Events
March 29, 2010
A.O. Scott on arts criticism outlook
How has the rise of the Internet and the fall of print media impacted arts criticism as a profession and as a practice?
“It’s not the end of the world, nor I think is it a dawning of a brave new wonderful age,” said New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, in opening a 2-day forum on the future of arts criticism presented by Emory College Center for Creativity & the Arts.
“What seems to be at risk of being lost is thought and writing that at its very best was rigorous and disciplined, engaged as well as scholarly, compassionate and irreverent and also very serious.
“But if you shift your perspective, you see … a very different and lively and more exciting future… The passion and spirit of criticism is thriving in many parts of the Internet.”
“The number of blogs, websites and social networking groups devoted to various art forms has exploded. And while these may seem to threaten the authority of print, they offer a great diversity of voices — sometimes cacophonous, sometimes abusive, sometimes incoherent — that also can achieve … a genuine exchange of thought.”
