All Change Hats

I wanted to just give a heads-up about a blog posting by Chloe Veltman (Sports Writers have the Edge) I found on ArtsJournal.com.

Veltman writes about an experiment conducted by the Guardian in which the paper's sports writers covered art events and the art critics covered sporting events. She comes out strongly in favor of the sports writers, though the whole enterprise gets a less-than-ringing endorsement.

It caused a little bit of deja-vu for me because I vividly recall when the Boston Phoenix played this game with its culture critics in the late 80s or early 90s, sending the movies writer to a restaurant, the art writer to do dance, the dance critic to the movies, etc. It was a really interesting moment for me as a reader (and one I pestered my editors to recreate when I starting writing for a weekly...finally getting the chance to do books and restaurants and even a theater review) because it suggested that what really mattered in criticism in these media outlets was not a deep knowledge of the specific subject at hand, but a deep knowledge of some subject coupled with really great writing skills.

Artists might bristle at this idea, but it's something I hope we'll explore a little in the class this summer: to what extent are critics writing for an audience of rreaders as opposed to an audience of insiders?