Yes, it’s taken a while to post this week’s newsletter. I’ve been under the gun with Archibald Prize, Sydney Film Festival, and other major distractions but I also wanted to wait until I’d finished a second, more complete Archibald piece before sweeping up a few related observations. At this time of year one takes in a lot of disjointed impressions from the Archibald Prize circus, and I never quite know what the newspaper wants or – more likely nowadays – will permit.
In previous years it’s been customary that I write an early review, with the main Archibald Prize article being published on the day the show opens to the public. This usually entails making a prediction about the winner, which is rarely difficult. Last year was an exception, but this time around it was pretty obvious Laura Jones’s Tim Winton was a leading candidate. As I didn’t get to write that early piece, you’ll just have to take my word I’m not fibbing.
Anyway, this time the instruction was to wait until the winner was announced, write a response for the news pages, and keep a more comprehensive review for the following week. It wasn’t my preferred approach, but I complied. Predictably the published version was edited to remove anything that was judged too “nasty”, but I’ve kept it as written. I make no predictions about what may be cut from next week’s printed version of the review, as this is now a regular occurrence.
What rankles with me regarding these persistent cuts is not simply the disrespect, it’s the way they timidly support a growing tendency to eliminate any ‘negative’ comment on arts matters. It may be partly to do with the newspapers being wary of offending lucrative advertisers – although they would never admit as much – but it’s also symptomatic of a wider cultural shift towards excessive ‘niceness’.
In this worldview, if the Art Gallery of NSW, the National Gallery of Australia, or a similar institution, send out a press release telling everyone their new show is the greatest thing you’ll ever see, then we have to take them at their word. If they show a marked preference for Indigenous or Queer, or some other category of artists, this should be accepted, not questioned. Indeed, it’s taboo to suggest that any artist who belongs to one of these sacred categories could be criticised or even questioned. The logic behind this, as far as I can tell, is that these groups have been oppressed and marginalised in the past, and so now must be given special, delicate treatment.
This is frankly silly and represents the death of criticism. When a type of art is viewed as being beyond repute, or a class of artists becomes a protected species, it’s a recipe for mediocrity, nepotism and corruption. The opportunists rise to the top by exploiting a system that is 100 percent predictable. The self-servers know they can do whatever they like with impunity because no-one is going to make a fuss. It’s boring and discouraging for audiences, and allows the laziest, most narrow attitudes to proliferate.
I worry this is where we’re heading when I go to the AGNSW for the Archibald presentations and hear the most unprincipled gush from the official speakers. It’s all amazing and wonderful, the greatest show with the most incredible artists. Of course this is exactly what one should expect, but nowadays it seems to be on overdrive. When Edmund Capon was director, roughly ten years ago, there was a healthy cynicism about the Archibald which didn’t spoil the party or make the show less popular. Today they really expect us to believe a lot of over-the-top junk that’s an insult to the intelligence of most art professionals. We’ve lost all sense of proportion and replaced it with a kind of corporatised dishonesty, as if the AGNSW were a big brand that demanded all its employees be uniformly enthusiastic about the product. The media should not be aiding and abetting this dishonesty by reporting only the “nice” stories, treating art as no more than a bland public entertainment.
I was also a bit surprised to see the APY artists up on stage the other night, while an artist read out a prepared statement about the importance of culture, and so on. It wouldn’t have been controversial if the APYAAC hadn’t been the subject of an investigation that found evidence of wrongdoing in nine separate areas, a report that is still being considered by two bodies that have the power to take these matters much further. To be allowed to read out a manifesto at the AGNSW was to give airtime to a group that denies accountability for many serious charges for which there is an abundance of testimony.
This is where the ethic of obligatory niceness actually obscures the need for honest assessment. I doubt that any Indigenous art centres, will be thanking the AGNSW for supporting an enterprise that has jeopardised the reputation of the entire sector.
My basic point, which I’ll defend forever, is that criticism is not a “nasty” destructive force, it’s an essential activity for the health of a culture. It’s ridiculous I’m having to say such things, but today there are too many cardinal sins being committed under the sign of saccharine PC. Too much niceness can be really nasty.
This week’s lead post, as mentioned, is a first reaction to the Archibald, and specifically to Laura Jones’s winning entry. The movie being reviewed is The Three Musketeers, a two-part epic of adventure, swordsmanship and derring-do, made by French director, Martin Bouboulon, with an all-star cast. As escapism goes, it’s completely without pretentions, and perhaps the perfect antidote for all those sugary claims made for the Archibald.