diaries


Can We Trust the Art Critic?



Arts Editor: Victoria Comstock-Kershaw

February 2026
9 min read



Writing about being asked to speak at the ICA in 1977 for a conference on the Crisis in British Art, Victor Burgin said the following: “I never did learn what the ‘Crisis in British Art’ was; nor, I suspect, did anyone else. In retrospect I now see a textbook example of what psychoanalysis terms projection: the crisis sensed was not in ‘art’ but in criticism itself.” Writing in early 2026, we set out to speak to critics to find out just how this crisis has mutated, and whether there’s any hope for those of wanting to trust critics again.

Note: I have made the decision to keep all contributors to this article anonymous.

Writing about being asked to speak at the ICA in 1977 for a conference on the Crisis in British Art, Victor Burgin said the following: “I never did learn what the ‘Crisis in British Art’ was; nor, I suspect, did anyone else. In retrospect, some ten years on, I now see the ICA event, the brainchild of three British art critics, as a textbook example of what psychoanalysis terms projection: the crisis sensed by these critics was not in ‘art’ but in criticism itself.” Writing in early 2026, I set out to speak to my network of critics to find out just how this crisis has mutated, and whether there’s any hope for those of us who want to trust critics again - starting with ourselves.

We’ve been saying there’s a crisis in art criticism for decades (millennia, if we’re counting Xenophanes and his gleeful attacks on Homer and Hesiod). Paul de Man’s 1967 essay “The Crisis of Contemporary Criticism”, later revised and republished as “Criticism and Crisis” in Blindness and Insight, bemoaned the loss of artistic philosophy to social sciences. Two decades later, Michael Newman famously pointed to the mid-80s as ground zero for the decline in “quality and rigor” and by the 2000s we were pumping out response after response to the perceived grievances, from October’s roundtable “The Present Conditions of Art Criticism” (Spring 2002) all the way up to the London Standard’s AI-generated Brian Sewell review (September 2024).

Over the years we’ve attributed the crisis to a great number of things. The current mainstream view falls into what I would call, if not reactionary, at the very least “post-woke”: Eddy Frankel, writing for ArtReview, attributes it to the censorious moral climate of the modern day and the creation of “an artworld filled with puppies, and you can’t kick puppies.” Katherine Cowles of the Observer also attributes the collapse to culture-war/identity politics backlash as well as algorithmic social media, shrinking space for reviews, and AI and influencer pseudo-criticism. Pierre d’Alancaisez blames the transformation of the critic into “lackey” of the art world internalising criticism and neutering judgement: critics get folded into the PR machine (press releases, labels, “dealer-critic” arrangements), while a liberal consensus and attention/KPI logic make dissent socially risky and materially pointless.

Danny Devito as art critic Ongo Gablogian in Season 12 of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’.

Some, of course, say there is no crisis at all. Hakim Bishara paints the “crisis” manufactured by nostalgia and legacy-media metrics: people mistaking the collapse of a small, old system (full-time jobs, print authority, the critic as kingmaker) for the death of the genre, when criticism has actually expanded into new platforms and new voices. Jonathan T. D. Neil concedes in his piece “Oh Critic Where Art Thou?”, going as far as to doggedly list all the critical collectives and individuals going out of their way to - as Frankel puts it - “kick puppies” (including yours truly, thanks Mr Neil!), arguing that this performative nostalgia is mostly just political shibboleth-mining and that people complaining about the lack of critics simply aren’t looking hard enough.

However, there is one thing all of these approaches agree on: if there is a crisis, it is that good criticism is disruptive and makes enemies. This belief is, I believe, what lies at the core of the issue. There is a very clear image of what apparently awaits the sincere, eager critic: dirty looks at gallery openings, blacklistings from email chains, un-invitations from dinners and parties, a solemn anti-hero suffering outcast in order to bring evil but necessary truth to the unwashed masses. I am here, with all of Xenophanes’s glee, to set that story straight.

Anton Ego, art critic and antagonist of Pixar’s 2007 movie ‘Ratatouille’.

But first, let’s set the scene: what do the critics make of all this?

Many of the most read art critics today are anonymous for a reason. “I work for [a prestigious university],” says one critic behind such an anonymous account. “I don’t really mind if my students saw my work but the people I work with would not be happy [because] a lot of them work closely with the artists I criticise.” Another anonymous Instagram critic concedes: “I would probably get in shit with the gallery I work for if I put my real name.” They assure me they are not ashamed of the opinions they hold but that there is “a difference between saying something and attaching your name to it. Also I think it’s more fun being anon because people can’t go for the ad hominem attack, they actually have to engage with what you’re saying instead of insulting you.”

As for non-anonymous criticism; the opposite becomes true. “It’s so bad but when I meet an artist I’m so much less likely to write a bad review.” admits a London-based critic. “Because that’s a person, right? And they’ve met me, and what if I run into them at a party and we have to make small talk and they’re just thinking about this horrible review?”

