Voice Critique

Charlie Finch wields one of the sharpest art critic pens on the planet. He is the Columbo of the art world, mercilessly extolling and skewering his subjects with his sardonic voice. Remorse is not his style. Schelpping across the New York art scene in soiled sneakers and a frayed dinner jacket, his arrival at upscale artist receptions and scene fests results in admixtures of dismay and embrace. As the rotund co-author of “Most Art Sucks” and monthly contributory critic to artnet; his articles are stand-outs in a landscape of art that might otherwise implode on its own self-congratulation. His voice largely comments on art shows and shenanigans staged in brick and mortar galleries as well as museums. Not shy or backward, Finch’s voice reviews the art scene blogsphere with his own kitchen-made brand of creative acid.

His presence on Artnet comes in the shape of monthly articles that have been posting for a decade. While not an actual blogsite with room for commentary, Charlie gets his Artnet feedback from the street. A lot of dealers, curators, artists and patrons in downtown Manhattan cower if they spot him coming and a random pick of any of his posts will get us closer to how Finch achieves this effect. Webbies from Taipai to Paris googling his “blogs” probably feel they know him when they read something like his article, “Assuaging the Anxiety of Art.”

How do these people get to know Charlie so well through his writing? First of all, no one gets sticker-shock when scanning Charlie’s articles before reading them. All his posts are narrow two inch bandwidths, divided into short paragraphs of just two or three sentences each. Plenty of white double space between short texts shortens the reader’s personal investment in perusing Charlie’s posts. Thus, the format says “Hey, read me! I’m not heavy.” In his article, “Assuaging the Anxiety of Art” Charlie lampoons museum staff cutbacks due to budget cuts. He opens with a rhetorical self-referential voice that makes him sound like he’s on a shrink’s couch:

“Ever since we first became disoriented at the Metropolitan Museum as a boy in the 1950’s, we’ve been acutely aware of the anxiety of art appreciation. All that knowledge, all that money, all that skill. Hand me a pillow, please!”

Yes, that’s Charlie’s first paragraph. Right away, Charlie cuts to the kernel of his emotion and thought. He doesn’t over or under-build his communication. In such short-circuited prose, particularly in the second sentence that pitches staccato phrases like, “all that skill,” word choice and punctuation stand out. Just image the effect of “please” with a period instead of an exclamation! Charlie goes on to mention the distinguished Director of the Whitney, whom everyone tiptoes around and handles with white-glove reverence:

“This is why Adam Weinberg is onto something with his introduction of yoga to the staff of the Whitney, but he hasn’t gone far enough. The Whitney may be small for a museum, but it is the perfect size and shape for an ashram, ready to peacefully revolutionize the art experience.

Imagine! Museum “guards” dressed in flowing robes trained to administer instant pressure-point shoulder massages for a suggested tip of $5.”

Or museum-goers encouraged to lie on the floor with pillows rented at the door, gazing up in relaxed bliss at gloomy Edward Hopper.”

In these three subsequent paragraphs, everyone gets in on the joke of the museum’s penny-pinching ways fed back to them in small change through Charlie’s creative ideas. His use of short descriptive adjectives, such as “peacefully”, “flowing”, “relaxed”, and “gloomy” are off-set with his recommendation of “a suggested tip.” Charlie’s succinct parameters make his writing almost surgical where every word creates some kind of incision. He cuts to the heart of his piece in the following block of type:

“This is a win, win, win situation: Whit revenues would soar, no staff would ever be fired again, and museum-goers would be as still and calm as a roomful of Eli Nadelmans. But that’s not all folks – what about introducing relaxology to the psychic jungle of Chelsea?”

Within just thirteen words, “museum-goers would be still and calm as a roomful of Eli Nadelmans,” the onomatopoeia of “Nadelmans” conjures up a set of knocked down bowling pins and/or people nodding off to sleep. Finch rides that elusive wave of word choice that floats effervescent humor. Reading him for the first time can spark a laugh in context with the entirety of the piece; pulling it apart in analysis kills Finch’s elusive finger that touches the funny bone. Charlie is a rolling monkey of creative imagery and we meet it in the following paragraph:

“Each dealer could specialize in a sideline, such as midget wrestling from Mike Weiss or optometry from Daniel Reich. In such an atmosphere of permanent bliss, the dealers would start giving the art away (oops, can’t do that!) Everyone would be famous for 15 minutes and relaxed forever.”

Coming to the end of “Assuaging the Anxiety of Art” opens the door to other Finch pieces. He is not all humor and biting sarcasm. Finch sensitively covers the suicide of an obscure artist in his post, “Death of an Artist.” In this post, we meet the sober and quiet voice of Finch engaged in carving a moving obituary:

"Art, apparently, can only do so much and it is never enough. John Michelini found the space between art and life, and he jumped."

A more typical Finch is met in his review on the state of art blogs “A Not-So-Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.” In this latter piece, he still positions himself as an auteur of descriptive jargon operating in abbreviated format:

"One of the nice things about art criticism is that you can read it, go to a show, and forget about it. It’s sports writing for the eggheads with the little grey cells.

Unfortunately, the proliferation of art blogs has taken all the day-tripper fun out of criticism by circle-jerking, recycling and regurgitating the effluvia of critique beyond the wildest fantasies of Rosalind Krauss. An example is Sharon Butler of the "Two Coats of Paint" blog in Connecticut, who is so exhaustive in her summaries of current art writing that someone could start a (short) blog on how Sharon Butler spends her nonexistent spare time.

What’s "fun" about the art blogs is how conformist, reactionary, redundant and self-referential they are, the Sam Brownbacks of the art world. Tyler Green sucks up to every curator on the planet, and I wish him well on his world tour of speaking engagements at obscure museums, cashing his money orders at the bus station.

...

I suppose these sloggers do have a legitimate complaint that New York-London-China are ignoring the art shows and concerns of out-of-the-way places like Washington and Philadelphia, but dull blogs make the tourist brochures of such burgs read like radical manifestos."

Finch’s voice is not just inventive, it is deeply contextual in referencing a complete understanding of the New York art scene. His voice addresses everyone in the scene and amuses those outside of it. His use of language but moreover his turn of phrase and biting short-circuited wit create the impression of a rather bored and sarcastic aficionado who is attempting to uncover something wonderful under a heap of art trash. In the largely incomprehensible abstract landscape of art, Charlie’s voice more often than not reflects and complements the absurdity of contemporary art. That’s his ethos: he has made enemies and he has made friends. Above all, Charlie’s greatest accomplishment has come through his writing style that has prevented him from being ignored. In the art world, he is ultimately loved - at least he keeps getting invited back to catered receptions, because he has achieved what everyone in his scene respects and seems to desire: notoriety. ♦