Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted Access (SIA Only)

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Art Business

First Advisor

Judith Prowda

Second Advisor

Agnes Berecz

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of the evolution of art criticism from the 1990s to the present, focusing on ways in which the global art market along with a more general Pluralism have fundamentally transformed the art world and the structures within which criticism has traditionally functioned. This thesis argument considers various critics' diagnoses and explanations for criticism's weakened status, while utilizing Andrea Fraser's contemporary art world diagram based on Bourdieu's theories on structures of power in society and between individuals in a societal network.  Contemporary critics have responded to the growing issue of criticism's weakened status and influence beginning in the 1990s, in the early oughts, and seemingly ever since. Considering accounts of notable contemporary critics such as James Elkins, Donald Kuspit, Jerry Saltz, Dean Kissick, Hal Foster, Pepe Karmel, Vincent Katz, Jeff Magid, Alex Greenberger, Andrew Goldstein, and Ben Davis, the future of art criticism is a fraught topic of debate, however most if not all critics seem to agree that new approaches to art criticism are necessary in order for critics and their work to remain relevant to newer and younger audiences, and to the art world at large.  Particularly persuasive is Ben Davis's practical and grounded opinion on the future of art criticism. In his view, a more socially realistic and engaged model for criticism is a hopeful path forward in which critics incorporate economic and institutional critiques alongside aesthetic or formal judgements of work to create meaning and relevance for art rather than to alienate it from the public by becoming overly academic, relying too heavily on theoretical and esoteric language that risks alienating the reader and detaching the art from contemporary society. Davis argues that the critic's role in the art world is to articulate the meaning and significance of art in the context of real, lived life.  To avert crisis altogether and avoid the complete devolution of the field of art criticism even further into mediocrity and irrelevance, descriptive wall labels, pamphlets, and journalistic event coverage, critics must evolve to produce intellectually rigorous material that does not fit the desired mold of institutional and market oriented agendas, while also engaging with the art world's audience, and the public,  in new and interesting ways that are honest and practical in terms of contextualizing contemporary art into the social and political context of contemporary life.

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