Well, it's been a busy day here at Unedit my Heart central. But it seems that it hasn't, perhaps, been busy enough.
What do I mean? I mean that overall, the space (aka column-inches aka paid gigs) allotted to contemporary and visual art in Toronto media is shrinking.
Of course this is a long-term trend, one made trendier by the "print is dying" zeitgeist.
But it's even harder to deny this sad situation when looking at Toronto's two alt-weeklies of late.
Eye Weekly, I've noticed, has lately been running gallery reviews in print only every two weeks rather than weekly. Sometimes, if you go on their website, you'll find a review by Eye arts editor David Balzer that will only appear in print the following week. (For instance, this review of the Toronto Sculpture Garden's Disco Fallout Shelter went up on the Eye Weekly site last Wednesday, but did not appear in Thursday's print edition. Maybe it will this coming Thursday? )
Of course, this trend also reflects changes I noted in December for Now Magazine, the Toronto weekly to which I contribute most regularly. Around that time, Now cut its weekly art reviews from two to one. Having flipped through a number of exhibition binders in my time, I know that they years ago they used to run as many as three reviews in one week. Those days are loooong gone.
I'll admit that Now, Eye and other media have increased and altered their coverage of the art world in other ways to compensate. Now has started to run intermittent interviews with local artists on its website, while Eye has been pegging more art happenings in its "Best Bets" section. Cover features (see here and here) also appear to be an occasional option, mostly in controversy-friendly situations.
So.... it might seem strange for a blogger to be lamenting the decline of art coverage in print media. But in the end, it equals fewer paying jobs for art critics (yep, that's the self-interest!), as well as less public coverage of art.
This public-connection aspect of art media also comes up in terms of newspapers in this post by former Seattle Post Intelligencer critic (and proflific blogger) Regina Hackett. In this post, she points out that art writing in newspapers can at least be found by the public, while blogs tend to more specialized/cloistered readerships. Further, Andras Szantos' much referenced Art Newspaper feature on arts writing ponders the longterm consequences.
What can galleries do to change this situation, if they want to?
First off, frankly, I'm not sure galleries do want to change it... it seems most art dealers make their living on relationships, not on mainstream media coverage, and hey, I can respect that.
Second, it's going to sound terrible but I have to bring up the old chestnut of advertising. There is more music coverage in NOW and Eye, as well as theatre coverage, because there tends to be more ads placed by concert planners and theatre companies. It's consistent advertising too, and basically reserves column-inches for those topics.
What do you think? Would you like to see more art reviews and art coverage come back on a weekly basis to alt-weeklies like NOW and Eye? Are you happy to see unpaid art blogging fill the gap? What other declines in art coverage, if any, have you noticed in Canada?
Image of a German journalists' protest from the Art Newspaper
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