"Bloggies" To Blame For Viveros-Faune's Fall

Charlie Finch, over at artnet, tries to get in the grill of those "bloggies," who he says unfairly attacked former Village Voice critic Christian Viveros-Faune. You can read all of Finch's comments here, but I'll provide a taste.

He states that the bloggers "began to call for "regulating" critical speech like the blue-nosed cryptofascists they are, while ignoring the free market manipulations of the auction houses and blue chip galleries they love to suck up to. This is analogous to a bunch of Boy Scouts pushing an old lady into the street for crossing against the light, while the mugger cruises by in a stolen car."

Read on, and you'll see Finch reference historical examples of critics who also created art. Fair enough, but I'm not sure I'm ready to compare a freelancer who wrote a few decent reviews to George Bernard Shaw.

What's also strange - coming from me, apparently one of those bloggers who thought an art critic should understand the difference between reviewing exhibitions and organizing them - is this reference to the auction houses and galleries we all supposedly like to suck up to.

Isn't artnet a service that provides sales figures and basically charts the art market? This "foggy bloggie" is more likely to post an important chunk of cultural news than sort through receipts from Sotheby's.