Can criticism surpass art?
Nah, dude.
A few weeks ago, Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York Magazine, made this bold statement on Twitter:
Twitter is a hotbed for provocatively bad takes so this wasn’t even the wildest thing tweeted that moment of that day, but this is still pretty wild for a critic of his stature to be throwing out on a Monday. When you’re employed for the sole reason of bringing art to the attention of your readers, what do you have to gain by trying to elevate your craft at the expense of your source material?
I would guess that if he could have this one back, he would try harder to differentiate between creative work and critical work, but he said what he said, and even to the casual observer, let alone a working artist, it’s offensive.
Criticism, when done right, certainly should “deliver the full volume of the art while also creating a thing of beauty and clarity itself.” It’s important writing deserving of respect and accolades, whether that’s a large online following or a literal Pulitzer Prize in Criticism (both of which Saltz has to his name). It’s a force to be reckoned with—ask any debut author, director, sculptor, etc.
But there are plenty of ways in which Saltz could have celebrated his craft, or even attempted to contextualize its importance, without minimizing the artists on which his platform depends. The most galling part is how easily his premise can be picked apart. Imagine thinking a 500-word book review requires more work than a 200-page novel.
As someone who likes to ingest and talk and write about art, I appreciate criticism for the ways in which it can situate a new piece in the history of that form and the specific lens of experience a critic can apply to a work, but there’s a reason Basquiat reverberates globally and Jerry Saltz does not.
Criticism, by its very nature, is limited to a single perspective, and no matter how good it is, will only ever represent that one perspective or reading. Art, on the other hand, shifts shape as it sinks into and is then expelled from its consumers, critics included.
Consider, for example, how much work the title of Arthur Jafa’s 2016 film, “Love is the message, the message is Death,” is doing, and how many interpretations and conversations this phrase alone has spawned. To give the full film its due, you would absolutely need to do a hell of a lot of work and create something beautiful and clear. Yet, your criticism will never exist outside of that work whereas the essence of the work owes nothing to your criticism.
It’s possible that Jerry was making an aspirational statement about good criticism getting outside these confines and having a more universal appeal, but even that premise is lacking when put into competition with the creation of art. For while a critic may aspire to match the beauty and the versatility of the work they examine, they will always have that work as a starting point. Their blank page will never be as daunting or as promising as the start of a truly original work.
Previously on The Neary Review
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