Critics don’t R.I.P
You might want to read the recent essay written by Rick Poynor on The Death of the Critic. Here Poynor comments on the state of criticism in the Art field in general and the Design world in particular and summarizes the different levels of criticism from the mild version of it, journalism and observing the new, to a more hostile and arcane ‘cultural-studies’ way of criticizing the world around us. A 1955 article on Subtopia written by Ian Nairn and published in the AR (Architectural Review), is seen by Poynor as the essence of what design criticism should be and where it should go. Critics should be less accommodating and have a «profound idealism and shared sense of what matters». A quick look around and it’s easy for Poynor to notice the lack of critics these days. He suggests that, amongst other things, critics are hard to spot because they are probably missing good publishers. I wonder though if what we are missing is publications or just good/serious writers/critics. If we lack good critical writing then who really cares about publications?
Still, when RP says the critic might be dead, I wonder where the body is…