Art blogging has gotten a lot of attention recently. Last week Kriston Capps and Ed Winkleman suggested interest in an on-blog survey of responses to questions posed in a recent discussion, published in Art in America. So here’s my go at it. Anyone else, please chime in with your perspectives, comments, gripes, etc. What are we doing here, anyway?
1. What’s the purpose of your blog?
I think of it as a replacement for the local cafe, a place where there are mostly regulars, but also any interested newcomers, and the order of the day is discussion of art topics. Since we propose these ourselves, they typically come out of some issue we’re grappling with, whether in our own art-making, or in our understanding of other artists, the workings of the art world, etc. Speaking for myself, I think I’ve learned a lot about my own photography and about art in general.
2. What are the boundaries of your blog?
There are none specified. Any problems arising, major proposals, or applications for membership are voted on by the group. Comments are wide open, though we do delete irrelevant spam.
3. Tyler has cited Joy Garnett’s NewsGrist blog as doing a great job of “placing art within a sociocultural and political context.” What I see on NewsGrist is a magazinelike interspersing of short profiles, exhibition reviews, op-ed pieces on how other people are covering things, and Village Voice–like political takes. But what does Tyler’s comment mean to you, and why are blogs in general better positioned than print to do what he describes?
“Placing art within a sociocultural and political context” means, for us, placing it in the context of our conversation — what we’ve discussed before, or what we assume we know in common. We don’t claim that this is or should be anyone else’s context. Print media can go part way, but they are not necessarily addressing our concerns, and they are not conversations.
4. Why can’t blogs go further, to the point where there’s hardly any discernible difference between artist and critic/commentator, blog and work of art?
I don’t see anything preventing it, if that’s the kind of art the artist/critic/commentator wants to make.
5. What scope and degree of editorial control do you exercise over your blog?
It’s a group blog. Control is full over my own posts, none over other members’. If someone wants to do a guest post through me, I may offer suggestions, and retain the right of refusal. A guest can post via any member.
6. What about posting comments from readers, and what about anonymity?
All comments are welcomed, and anonymous comments allowed.
7. What’s “trolling,” and why don’t some of you allow it?
Not a problem here, so we haven’t bothered to define it.
8. Is trolling really so easily identified and universally bad? Is having posters register a solution?
Judging trolls is not so easy; mistaken labeling occurred here once and was rectified. Registration inhibits.
9. What about liability coverage?
Referring to Jay’s ladders?
10. What’s the economic model of your blog?
None. There’s been talk of having an associated gallery for members’ art, but it’s never caught on. The blog may deliver some attention for participants, but that’s about it. We have no aversion to earning money, but neither have we made any attempt.
11. How do you see your blog’s relation to the established print art media?
We sometimes follow up on stories appearing elsewhere if it piques our fancy. It doesn’t seem to have gone the other direction yet.
12. Tyler and Regina, what’s the relationship between your blogging and your work in the print media?
Doesn’t apply.
13. How do you attract readers/posters other than by word of mouth?
We are linked to from other blogs, and we also turn up in search results. To cite a fairly recent example, we were Google-ranked #2 for “NeoIntegrity manifesto,” the post being a commentary following a NY Times article about the show (now we’re at #4).
14. In general, is blog art criticism more open and liberal, and print criticism more closed and conservative?
Neither, but it is more diverse — though not always on our blog.
15. Some people say that there’s a dearth of art criticism at length on blogs. Is this true? If so, does it have more to do with reading on a computer in general, or with art criticism in particular?
True for our blog. It has almost entirely to do with access to artworks and writing time available.
16. Art magazines come out once a month. Newspaper art reviews usually appear once a week. Blogs appear more or less daily, and sometimes have updates by the hour. Do you think that the faster pace of blogs will start to affect the pace of art-making?
Not significantly.
17. Tyler just said that there’s more good art being made by more artists in more places than at any time in history. Is this true? And if so, what’s the reason?
It’s what one would expect with the number of artists up, and barriers (e.g. availability of information and materials) down.
18. Do blogs help correct the geographical bias in print art criticism, i.e., the tendency to think that most of the important stuff happens in New York or Los Angeles, and the difficulty of art outside those places to get national attention?
Most of us live in the US, including New York and Los Angeles, but geography does not seem too relevant.
19. One index of a city’s gravity as an art center is young artists—perhaps recent MFAs—from elsewhere coming to set up shop. Is that happening in Philadelphia and Portland?
It’s happening in Bozeman, …
20. Is there any constructively negative edge to your blogging and, if so, what is it?
It may be constructive for the participants, in that negative comments can potentially further our understanding of the art as much as positive ones can. Only those on the receiving end can judge whether it’s useful to them. Among ourselves, negative comments are not to common, though welcomed by some, at least. Some outside artists we have discussed (positively and negatively) have responded on the blog.
21. Let’s throw something back into the mix: naked human ambition. Unknown bloggers want to be little bloggers; little bloggers want to be bigger bloggers; and bigger bloggers want to be called, as is Tyler’s Modern Art Notes, “the most influential of all the visual-arts blogs” by the Wall Street Journal.
