Patricia Bickers on London, PR and journalism (2009)
What happens when PR, art journalism, mainstream coverage and the art world collide?
About two years ago, I contacted Patricia Bickers, editor of Art Monthly to ask her some questions about art and publicity dynamics in London. I did this after reading two magazine editorials that I pulled up in an "art" and "mass media" library database search.
One editorial is called "Attention seekers" (Issue 270, 2003); the other "Fire down below" (Issue 278, 2004). In the latter, it tells a story on how more mainstream coverage of art can certainly have its downsides:
"It may seem hard to credit, but there are those abroad, especially in continental Europe, who actually envy the media coverage art receives in this country. It is true that this admiration is usually directed at the amount rather than the quality of coverage on the familiar grounds that even bad publicity is better than mere indifference... Certainly the visual arts are no longer ignored, as they had been in the past, at least by the popular press and media."
The editorial then surveys developments leading up to the media coverage of the Momart warehouse fire which destroyed several works of contemporary art in 2004, which had happened a few weeks earlier...
"The savagery of so much of the press coverage of the [Momart warehouse] fire, and of the correspondence it generated in the letters pages of newspapers, has revealed the true picture of contemporary art’s relationship with much of mainstream media. There has been no sea-change, it is merely that editors know a good story when they see one, even if it happens to be about art, and journalists respond accordingly."
"Those who envy the high profile enjoyed by contemporary art in Britain should be aware that there is a price to be paid for getting in bed with the media." (Click to see the editorial "Fire Down Below" in full.)
After reading this, I contacted Patricia Bickers in 2007 via email to ask for her thoughts about the publicity and art journalism dynamics of our time.
R.J. Preece: Do you think that, especially with the PR agency element in London, that good writers on art need to become more like journalists (of the serious variety vs. tabloids), to get through the PR packaging and sometimes strategic writing and visual constructions that generate different levels of excitement?
Patricia Bickers: Yes, but then the need to understand the context in which art is made, displayed, promoted, bought and sold or in other ways mediated, should be part of any good critic’s understanding of their role.
The alternative is mere stilkritik.
Patricia Bickers interview: 1 | 2 | 3
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