Monday 21 July 2008

Review me this

So - the results are in for my first foray into quiz land. Here's what I found:

First, I found out that my methodology sucked: 100% of you are reading art blogs (well duh - it's a survey posted on an art blog. My apologies). The dark horse finding though: 90% of you are still reading the New Zealand Listener. I thought - possibly mistakenly - that they'd pretty much quit the steady art reviewing with the change of Arts Editor, and I finally decided to quit my subscription. Was I wrong?

Meanwhile, all the other options came in at under 50%:

40% Art New Zealand
40% Art News New Zealand
33% Lumiere Reader
33% Local newspaper
25% White Fungus
17% Natural Selection
17% Uni student mag

However - you might be reading the Listener, but 60% of you trust the views expressed on art blogs the most (and not an editorial guideline in sight!). Art New Zealand and Art News New Zealand also limped in with a couple of votes each.

No clear winner emerged in the reviewer race: John Hurrell, Bruce E Phillips, Peter Ireland, Andrew Paul Wood, Virginia Were and Justin Paton all got a mention or a few.

Interesting omissions: Mark Amery (Dom Post - I think? bugger, I gave up reading that too), TJ McNamara (NZ Herald) and David Eggleton & Sally Blundell (both regulars at the Listener - at least, back when I was still reading it - which y'all apparently read but don't rate).

But don't just listen to me on this topic. Arts on Sunday featured a segment on visual art criticism yesterday, with Mark Amery, Judy Darragh and the guys from White Fungus variously suggesting that editors, money, journalism training, money, more opportunities, and money might help us arts consumers digest our art meals.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Listener got their Art-act together again a few months back and steadily (but slowly) improving. They have had a range of reviewers. Mark Amery is good in that I missed him when he was away for a few weeks and Tom Cardy was filling in.

I think its sad that Artbash has gone downhill badly since the big crash and someone shoudl do what John Hurrell does but for the capital and other centres

Anonymous said...

Hi. The funny thing is that you think the base of your readers is in NZ. Why? I think you're everything, guy. Regina Hackett

Courtney Johnston said...

To quote my father - holy shitbags, Regina Hackett!

Most of my readers are in NZ, with a few faithful in Australia - I figured most of the hits from the States were keyword browsers. But I'm very happy to be proved wrong!