We’re not striving for influence, but larger membership and participation might be nice…
22. Where will your blog be in three to five years?
I’m amazed at any blog that lasts so long. We’re about one year old, in our current form, and I have no idea whether the blog will exist in two more.
steve:
Quite a piece of work on your part.
I do have some scatter shot comments to throw in…
17. Much was made of the high incidence of suicide in Scandinavia, until it was pointed out that such things are unusually well-reported over there. I’m sure that there are more people now coming forward as artists as the arena expands. Take a look at Boundless Gallery. There are no barriers to enrolling one’s art on that site and you have folks putting up idle sketches in a common context with more ambitious and considered works. I don’t tend to see such equal opportunity as a problem, but rather as a benefit to the common good.
9. Don’t think for a moment that ladder liability hasn’t been on my mind.
1. I would endorse the cafe comparison with a proviso: everyone gets to be heard on A&P. Long essays and short comments alike get read.
18. It’s hard to make a crisp case for geographical bias. Arthur Whitman has reported from Ithaca, N.Y. I was just up there for a wedding and the art scene appears relatively modest in scope. But as long as he and others find interesting things to post, then his report has all the oomph of one of our NY or LA posts. What if we could interest somebody in reporting from Bombay, for example.
Jay,
That’s an excellent point about equal hearing for every comment–not what often happens at the local hangout. In fact, there may be an inverse effect: infrequent commenters might well get the most attention.
Another difference with blogs is the asynchronicity. Even if all contributors lived near to each other, it could be hard to get a critical mass assembled at any one time. Also, as you mentioned elsewhere, it’s possible to return to a conversation after some thinking or research, or just a new experience.
But as long as he and others find interesting things to post, then his report has all the oomph of one of our NY or LA posts.
Thanks. I’ve answered all the questions myself at some length on my site.
Steve,
You have done a great job here of answering the questions about our blog…
Personally, I find the concept of these memes and ‘tell your friend about me’ quite weird… Thats just me…
Sunil,
I agree about memes–please don’t tag me, anyone. I wrote this because, in fact, we have a history of occasionally re-examining ourselves, and also because I do think there’s a growing sense of movement among art bloggers. I’m interested in that evolution.
Implicit in this discussion is the matter of marketing. Assuming that more is merrier and that profit is not an expressed motive, then what does growth mean and how does one promote it?
In a parallel vein, I’m still not sure who is picking up the tab for this blog. Money is never mentioned, yet the costs of doing our thing must be substantial. I would have to think that we are underwritten with advertising. At what level is that taking place? I ask this because any “business plan” concerning something like A&P has to address the cost side of the ledger, even though the expenses appear hidden.
A gallery of members’ work has been proposed more than once. This infers profit. Does whatever platform that supports us allow overt business activity?
Assuming no major changes in the A&P m.o., is there a benefit in advertising? I came to it by word of mouth and found a valuable discussion group – the “cafe” if you will. Aside from that, people could go forth and, for example, leave flyers on physical bulletin boards in cafe settings, thus attracting people who like to chat. But would that further the best interests of this blog as it now is? Is it better to let people find the place on their own? I don’t know if I’m making any sense here, except to say that things are kind of comfy at this point. Ours might be the right size for a discussion group. How many is too many?
Jay,
Good questions. Addressing only the cost side at the moment: a domain name these days is $10 a year. Hosting is “free” if you already have web site hosting, as I do for my personal web pages. I’m not sure exactly how it’s done at the moment, but I believe Karl picks up the cost by himself. There is no advertising anywhere.
If you’re willing to accept limited flexibility and a domain name like ___.wordpress.com, as I did with Art Bozeman, then there are no costs at all (and still no advertising). Some people earn a bit of money with ads, but I think what we would earn on, say, 600 visitors a day would not amount to much, especially after division.
Personally, I find the concept of these memes and ‘tell your friend about me’ quite weird
It’s a fad, like flagpole dancing.
Steve:
600 a day? Is that the present traffic, or are you using that number by way of illustration?
Jay,
In October, A&P had 20,194 unique visitors.
Now, in November, the number of daily visitors (not unique visitors) is
01 Nov: 1370
02 Nov: 1416
03 Nov: 1220
04 Nov: 1298
05 Nov: 1573
Unfortunately, I think perhaps as many as a third of the visitors (probably unique) are spammers. No, I don’t stop them all myself; Akismet is quite good, and I only clean up a couple a day. I’m fairly confident we get at least 600 unique visitors a day that at least check a feed. Based on the stats, most come back, so I’d estimate 6000+ unique non-spam visitors a month.
Steve,
That is a lot of spammers. Some of them are repeats too. I get a lot of spam from ‘neasel’
Birgit and Steve:
So, in this instance a case of neasel blockage is a good thing.
I’m surprised that more people don’t weigh in with comments.
And by the way, I have a soft spot for those spammers who strike a positive note with “I love it!” and other like sentiments (or maybe sediments?).