Ways and Means: A five-part meditation on writing about the arts

Introduction

There are numerous ways to write about the arts, and probably even more numerous means to aid them.

I feel compelled, the more my personality develops on this website (and the more people read what I have to say) to wax a little on the nature of arts writing. Over the next week, I will be publishing this five-part essay illuminating why I do what I do, and what my other roles are in the community of the arts.

I started Counter Critic in May of 2007 to provide a direct and open forum for response to mainstream criticism, one that is unedited by the publication in which such criticism appears, and one that takes the language of arts criticism seriously, with the hope of fostering an open dialogue about what we, as participants in and critics of culture, write and say about art. I believe that goal has been achieved.

Although, originally, I had hoped to attract a few more writers into the enterprise of counter criticism, with the exception of some wonderful entries by Shari Goldhagen (as “Sidekick”) and Benn Widdey, who wrote all the reviews of performance in Los Angeles, the bulk of the writing on this site has been done solely by me.

Some of you may also know that I am also an active performer in both the music and dance communities. I received a Master’s Degree in music composition from the Mannes College of Music on the Upper West Side. In the past two and a half years, I have collaborated with numerous New York-based choreographers and performers. And since 2005, I have written non-evaluative critical essays for the artist-run contemporary performance organization, Chez Bushwick.

Some more details that might interest the reader: I wrote music criticism for The Orange County Register from (I believe) 1999-2000, if memory serves, and I have published poetry in print and on-line. I have sung under the baton of Valery Gergiev at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in L.A. in a performance of Berlioz’s “Romeo et Juliet”, and I have lip synced to “I Touch Myself” in my underwear in the reflecting pool at Galapagos in Williamsburg. I have conducted several church choirs, and I have performed during Dixon Place’s queer performance HOT! Festival. I have staged guerilla opera performances in Greenwich Village with my new opera ensemble, Collective Opera Company, and I have performed naked at the Whitney Museum in a multi-media performance work. I have written operatic settings of plays by Marsha Norman and Federico Garcia Lorca, and I have also written, recorded and performed my own pop music. I have sold original paintings in Tompkins Square Park, and I have staged an opera performance installation at the Sara Meltzer Gallery in Chelsea. I am currently working on a solo piano performance piece, a small chamber concert work, and a dance collaboration with a colleague; all separate projects; all of independent purpose.

I’m giving all of the details not to brag, but because I think it will illuminate for the reader the sheer pluralism of my artistic interests and activities, whether in performance or through writing, which create a portrait of an artist who is trying, via every possible avenue, to pursue art. At least, that’s how it looks now that I’ve written it all down.

Whether this gives me the authority to write about as much as I do, lending my critical attention to the high and low brow, the uptown and the downtown (and the out-of-town, or, Brooklyn), live performance and media, I am not entirely sure. What gives anyone the authority to be a critic? I only know that I have always expressed a deep interest in Art and all the forms through which it manifests. And, as far as I can tell, I cannot repress the desire I have to write about these forms any more than I can repress the urge to practice them.