Well speaking of art critics,
Brian Sewell - very well known over in UK land, and probably much wider, ironically he is not a fan of modern art, especially things like the Turner awards - he has had his own tv series, highly jargonised and frequently indecipherable. He seems to me to be very much a class ridden little man whose sole aim in life appears to be to ensure that the proles are not to be brought into his exclusive little world.
The best of them, as far as I was concerned was Tom Lubbock who wrote for the Independent, at least he did try to make art more accessible, shame he passed on some time ago.
Those are the only two that spring to mind at present, I used to read The Guardian but that was years ago, I don’t even remember any articles in it.
I’ve seen a few show where artists were explaining what they were doing and why, Hockney seemed to have ideas that are still developing into very new technologies, but he also revealed a lot about how we all observe things, in a way that was accessible and educational, a visit to his gallery at Salt Mill is well worth the time.
In contrast there was some other person whose name I did not give the dignity of remembering, and to my mind what he produced was utter rubbish.
That second artist is apparently quite well known for his landscapes, but as I watched his programme, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was taking the piss, sure seemed as if I was being wooshed. The program followed him creating work in his studio through to the gallery - he took one enormous canvas, started painting in a very Rolf Harris like manner, but not as well done, then he just took a large 2inch pencil brush and used it to slop paint over this canvas. Later he laid the canvas on the floor and walked around on it with his Wellington boots on it. He even took an old bicycle and dragged the wheels over the wet canvas, smearing it all about. Eventually the greenish brownish mess was allowed to dry out, having nothing in it that was distinguishable. He then cut out a picture size piece of a bit of it he seemed to like - perhaps four feet by three or thereabouts and burned the remainder.
The cut-out was framed and hung in the gallery.
Folk came around to see this work, which looked pretty much like a muddy greenish smudge of error in a camouflage factory - it was truly rubbish, its not jut that it didn’t resemble anything, but the process of producing it was so unskilled, and he could not explain what was intended. I do not mean that in the instinctive unconscious production of genius - so he waited for the critics to come along and tell him what it was about - what it meant - and the critics told him about his inspiration. I honestly felt he had just produced some tat and waited for the critics to justify it for him.
Had this been the work of a first year art student, it would never have made a gallery, the only reason it did was his name.
We see it as a bit of fun, where a horse or a very young child puts some smears on a canvas, it gets a showing in a gallery and the critics line up to appreciate it - its been done a number of times as a tv show. They are given enough leeway to make themselves look stupid, and the critics grab it with both hands.
I mean come on what’s with that horse that paints? Forgotten the name of it now but a few smears from a 3 inch brush whose handle was stuffed into the animal’s mouth which then slaps it around a bit and the work will sell for good money.
There have been works produced by monkeys that were mistaken as being by well established artists, those images initially had quite a high value, until the truth was revealed and of course the value dropped to zero. This is a good reason to wonder why provenance is so important - well of course it is important, in the advent of some indecipherable smear on a canvas, the provenance might be the only thing that lends any merit at all to some art.
I expect the counter to this is that maybe art is not just a human thing, however there surely has to be a mind and intent behind it, even random patterns can look pleasant but are hardly meaningful.
Sometimes I do wonder if artists themselves are making a point about ‘pseudo’ art just to see what they can get away with.