Matthew Collings does a monthly column for the Saatchi website, one of the few reasons to pay attention to it (another is that they unearth quite good shows on a regular basis). This month in PUT DOWNS AND SUCK UPS: MATTHEW COLLINGS' WEEKLY VENTINGS ABOUT THE ART WORLD NO 34: TOP TEN Collings takes a brilliant punt at Artforum. With it's "strangulated vague congested references to other writings that these over-verbal strivers have been intimidated by" he makes a point that I keep wanting to make -- we don't have a language to talk about contemporary art that most of us can understand. Yet, like so many of us, he concludes, "I must have something of the same sadomasochistic twitch because I keep buying it."
2. Artforum. Every time I buy this magazine it's depressing. I ask myself, what am I reading? The answer is strangulated vague congested references to other writings that these over-verbal strivers have been intimidated by. They want to pass on the unpleasantness. And yet I must have something of the same sadomasochistic twitch because I keep buying it. They used to have a regular feature called "Greil Marcus's Top Ten," written by the verbose rock writer, which was pretty pretentious, but sometimes funny. (When the Spice Girls toured America one of his entries read something like: "The Spice Girls US tour. Sure, but this bad?") He stopped doing it years ago and a different new or emerging artist is invited to do it each month instead. They list idiotic things they think might sound impressive and pretend they like them. At the front of the magazine there's always an introduction to the issue, where the editor pretends to be troubled by passing social issues. It's quite useful if you've got a bit of professional hustling to do in the art world and you want to know what the conversational reference points are for pseuds this month.