This social factor is a big inhibitor. Several critics describe a persistent fear of backlash, not just from artists or institutions, but from peers. “The line between criticising a work and attacking a person has basically collapsed,” one tells me. It feels to many like a moral transgression: “You’re violating a social contract.” another critic says.

This contract is rarely spelled out, but it is widely understood and results in censorship not in any formal sense, but something more effective: self-regulation. Press trips and gallery dinners are a good example of this. No one explicitly states you must write positively in exchange for hospitality, because that would be vulgar. Instead, the obligation is implied, and therefore more binding. “You’re being welcomed,” one critic says. “You’re being fed and housed and turning around and writing something negative feels rude and makes it less likely to be invited back.” This is by design: the lure of private tours and dinners and travel is a sort of softlock guarantee by comms agencies and PR companies to ensure good press.

Norman Rockwell, The Art Critic, 1955.

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The economic reality of criticism only sharpens these pressures. There is very little money in it unless you are already secure: in-house at a major publication, contracted to produce a fixed number of pieces, or independently wealthy enough to write without worrying about rent. This naturally limits who can become a critic: I, for example, make just enough money off Substack and freelance writing to support myself. But I am an upper-class 27 year old who does not pay rent on her flat in Zone One. If I was a single mother of two with a mortgage and an hours-long commute to the closest gallery, criticism would be a completely unattainable career option. 

This truth makes the idea of criticism generally unwelcoming to a huge chunk of the population: I’m not implying only the well-off can write, but it does mean the field rewards people who can absorb low pay, irregular fees, and the time off needed to show up to private views, press trips, gallery dinners, social events that take away from more serious and time-consuming things like caretaking, jobs with long or irregular hours, chronic illnesses or disabilities, or long commutes. I and many other critics can do these things because our lives have buffers, because we live in metropolitan cities, because we can take time off work or in the evenings to go look at artworks. Many equally (likely more) talented writers simply don’t have that luxury, or simply don’t want to join a scene that requires so much proximity to power just to participate.

So, this is the current state of things: not a battlefield, exactly, but an awkward social terrain where judgement is possible, just persistently discouraged via a number of factors.

Jerry Saltz. Photo courtesy of Singapore Inside Out.

But despite the melodrama that often accompanies talk of a “crisis,” the lived reality of being a critic is far less operatic. No one I spoke to describes themselves as a pariah. No one reports being socially exiled, professionally ruined, or physically assaulted for having written a negative review. “I’ve written things artists didn’t like,” one critic tells me. “I still see them at openings. Sometimes it’s awkward, sometimes it’s fine. But life goes on.”

Another is even blunter: “No one’s throwing things at your head. The worst thing that happens is someone unfollows you.”

Several critics stress that writing critically has not cost them friendships or work in any meaningful sense. “If anything,” one says, “people respect you more for having a point of view, even if they don’t agree with it.” When asked if they’ve ever banned someone for writing a negative review, a press officer for an LA-based mega-gallery tells me that “the idea that we have a blacklist is such a weird fantasy” and that they or their employers “don’t give a shit if [critics] like the work.”

This doesn’t mean there are no consequences, but they are usually a lot more mundane than the myth suggests. You might not be invited back to a particular dinner. A press office might stop prioritising you. Someone might accidentally cc you in an email calling you a bitch (true story). But this is just people managing their own discomfort and should not be seen as a deterrent; you will be disliked for many reasons throughout your life and having an opinion about art is as good as any.

Danny Devito as art critic Ongo Gablogian in Season 12 of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’.

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There is also a notable gap between how criticism is talked about online and how it functions in practice. “The internet makes it sound like every negative review detonates a career,” one critic tells me. “In reality, most criticism barely registers outside a very small circle.”

Money, too, is less apocalyptic than the rhetoric implies. No one I spoke to is getting rich, but several make a modest living, or at least a sustainable supplement. “You can make some money,” one says. “Just not main character money.” Another frames it more generously: “It’s a job you do because you care about thinking in public. I don’t think anybody goes into journalism hoping to make bank.”

What emerges is a picture that contradicts the heroic image of the critic as a martyr. Critics are not lone truth-tellers braving social annihilation. They are professionals navigating an awkward ecosystem, making trade-offs, calibrating risk, occasionally pulling punches - and sometimes, yes, landing them.

If we want to combat the “crisis” of art criticism we need to stop pretending that being a critic is an act of martyrdom, or that judgement is a form of violence. Being a critic is a fun, beautiful and healthy way of engaging with art and the more people do it the better. The faster we accept that criticism is not a heroic sacrifice but an ordinary public practice, the faster we can move away from the image of the critic as a wine-swilling mouthpiece for PR agencies, condemned either to politeness or exile. We can only start trusting the critic again once the critic starts trusting themself: attaching their names to their opinions (when safe), distinguishing clearly between work and person, and accepting that awkwardness, disagreement, and the occasional unfollow are not signs of failure but evidence that criticism is doing its job.

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