Sarah Thornton on Artforum:
Brady Bunch or Manson family?*
Is Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World at the centre of the new triptych?
artdesigncafé | Creative Business & Entrepreneurship | Published 15 July 2009
* On page 161 in The Magazine chapter of Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World, Bookforum editor Eric Banks is quoted as saying the following about the psychological dynamics of Artforum, “The family structure is beneficial and not so… Some days it feels like the Brady Bunch, other times it’s more like the Manson family. I love the Mansons. They’ve always been my favorite killers.”
R.J. Preece— When you are perceived to be #1, yes I imagine at times the knives are definitely out. Such may be the case for Artforum, that Bible to some in the art world. I myself have occasionally opened its pages and I admit, I once inquired about contributing reviews. However, I was informed by email that while they’d take a look, I should note the following: if one writes reviews for Artforum, then one can’t write reviews elsewhere.
Uh, excuse me? This was my chance to step onto the ethical podium and reject the possible opportunity for total establishment branding. Now who am I kidding? If I wrote for them, I’d probably love them and adopt the role of Bobby, the little brother in the Brady Bunch; but instead I opt to occupy the skeptical digital space and scrutinize their media surface at every possible opportunity.
In this regard, I relish in Sarah Thornton’s chapter The Magazine in Seven Days in the Art World, and the new, revealed layers of the workings of Artforum high up in their 1920s Beaux-Arts tower in New York City. In fact, I aim to closely examine every sentence using my adapted framework referring to Norman Fairclough’s Media Discourse.
In an exciting new line-up, Artforum is placed into the media/communications role, the magazine becomes the artwork, and the editors and writers become the artists under scrutiny...
Below are some excerpts that reveal some of the layers underneath the old testament, Artforum, presented in my copy of the new one, Seven Days in the Art World… with highlights.
Sarah Thornton—
[...] Between the magazine and the website, Artforum hosts a wide range of voices. Contributors don’t necessarily like each other’s style; some are divas who resist being edited. “I have relationships with a lot of writers,” says Guarino wearily. “At a certain point, one suffers that beleaguered feeling of agents dealing with stars.”
Whereas Griffin has edited “feature packages” on European cultural theorists and has no fear of jargon, Schjeldahl [chief art critic for The New Yorker] is a populist who complains about professional intellectuals who “think they are scientists and aspire to some kind of objective knowledge.” He takes solace in the fact that “bad writing is a self-punishing offense. It doesn’t get read, except by people who have to read it.” Nonetheless, he’s willing to be amused by jargon’s function as shoptalk. “You hear two auto mechanics and you have no idea what they are talking about,” he explained. “There is a kind of poetry in their impenetrable phrases. Why shouldn’t art criticism have that?”
Sarah Thornton on Artforum: 1 | 2
Don’t miss
- Sarah Thornton wins historic malicious falsehood and libel battle against Lynn Barber and the Daily Telegraph (press release) vs. Memorabilia (2011) (Automated music)
- Seven Days in the Art World drama: First one critic had ’amnesia’, now The Telegraph apologizes... (2009)
> A second high-profile retraction by a commentator of Sarah Thornton’s book has been announced. But why didn’t they clarify the matter with Thornton before putting it into print for readers? - Britain’s Telegraph ordered to pay $100,000 over book review (Los Angeles Times)
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