State of the Arts: Criticism
by Marianne Combs
Minnesota Public Radio
May 24, 2002

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There's a wealth of artistic events that take place on any given week across Minnesota. But many artists and art lovers say that, for such a rich arts scene, there's remarkably little criticism to be found in the Minnesota media.

Critics tend to have strong opinions. It's their job. Ask Star Tribune's fine arts editor and critic Claude Peck about critics and you'll get a really definite answer.

"I do NOT want them to be advocates for the arts," said Peck. "I want them to advocate for the reader. In other words when they write a review, when they see a performance or a concert or read a book I want them to think about a reader. I want them to write a review that helps other readers sort through the forest of options for spending their money for books or concerts or performances or plays and help guide their consumer decisions."

	In the play "The Worst Show in the Fringe" by local playwright Joseph Scrimshaw an angry actor/playwright kidnaps a theater critic for writing a terrible review of his show. The comedy - which garnered rave reviews - touched on many of the problems that exist between artists and the critics who cover them. Photo by Rich Ryan

Artists tend to have opinions on critics too. Take "The Worst Show in the Fringe"- a play written for the 2002 Minnesota Fringe Festival in which a playwright kidnaps a critic because of a bad review. Another play titled "Bring Me the Head of Dominic Papatola" - the Pioneer Press theater critic - was also a popular show at the Fringe.

Jeff Bartlett, artistic director of the Southern Theater in Minneapolis takes a more measured approach.

"A critic should build public awareness of the arts," he says. "Now I would take the position that that is actually advocating for the audience. I'm in favor of a well-informed knowledgeable enthusiastic audience base - that's what's going to make people go see work! But I don't think those two things need to be mutually exclusive, mutually contradictory - I don't think it's as simple as that."

Artists and many critics agree there's not enough criticism in Minnesota and the criticism there is should be smarter. Long ago Dan Sullivan was the theater critic at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He later worked as a critic for both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Now he teaches arts criticism at the University of Minnesota journalism department. He also runs the National Critics Institute at the O'Neill Theater in Connecticut. When asked what he thinks may be wrong with Minnesota criticism Sullivan puts part of the blame on complacent readers. Sullivan said if readers responded more to the criticism that's printed, they'd get more of it. He says the readers are there - he sees them when he gives lectures - they're just not talking.

"I always end the talk 'Well, I've a big crowd out here, you all seem to care about the arts - why aren't you writing letters to the editors showing them that there is a constituency for writing about the arts?' - and these people never do it - I don't understand that," said Sullivan.

But Sullivan also blamed the papers for not recognizing the obvious public interest driving the thriving Minnesota arts scene. He said newspapers should dedicate more space to long-form analysis of the arts and not limit it to a brief thumbs-up, thumbs-down assessment. He said today's media rely too heavily on quick turn-around reviews and don't do enough in-depth reporting. Freelance critic Patrice Koelsch agrees - but she thinks it's a national problem.

"We don't really talk a lot about ideas, we don't get into complexity. We tend to have much shorter attention spans and I don't think that we know how to discuss ideas in a way that's very helpful. We either have something that's utterly adversarial or very superficial," said Koelsch.

Koelsch points to a local decline in criticism. The Twin Cities Reader folded a couple of years ago and the Minnesota Daily eliminated its arts section. The Pulse Weekly cut back its criticism.

Koelsch used to be the director of the Center for Arts Criticism. It was created in 1985 to solve the problems that people still complain about today: to increase both the quantity and quality in the critical dialogue about the Minnesota arts.

But by the early 1990's the National Endowment of the Arts had pulled its funding. The Center for Arts Criticism still exists, but it now focuses its efforts on youth media projects. Now the Jerome Foundation is launching yet another program to improve critical coverage of the arts in Minnesota. While critical discussion still happens within small groups, Jerome Foundation president Cyndi Gehrig says that dialogue needs to be expanded to the general public.

"Part of our goal I think should be to find locations for that to occur that are new locations, in addition to working with what we have. There's a lot that's possible on the Web… I also think that there is a lot that's possible in terms of scheduled community debates and discussions that are more open," said Gehrig.

While the papers get most of the blame - and the attention - for their criticism, or lack of it - newspaper people say other media are just as responsible for the absence of critical thought. Local television does almost no criticism of the local arts. Minnesota Public Radio, a major player in the local arts and culture scene, has never had an on-staff critic. According to Gehrig, building a lively critical discussion takes comprehensive coverage of the arts by all media. While the Jerome Foundation's funding for criticism program was slotted for this year, the poor economy has forced the foundation to push back the project for early next year.

