Who needs critics?
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2021
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is Gogglebox the main place on TV where you now find criticism? What does that tell us about the role of the critic today? Suzi Feay, Arifa Akbar and Charlotte Mullins join Matthew Sweet to review a new art exhibition at the Barbican showcasing the art and ideas of Jean Dubuffet and to reflect on what being a critic means. Matthew pays tribute to the thinking of Kevin Jackson (3 January 1955 – 10 May 2021) who took part in many critical discussions on BBC Radio 3. New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti teaches philosophy and art at Liverpool University and he's written us a postcard reflecting on what it means when algorithms dictate the culture we consume.
Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty runs at the Barbican, London from May 17th 2021 to August 22nd 2021. Dubuffet (1901-1985) collected artwork made by people outside the arts establishment and in his own work he incorporated butterfly wings, sand, lava, collages of cut up paintings and graffiti. Talking about the portraits he made he said, ‘Funny noses, big mouths, crooked teeth, hairy ears, I’m not against all that’.
You can find a playlist focusing on the Visual Arts on the Free Thinking website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026wnjl
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.7 | Hello, my name's Matthew Sweet and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast. |
| 0:08.3 | And what you'll hear next may be good, it may be terrible, but rest assured, |
| 0:12.5 | the people in the studio with me will give it to you straight, |
| 0:15.3 | because everyone's a critic. |
| 0:17.1 | Maybe you're one too. |
| 0:18.4 | If so, hold your fire until after these messages. |
| 0:26.3 | The human voice. Isn't it amazing? I'm Peter Brathwaid and I'm an opera singer, but I'm not here to tell you about my voice. |
| 0:34.8 | I want to share my love for five extraordinary voices that have changed the way I sing and listen. |
| 0:40.4 | Some you might know, others you probably won't. But they and their stories all need to be heard. |
| 0:45.9 | So have a listen to In Their Voices, my series of essays diving deep into five voices that have hit me for six. |
| 0:53.3 | The essay. Search for this series and all other |
| 0:56.5 | available episodes in BBC Sounds. |
| 1:05.4 | Thatcher, Cordwainer, those Victorians who collected dog turds off the street for the tanning industry. |
| 1:12.7 | Trades rise, fall and pass into history. This edition of free thinking is about a profession |
| 1:18.5 | in a paradoxical position, the critic. Ten years ago, every newspaper had a little battalion of them. |
| 1:25.4 | Now, the same columns sometimes appear in more than one |
| 1:28.9 | title, bought in from some content mill. And on television, well, Mark Kermode is, I think, |
| 1:35.2 | the only professional critic left on British television. That's to say, the only person being |
| 1:40.7 | paid to tell a TV audience that a new work of art is a joy or a disgrace or a |
| 1:47.1 | fascinating failure. And yet, thanks to social media, casual critical conversation is deeply |
| 1:53.3 | integrated into everyday life. Oddly, it's also on television. Arguably, the only arts review |
... |
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