Artthrob and the south african arts media

I think it may have been yesterday that I posted the available job at artthrob. Admittedly, I’ve already heard a few comments about it (but none online), and just this morning I received an email from sculptor Sean Slemon (now overseas) on the rampage. Like myself – and many other South African artists – Sean was snubbed by Art South Africa, and mostly by artthrob, despite three solo shows and winning Sasol New Signatures. There is no doubt in my mind that the shows deserved and needed to be written about. For me, a writer had to basically beg to cover my solo show at the JAG for ArtSA, and a recent duo show with Marcus Neustetter was in neither publication, despite offers of writing from Colin Richards and James Sey – I don’t think I need to justify their talents as writers…. They were refused.

This is not simply a whiney, naive, “write about my art” complaint. We all know that there is bias, favoritism, etc, in every art scene. There is too much art to cover, and not enough writers. But there does need to be an effort of balance between artists, writers and editors. Right now, all the weight seems to be falling on the latter, and young and emerging artists (especially those not from Cape Town, where the base seems to be) are often left out. This is a problem widely discussed by young artists in Joburg (and elsewhere – for example, some of Andrew Lamprecht’s ending comments in artthrob), and if we want to open up this discussion beyond a very small, insular, hermetic group, then the editors need to take on board new writers, need to engage with their own decisions around who is being written about. I, among others, am asking for a true engagement with the spririt of critique, not just positive articles about the already known. Like our visual artists are oft asked to do, our writers and editors should be taking risks.

in the mail from Sean Slemon, quoted by his permission:

I saw you posted the ad for the Artthrob editor on your site…
I couldn’t help but get incensed about it because whoever becomes the editor needs to realize that their representation of Johannesburg reviews is dismal.
According to them there was only one show worth reviewing in Joburg last month!!!! ONE SHOW !!! [editor’s note: this is actually for the entirety of Gauteng.] There were plenty.
Yes I am upset because they didn’t review my show, and nor did Artsouthafrica either it seems. Even after staff from both publications made promises…

Just thought that this is and has been something of a debate in the South African art scene for some time now. These two publications have some strange crossovers in the people they employ which is problematic in that they are A-supposed to be competing to generate a dialogue, and B they employ some of the same people so where would the dialogue be if it existed. I think that these publications have a responsibility to South African artists and the artworld in general to review as much as they can and not only the shows of friends, or what they think is “suitable.” Flash art has piles of reviews, as do many other internationally acclaimed publications. Don’t not review a show just because the other one did. Thats how you start a dialogue. And this is not only about Arthrob or Artsouthafrica, this is also about the Mail and Guardian Friday section, and many other so called arts sections that never ever review shows that are very very good and deserve a review. [editor’s note: it seems that in the popular press, Die Beeld is the only paper that consistently covers exhibitions by both known and lesser-known artists; they pretty mucn trashed my JAG show, but I still appreciated the dialogue.]
….The selections of reviews are conservative at best….

I think I’ll leave the rest to those who know, those who want to make a difference, and those who disagree.