The Southern Theater in Minneapolis has become one of the primary dance venues in Minnesota, serving both local and touring groups. Artistic Director Jeff Bartlett said it's tragic and ironic that at a time when the Minnesota dance scene is drawing national attention, there isn't one full-time dance critic in the Twin Cities.

"It would be as if the Star Tribune at this point in the history of the Minnesota Twins would decide to stop covering baseball - the Twins are doing really well, there's all this hype about a new stadium - this is not the time you want to 'not pay attention' to the Minnesota Twins. That's how I feel about the dance scene in the Twin Cities right now," said Bartlett.

Bartlett said dance reviews are generally by free-lance writers delivering narrative descriptions of what happened and a simple "go" or "don't go" decision. According to Bartlett a review should be a critical essay using the event as a launch pad for a discussion of issues and ideas.

Bartlett fondly remembered the late Mike Steele, the longtime Star Tribune dance and theater critic. Barlett says, in writing about the arts for 30 years Steele built up an incredible reservoir of knowledge which informed his reviews. St. Paul Pioneer Press features writer Matt Peiken wants to review dance for his paper. Currently the Pioneer Press has no on-staff dance critic, and Peiken sees trends in many papers toward hiring out more of it's criticism. As a result arts coverage is suffering, said Peiken.

"A lot of newspapers are lazy," he says. "They get by reviewing something because they don't want to do the reporting to find out what an event is really like and to give readers the information to make up their own mind on whether a show is worth seeing or not."

Peiken said being a good critic takes time while being a great critic takes many years of dedication to a beat. But he said it's rare today that a critic stays in one place for more than a few years before moving on to the next job. In addition, Peiken said, over time critics develop their own ruts. They cover only those shows that cater to their own personal tastes rather than trying something that might be more challenging, but ultimately provoke greater discussion.

"I think this area needs smart criticism, I think we need consistent criticism and I don't think that it's smart for newspapers to not be giving readers intelligent insightful consistent coverage," said Peiken.

Minneapolis Star Tribune fine arts editor Claude Peck is in charge of the largest arts reporting team in the Twin Cities. Each week he says the paper prints an average of twenty to twenty-five reviews - but the majority are movie and book reviews and don't concern the local arts scene. Peck said he's happy with the job the Star Tribune is doing covering the arts, but admits there is always room for more.

"There is just so much going on and this paper probably has more resources to respond to that activity than any other and still we can't get to everything," he says. "I know from talking to artists and creators that they miss that and it really hurts if they don't get a criticism - even a negative review they think is better than no review because at least it gives them something to build on."

Peck said he believes good criticism should improve the overall dialogue about the arts in the Twin Cities.

Frank Theater artistic director Wendy Knox agrees, but she said she's not seeing it in Minnesota. Knox often produces challenging productions of plays with a feminist bent. Her recent production featured a lesbian on death row for killing a string of men. The play got a lot of press for it's story-line, but Knox says the reviewers focused on the sensationalism and forgot to treat the ideas that were central to the play; issues of sexism, classism and social justice. Knox says not only does she want smarter, more open-minded critics, she wants more women writing criticism.

"That is one of the most galling things,' she says. "You have Eye of the Storm headed by Casey Stengle. You have Ten Thousand Things headed by Michelle Hensley. You have 15 Head founded by, among other people, Julia Fisher. You have Frank Theater with me. So you have a significant number of theaters which are run by women - which was not the case ten years ago and all of the critics, all of the mainstream critics are these middle aged men. And that does affect things."

In addition to a lack of mutual understanding, Knox said artists and journalists don't have the consistent discussion needed to build a healthy relationship.

"If you get a bad review it's like 'he just doesn't get anything!' and if you get a good review it's 'I just love him!' That does happen, I know, and of course it's just much easier to sort of love the reviewer because they're writing good stuff about you. I think that we need to create a dialogue between those who write about the arts and those who are producing the art. It can only serve to help; help us make better art and have them write in more informed ways about the art."

City Pages arts editor Michael Torturello disagrees.

"Our best critics have relationships with exhibitors and artists and they're in touch with authors and dancers and they're close to these people, these people are their friends and their peers and people for whom they have a great respect," said Torturello. "But we're not about having a dialogue with them. We're about writing articles that are intelligent and thoughtful and provocative for readers - that's who we're having our dialogue with."

Artistic directors Jeff Bartlett and Wendy Knox respond that what most arts critics and editors fail to recognize is that their most devoted readers are the artists themselves.