Getting the Chronology Straight
April 21, 2010 : Charlie Finch first writes for artnet.com on the Zwirner-Robins-Dumas case. In it, he advises Zwirner to seek a settlement. As the case was still going on at this point, one might assume there would be more information yet to come out. In other words, one might assume it best to wait for all the testimony before offering amateur legal advice, but....
April 23, 2010 : Charlie Finch chastises art bloggers (including yours truly) for not also jumping the gun and weighing in on the ongoing case. In doing so, he generalizes about bloggers as "so ready to dive in and piss around the shallow end of the pool, on any subject." The absence of a emoticon at the end of that sentence suggests he did so without any hint of irony.
March 31, 2010 (that's right, a full 22 days before Finch's first piece on the case) : I wrote an overview of the lawsuit, laying out what I thought the important issues were, what a sensible way to avoid such cases might be, and noted that I thought the whole affair stood to benefit only lawyers.
Now it's one thing for Mr. Finch to be so late to the story. One can appreciate why he felt the urgent need to first offer his audience his take on the invasion of perverts at MoMA's latest exhibition.
It's also one thing for him to pretend he's on "Law and Order" and advise Mr. Zwirner on his best course of action.
It's another thing, though, for him to take a cursory tour through the blogosphere, two days after his first opinion on the case posted, and cough up righteous indignation at the paucity of people as immediately outraged as he is by the blacklist testimony. Personally, I'm still processing that part of the story. I'm talking with other dealers about it (we don't have any blacklists), trying to see how prevalent it is, and attempting to gain an informed opinion on it.
As for what I've already written about the case, I have a more developed take on how such situations might best be avoided (something I've been thinking about and writing on for some time) coming out in the next issue of The Art Newspaper. That op-ed is something I also wrote before Mr. Finch first shared his opinion on the case. Not that I'd expect him to call or email to ask about such matters before he runs off calling people "cowards," but just to get the chronology straight....
April 23, 2010 : Charlie Finch chastises art bloggers (including yours truly) for not also jumping the gun and weighing in on the ongoing case. In doing so, he generalizes about bloggers as "so ready to dive in and piss around the shallow end of the pool, on any subject." The absence of a emoticon at the end of that sentence suggests he did so without any hint of irony.
March 31, 2010 (that's right, a full 22 days before Finch's first piece on the case) : I wrote an overview of the lawsuit, laying out what I thought the important issues were, what a sensible way to avoid such cases might be, and noted that I thought the whole affair stood to benefit only lawyers.
Now it's one thing for Mr. Finch to be so late to the story. One can appreciate why he felt the urgent need to first offer his audience his take on the invasion of perverts at MoMA's latest exhibition.
It's also one thing for him to pretend he's on "Law and Order" and advise Mr. Zwirner on his best course of action.
It's another thing, though, for him to take a cursory tour through the blogosphere, two days after his first opinion on the case posted, and cough up righteous indignation at the paucity of people as immediately outraged as he is by the blacklist testimony. Personally, I'm still processing that part of the story. I'm talking with other dealers about it (we don't have any blacklists), trying to see how prevalent it is, and attempting to gain an informed opinion on it.
As for what I've already written about the case, I have a more developed take on how such situations might best be avoided (something I've been thinking about and writing on for some time) coming out in the next issue of The Art Newspaper. That op-ed is something I also wrote before Mr. Finch first shared his opinion on the case. Not that I'd expect him to call or email to ask about such matters before he runs off calling people "cowards," but just to get the chronology straight....
Labels: artnet, arts blogging
posted by Edward_ at
3:51 PM
29 Comments:
Charlie Finch IS a blogger. Just another blogger.
he covers a lot of shows - more than most critics - and i'm grateful to him for that.
finch is a fave.
Other Anon, I like Finch but that rant was whack. Not to mention, Ed wrote about this thing with Dumas long before him. So I guess that makes Charlie a coward and Ed brave? Like I said, it was whack.
I see Holland Cotter's uninformed denouncements of the market, Germaine Greer's uninformed denouncements of traditional art, and Charlie Finch's uninformed denouncements of bloggers as basically the same phenomenon. Namely, that of the purblind sliverback angrily charging a gorilla-shaped boulder. These figures are tragic in that their high position in the world of art criticism relieves them of the need to write persuasively. Instead they beat the drum of their favorite pieties and resort to browbeating and guff. Any other genre of serious nonfiction would disregard writers of this caliber as hacks.
tiny cohort of readers...
ouch, that was unnecessarily nasty by any standard. I'm sorry Ed, we still love you & your blog.
I too wondered about that comment...its relevance seems really odd. If, as he states, Mr Finch thinks the readership here is tiny, then why would he cite it high among the list of blogs he felt were not working hard enough to pile on with him?
It felt like a sloppy off-the-cuff swipe...and as such not up to Mr. Finch's usual standards of snark.
not up to Mr. Finch's usual standards of snark
LOL!
Man up Mr. Finch and apologize. Today, right here. We're waiting.
Hey all you big time art moguls who want to buy my paintings for millions of dollars and flip them to buy more, you're all on my "magenta-list", much, much worse that a mere "blacklist". You stink (my bank account routing numbers are available)!
