Arts Conflict. Of. Interest.
Modern Art Notes is lighting up the blogosphere this morning with the revelation that NY Times stringer critic Grace Glueck is a trustee of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.—in direct violation of the Times’s ethics handbook, and laying open to question the respectability of its culture desk. (As if the Times needs another Jayson Blair/Judith Miller.) MAN is calling for a response from the paper. NY dealer Edward Winkleman has a great, tortured post about it all: he’s horrified, but holding back for fear of retribution toward his gallery, which recently received a glowing review from a Times critic. “I want this to be a big misunderstanding,” he writes.
I think that such stringer art critics should always be regarded with suspicion.
Many of these so-called writers are simply people looking for positions at museums or other arts organizations. Their main objective is to curry favor with those individuals who might aid their careers as curators or administrators.
There are even examples of such people in our community, although the publications thay write for have little "respectability."