Juicy Feud Friday

In the March-April issue of FlashArt, there's a short article I was invited to write (they don't post the article on their website, unfortunately). In it I tried to deal calmly and rationally with the issues raised by the Tyler Green--Christian Viveros-Fauné controversy. Knowing, and greatly admiring, both of the main protagonists in this incident, I tried to avoid discussing personalities in rounding up what I saw as the more interesting aspects of ethics, criticism and journalism (the last two of which I'm not convinced are the same).

I hereby acknowledge how futile my feeble attempt to facilitate a graceful endnote to the issue has proven.

Jump to the Brooklyn Rail's March issue, where James Kalm poured a nice gallon or two of petrol on the ambers by writing:

Most bloggers cheered, hailing Green for nailing an influential critic, and dealing Viveros-Fauné his comeuppance. Many members of the New York critical community just grumbled and circled the wagons. Some blamed the new pusillanimous management at the Voice for folding so fast. The final results, other than driving thousands of eyeballs to Modern Art Notes (Green’s site), and giving the fingers of countless bloggers a thorough workout, is yet to be seen. For anyone with local experience, the art world is and always has been nothing other than one giant knot of conflicting interests, whether political, financial, institutional, professional, sexual, or pharmaceutical. As a fan and champion of both the art blogosphere and the New York scene, I’m conflicted. Yes, it’s great to see the real world take action when prodded by the virtual, but, call me a chauvinist, I don’t think out-of-towners possess a realistically sensitive view of the subtle relationships that make up this particular milieu.

Mr. Green responded with a letter to the editor, which is published in the April issue of the Brooklyn Rail:

I appreciate James Kalm’s attention to the ongoing shift in arts journalism from dull, academic, little-read art magazines to nimbler, smarter, internet-based publishing as discussed in his March, 2008 article “The Ethics of Aesthetics.” Unfortunately his article was riddled with errors and sloppy reporting.

There's a good deal of classic snark in Tyler's response, including this gem:

(As part of this Gotham-centric harangue Mr. Kalm confesses that he is a chauvinist because he thinks that people who don’t live in New York are too clueless to write about New York. Finally I agree with him: he is certainly a provincial chauvinist.)

But the fur really flies when Mr. Viveros-Fauné replies, also published in the April issue of the Brooklyn Rail. He begins with what is essentially my argument [edited to include only the point I'd make in all this]:

People read critics for their insights and judgements.... The record, and a fine one it is, of people having more than one interest in the world of culture is legendary: from Rimbaud to Pound to Kenneth Tynan to nearly the entire NY Review of Books to, say, Robert Storr (a writer, an art commentator always, and recently the head of the Venice Biennial, an event with nuclear effects on the market as opposed to the two new young fairs I contribute to).

But then Christian unleashes with the sort of writing that drove me to admire his talents in the first place (even as he steps right into the center of personalityville):

The idea of his absurd posturing as some kind of crusading policeman of the art world couldn’t be more risible, except a not-very-acute if well-intentioned editor-in-chief of VV bought it. Appointing him watchdog of the art world would be like asking Roy Cohn to watch a kindergarten class in Costa Rica. What’s more obvious even is that, like Hilton Perez (or maybe, come to think of it, Hilton Perez crossed with Elliot Spitzer), blogging for Tyler Greene aims principally to effect one single change above all others: to promote Tyler Greene, whose sole, obsessive, one-note, pulingly censorious idea recently had him objecting to the participation of folks like Jerry Saltz and Peter Schjeldahl at an Obama rally. Really! Now what can you say about that? That Greene is for people expressing their opinions, political, artistic, or otherwise? Or that he’s the Mickey Mouse version of a bully, squealing to high heaven for a fight in the hopes that the full playground will actually protect him from the effects of one.

Just the other day I was complaining to someone that there are no great public battles in the art world anymore (nothing like the classics we still see among literary figures, such as the feud between Wolfe and Mailer). With no well-defined camps beating each other up in successive addendums to their manifestos, a casual observer would be forgiven for thinking the entire system took Rodney King's plea to heart and decide to just all get along.

The fact that this feud is about criticism and not art doesn't make it any less juicy to my mind. It's all very good food for thought and classic snarky writing. Knowing both men have much more pressing matters to attend to in their lives, I don't actually wish it to continue...that is, unless they promise to keep it as fresh and funny. Just so long as no one puts an eye out.