How dare any of you art bloggers think your sophisticated or intelligent enough to write about this case, you're all blathering dummies (please hyperlink my website, blog, ebay page and YouTube channel).
I will now retire to the privacy of my studio to pout, and create another profound masterpiece that will be too remarkable for any of you to grasp even the most rudimentary appreciation of (a live cam streaming video is online).
You know those cutesy animals Mr. Finch has on the sidebar of his post? If you go down the list of names and animals in order, matching each name to a picture, he's equating Ed to a happy frog. That's just wrong. Blacklist him Ed!
Kalm James: I dig you so much. But sometimes you really are a strange curmudeonly head-case - it's like you're yelling for me to get off your lawn. Chill.
What is it with you? I am always nice to you; you're always barking. Imagine if you did this to your kids; or your wife; or me!
Dude: Live and let live....
What a pill.
But if that's the way you are that's the you I'll like.
Late-breaking news:
On April 21, Blogger Charlie Finch reported that the sky is falling in the art world. Fellow bloggers Ed Winkleman and others did not feel the sky was falling and went happily about their daily business. In fact, other bloggers had noticed a disturbance in the atmospheric condition weeks ago, but after determining it to be mostly hype, moved on to more important things.
Enraged that others would not heed his warning, blogger Christopher Finch threw sand in Ed's eyes with a scathing blog post on April 23.
Upon further investigation, it was determined that Mr. Finch's childish antics can be traced to severe middle-child syndrome suffered as a child, and a lack of love and attention from his parents. He has been acting out for attention ever since.
@Anon 12:27
I think Kalm James is just trying to point out that it's the aggressively loud people who seem to get the most attention. And go check out his stuff! I much prefer his honest video's to Saltz recent schmoozing video.
Hey anon 12:27,
in my day we didn't have cozy little blogs we could type our posts on from the comfort of our favorite coffee bar. We had to tie a note to a brick and throw it through someones window.
And, oh yeah, get off my lawn, and take your mastiff with you.
I don't read Artnet, ever. Why bother? Mr. Finch hates art, among many other things. You have to face the facts, all those people live from art but they hate you (artists+art world) and everything that isn't easy money.
(How many times do you need to be humilliated to understand?)
Honestly, Ed. I think it's because you didn't illustrate your March 31 post. I know I like your posts with pictures more. Next time just Photoshop something would you? Slacker.
Anon 2:45,
I think it's some weird sado-masochistic thing.
@Hrag,
I second that! (Only; Ed, please use better graphics than in your Muse Fuse talk. Maybe you were influenced by Jennifer's Powerpoints, but in regards to your talk a little personal touch can go a long way, I'll even do them for you if you like.)
I don't have any cute barnyard clip art handy...other suggestions?
Ed, please use better graphics than in your Muse Fuse talk
Hmpf! Well, I never!!!
:=)
Cheesy corporate graphics are an acquired taste.
Hey Bernard, Jerry Saltz is awesome and those videos he does are great- I only wish there were more of them. I'd love to see a show on PBS where it's just a camera following Jerry around. We need more contemporary art on television.
Also, I got a chuckle out of the unintentional slight from the person who called Charlie "Christopher".
Here's a start:
Drawing
Best I could do on such short notice!
@Anon 3:28,
Jerry's entertaining yes, I agree.
But he's swooped-up in the spectacle of it all. Mr. Kalm is more underground and skeptical.
There is condescenscion at work in the artworld? Who knew? I experience it every day.
Hmm... What a load of rubbish that anti-blog article, but let's keep on with being more avant-garde than Finch, shall we?
We should be talking about the impending lawsuit that Zwirner
is probably getting soon because Marcel Dzama took a winning film
that a fellow Winnipeger named Deco Dawson made about him years ago, slightly remixed it, and called it his own work (The Lotus Eaters). What's painful is that the original film is freely available on the web and in a DVD format for the general public, whence Dzama's film exists in an edition of 10, probably sold at thousands dollars each. What the fuck were you thinking, Marcel?
Cedric C
I also have an advise about the Jack Tilton testimonial, and it's one that goes to Marlene Dumas:
Marlene, you should do a whole show of primary work at Tilton's gallery. You owe it to him, and he's been your partner in crime for that long. Just look at where you've got him?? Please, girl, do the man a favor.
As far as blacklists, I'm not entirely against them as long as blacklist means from your whole gallery. If I'm blacklisted for such and such artist, but welcome-handed for others, that's just hypocrisy. Please blacklist me from your whole gallery.
And artists, don't trust a dealer who makes confidential deals of your art that you are supposedly to never know about. That's crass.
Both the dealer and collector who do that don't deserve your art.
Cedric C
Kalm James - the Anon 12:27 comment is Jerry Saltz' response to you on Facebook yesterday, cut and pasted here. Guess you had not seen it.
The Met discussion.
Charlie who?
Finally, I'll get on topic.
Joanne,
This one here: video
Only substitute "Finch" for "Grinch".
Law & Order, or Judge Judy?
Thanks Anon 07:22. Even as one of Jerry's Kids, I can't monitor the thousands of response the meister generates.
And by the way, I did see that Jerry and Roberta had gotten away from the "high temples" and signed in at some B'burg galleries last Sunday. Goody.
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