Superscript: Arts Journalism and Criticism in a Digital Age

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WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS MAY 28-30, 2015 The first edition of Superscript: Arts Journalism and Criticism in a Digital Age proved to be provocative and well considered. Organized by the Walker Art Center (WAC) and its Mn Artists program, the conference brought together writers, theorists, and artists working on the cutting edge of arts criticism within the digital domain. As WAC curator Andrew Blauvelt noted in his welcome, the conference would be taking a more expansive look at the how and why of what we do as arts Although a conference emphasizing the virtual world presented something of an incongruity given the attendees filling the WAC theater (live bodies present to watch live presenters) and took the standard format of presenters, panel discussions, and keynotes, the organizers approached the topic on multiple digital levels as well, providing live-streaming, tweeting, a conference blog, a blog mentorship program, and full transcription. This inaugural conference was ambitious, spunky, and stimulating. The first panel discussion, Credibility, Criticism, Collusion, was concerned with exploring the role of the arts writer in the twenty-first century. Panelists included notable bloggers Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork and Isaac Fitzgerald of Buzzfeed, as well as arts writer Orit Cat and Christopher Knight, art critic for the Los Angeles Times and notable as representing mainstream traditional media. Each participant introduced themselves through a ten-minute presentation (a formula that would be followed for each panel throughout the conference), and then the group settled into a moderated discussion. This panel's conversation tended toward the role of the art critic, differences between print and digital criticism, and the contemporary relevance of arts criticism. Fitzgerald defended his now notorious approach at BuzzFeed of only reviewing books that could be discussed in a positive light, opening the panel to a discussion on this trend in arts criticism, especially on the web. The big issue emerging from the audience, however--and one that would become an undercurrent of the entire conference--was concern about the poor compensation writers often receive from digital venues. Feeling like casualties of a publishing Industry in crisis and transition, the audience expressed an eagerness to find some sustainable solutions to this problem. The focus of the Sustainability, Growth & Ethics panel was financial viability for both arts journalism and its producers. Panelists represented for-profit, non-profit, anti-profit, and legacy models. From the for-profit world, Veken Gueylkian, the founder of Hyperallergic, presented a savvy history of that site, emphasizing a sustainable approach while asking the question, Could we work with sponsors that shared our mission to grow the audience for art? Gueyikian showed that by working hand in hand with advertisers, Hyperallergic has expanded relatively rapidly. On the opposite spectrum, the anti-profit sector was represented by James McAnally, the executive editor and cofounder of Temporary Art Review, who stressed, We wish to make a public, or at least to attempt to, describing his blog as filling in the gap caused by the loss of alternative art spaces that were so dominant in the 1990s. Provocative ideas--however, once again the panel became mired in issues of compensation for writers, especially in response to the presentation by LA Times arts writer Carolina Miranda, who admitted to paying her dues by occasionally writing for free: In an ideal world we'd all get paid for everything we write, she stated, But we all face situations in which we choose to work for free or for little pay, and I want to highlight the word 'choose' here, because I really think it should be a choice. Mn Artists co-director and conference organizer Susannah Schouweiler gracefully moderated this panel, which also included Eugenia Bell from Design Observer, as it navigated the touchy subject both of compensation and ethics, clearly considered as intertwined, as she referenced a blog essay by Yasmin Nair, Scabs, Academics, and Others Who Write for Free (2014). …