For Potential Art Writers

Roger Fry, self Portrait

A few pertinent words to potential art writers, probably quite lost on the young.

This year marks two anniversaries. It is the fifth anniversary of my arts magazine Dusun/Dusun Quarterly/The Blue Lotus, began in June 2011, and my tenth anniversary writing about Malaysian art (blogging at Correspondances since November 2006). 

During my time living in Malaysia I have written copious lengths of text, for various newspapers and magazines, both within Malaysia and without. I have, in my folly, written art books, given art talks and curated art exhibitions concerning Malaysian art, around the world. But the business of art writing never gets any easier, no more profitable (in any sense) now than it was ten years ago.

Malaysia, perhaps like many other countries, is full of art cliques, art gangs and art groups. To be in one means to be excluded from another, despite agreements made, eye to eye contact evidenced and handshakes shook there always seems to be mentally crossed fingers. These intangible rules are, of course, unwritten, but otherwise caste in some perverse cultural stone. 

Within a few months of one editor promising one writer an everlasting relationship with their newspaper, that same editor was no longer publishing the writer’s work. A chance meeting at one international exhibition confirmed the truth. The writer had written for an outside art gallery and was therefore excluded from that clique. To be an insider means to kow tow to whichever caste, creed, race or religion (in the broadest sense) that clique adheres to. To, metaphorically at least, swear in blood, wear the club tie or tattoo, or stand on one leg exposing your braces while simultaneously chanting some nonsense and eating satay.

Unprotected art writers, i.e. those not in the above groups e.t.c., like everyone else, become exposed to tittle tattle and jealous gossip about their good name. Some may point their finger and cry arrogance when a writer simply, and legitimately, stands up for themselves or their work. Social climbers may gossip with ill intent to art officials, thus blocking access for the art writer, others may simply cheat you of thousands of Ringgit after you have performed the tasks you agreed to perform.

Others, galleries, artists, want written text for nothing. They happily commission work for which they have little intent of paying for, sometimes to the tune of several thousand words, and therefore Ringgit, leaving the writer having spent time on research and writing with nothing to show for it. Even when the writer capitulates and accepts that they will no longer be paid for the work, the final insult is when written pieces are excluded from the national catalogues they were headed for. The writer ends up with nothing for their work, except the exhaustion.

Some artists, or their agents, approach art writers and, upon knowing the cost of that private writing, say they will get back to the writer. They seldom do. Art writing to them should be free, but not the paintings or prints the artists exhibit, or the food and drink they consume at their openings, and of course no printer prints a catalogue for free.

Of course there are highs as well as lows.

Standing, opening exhibitions and shows in China, is a huge high. As is being interviewed on Chinese television, or reading from your work in Manila, the Philippines. Or, there again, seeing your photo portrait large in a museum passageway, or your name on a book jacket. Or being introduced to a new audience in Spain, or a school in Italy. 

There are some, albeit few, artists and galleryists who truly value you and your work and understand that you, as an art writer, are an extremely important member of the art promotion team. In the past, art writers and critics have been responsible for naming whole art movements. In France Louis Leroy, journalist and art critic, named the Impressionists, Guillaume Apollinaire, writer, novelist and art critic, named the Surrealists. Roger Fry, English theorist and critic, named the Post-Impressionists and British Laurence Alloway, curator and art critic, named Pop Art.

Those are the instances when you love your craft, when all the money in the world could not buy you such happiness. And those are the instances which keep us welded to the craft and help us endure the opposite, the negative.

So to the brave (perhaps) young art writer, be stalwart, be brave, dot your i’s and cross your t’s. Learn your trade, and when you have learned, beware. There is always some Jabberwocky editor or frumious Bandersnatch of a gallery, or artist, you may have to heave your vorpal sword at. Know your material, sculpt your craft and sharpen your pen, because you never know just when you might have to use it.