable task of raising its entire operating budget from other sources. …
\nColumbia generously offered some financial help to fill in the gap, but made it clear that it was
\none-year assistance. The program’s budget of $1.6 million in 2002-03 fell to less than half that by
\nthe current year. … <\/P>
\n
\nhappy to host and enjoy the prestige of programs, is reluctant to spend money and resources on
\nthem. Last year Columbia gave NAJP some financial help to ease the loss of Pew money, but
\nJ-School dean Nicholas Lemann says that none of the 30 programs housed at the school (with the
\nexception of the Columbia Journalism Review) is getting money from the school this
\nyear.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\nthat the Journalism School would soon be making an official announcement about closing the
\nprogram. McLennan’s message drew responses about the death of the NAJP and its larger
\nmeaning from many former fellows and others associated with or interested in the program. Here
\nare several representative ones: <\/P>
\n
\nintellect in this country is continuing to lose ground, along with serious art. It is a tragic time for
\nthe arts and arts criticism, perhaps the most ominous in our history.”
— Robert
\nBrustein<\/EM> (’03, theater critic, The New Republic)<\/SPAN> <\/P>
\n
\nnaked and base kind, anything that diminishes the meager beachhead that culture still has in our
\nlives is to be lamented. I know that there are many universities — Berkeley among them — that
\nwould be only too pleased to take this excellent program in. But, alas, it is always a question of
\nresources. That this country is so awash with such extravagant wealth at the upper reaches of the
\nsociological food chain, but that a program like this nonetheless languishes and perishes at the
\nmiddle reaches, is a reality that seems absurdly bitter.”
— Orville Schell,<\/EM> dean
\nof the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism<\/P>
\n
\nreceiving quite enough disheartening news as it is. The idea that it could happen in a time when —
\ndespite the growing impoverishment of the general public — gigantic fortunes are being
\nconcentrated in the hands of a few billionaires, many of them in arts-related industries, makes it all
\nthe more disheartening. <\/P>
\n
\nmisplaced its priorities. It represents, along with the abhorrent state of our politics, another lurch
\non the seismic cultural shift toward a new Dark Age. Those of us who engage in the arts — and
\ncriticism has its place among them — must be prepared to face a world that is readying itself to
\nabandon its professed values in favor of the worship of money and power. <\/P>
\n
\nimmeasurable importance in my life. It renewed my belief in the value of my work. It has made me
\nwant to keep working. And I want to see the NAJP survive, just as I want to see the arts, and arts
\ncriticism, survive — ‘so that life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills,’ as an American playwright
\nonce put it.”
— Michael Feingold<\/EM> (’02, chief theater critic, The Village Voice)
\n<\/P>
\n
\nprovided to explore subjects that interested me. Nevertheless, I thought the following opinion,
\nwhich is not likely to be heard from any of the rest of us, was worth adding to the
\nconversation.<\/P>
\n
\nArtist-Prophet dies, so too will the critic. Our traditional style of criticism was formulated by 19th
\ncentury German literary feuilletonism. That is the period that gave us cultural nationalism with its
\nhost of artist-prophets and their critics. These forms of nationalistic elitism were inevitable
\ndevelopments as the bourgeoisie arose. The Internet is just one more medium that helps to
\ndissolve nationalism and elite bourgeois status. As nationalism and class status become less
\nrelevant, the critic’s function as a spokesman of the elite will die. <\/P>
\n
\nfeuilletonist — a sort of generalist gadfly who is part of a marketing apparatus focusing largely on
\ncelebrity. Eventually the NYT cultural section, for example, will look a lot like People magazine.
\nMuch of The New Yorker is already a kind of People magazine for yuppies — gossip with a touch
\nof niveau couched in the publication’s self-consciously affected urbanity. <\/P>
\n
\nsocial structures of society. Mass marketing requires a reductive concept of the human. The
\naesthetic values of global capitalism by necessity esteem baseness. The key is for some theorist to
\ndefine and codify the new feuilletonism’s style, content, social and economic purpose. In the
\nmeantime, we should remember: Blessed are the base, for they shall inherit the
\nearth.
— Bill Osborne<\/EM> (composer, musicologist, and an advocate of the
\nNAJP)<\/P>
\n