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Thursday May 10, 2007

Another art panel!: “Whatever Happened to the Miami Art Scene?” Tonight at 8 pm at Snitzer. Eugenia Vargas, Brook Dorsch, René Morales, and Alfredo Triff, moderated by Gene Moreno. See the flyer at TnfH.

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Art journalism panel

art journalism panel
Left to right: Me, Joanne Green, Elisa Turner, Omar Sommereyns, Anne Tschida. Photo by Onajídé Shabaka, Miami Art Exchange.

The panel was a riot. Silvia Karmen had this very interesting opening statement that touched on a number of interesting topics that I was looking forward to getting into, but it turned out that the crowd pretty much had one thing on its mind — they want more arts coverage. More coverage overall, more intellectual/critical writing, and better listings. I thought the format was really brave; it allowed audience members to jump in with questions/comments pretty much any time, which lead to a rollicking discussion, with moderators, panelists, and audience members all occasionally fighting to get a word in edgewise (kudos to Claire for stepping in when needed). Anyway, it (the format) ensured that Franklin’s fears were moot — members of the audience were very open with their concerns right from the get-go, and they kept the conversation where they wanted it.

To that end, the consensus was that improvements in arts coverage (both in quantity and in quality) will happen when the editors of our local publications come to believe that there is a strong demand for it. I promised to provide contact information for those editors, and here it is:

Personally, I think that paper letters are most effective, followed by phone calls, followed by e-mail. (Feel free to send me more specific information for these folks, or additional names that we should contact).

One of my suggestions for addressing the lack of arts writing was to call for a community of Miami arts bloggers. Someone asked “how do you get people to start an art blog” or something, and I never got to answer, but here it is: you encourage them. Grab them by the scruff of the neck and yell at them if you have to. There are lots of kids in college who are (a) majoring in journalism but interested in art or (b) majoring in art but interested in journalism or© majoring in something else but interested in both of the above. My message to these kids would be: start the damned blog! It’s easy, and you’ll be doing something that needs doing. There should be a whole range of blogs just about art — you can be completely silly and trivial, completely serious and academic, or anything in between. Compare Wormhole and Modern Art Notes — they couldn’t be more different, yet they both contribute something to the same community.

For their part, the panelists were smart and constructive. The time definitely flew by. I also wanted to say that I did this panel not because of any particular commitment to journalism or art, but because panels are fun, and I wasn’t disappointed. The discussion was great, and I got a chance to meet some very interesting people afterwards, for which I’m very grateful.

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