DEAR MOCA: Why Can't Crypto Artists Handle Criticism

In so many words...

Please enjoy today’s DEAR MOCA column. Have questions you’d like answered? Have a thought you want us to respond to? Email us at hello@museumofcryptoart.com or submit your questions to our dedicated Google Form.

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Note: After writing and publishing this article, it was brought to my attention by Ms. Shavonne Wong that Jerry Saltz released a full critical analysis on Refik Anadol’s piece "Unsupervised” earlier this year. That naturally undermines some of the points I make in this piece, but I do think my underlying thesis holds true, and I think much of Jerry Saltz’s activity in crypto art remains superficial and patronizing. Regardless, the full context is important. To Jerry Saltz, I say only this:

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Dear M○C△,

You’ve talked a few times on the podcast about the Refik Anadol vs. Jerry Saltz criticism situation on Twitter. Why do you think crypto artists can’t deal with criticism? Why do artists here get so mad when someone with real experience in art criticism takes on their work? It seems so childish.

Sincerely,

Saltz in an Open Wound

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Dear Saltz in an Open Wound,

This Refik vs. Saltz saga is really the gift that keeps on giving, huh? Unlike a lot of folks, I don’t tire of talking about it at all: What a rich text! It’s been equally amazing to sit here and watch their series of antagonistic tweets turning again and again into really thoughtful and high-minded analytical reflections on crypto art as a whole, like yours. Jerry Saltz, in randomly and ruthlessly attacking Refik Anadol’s artistry, seems to have turned our collective crypto art attention inwards. If you told me at the start of this saga that I’d record two podcasts and write a column on the subject, I’d have laughed you off, or otherwise begged you to kill me then. But actually, I’ve found the conversation quite wholly stimulating. 

Anything that helps us have a conversation is a-okay in my book. 

*Note*: I’m not going to quote any Saltz or Anadol  tweet in this article; they have been hashed and rehashed, remixed and invoked ad nauseum. Exact verbiage doesn’t matter really anyways. I’m a columnist, not a reporter. If you need a primer/refresher on the situation, Jo Lawson-Tancred did a bang-up job encapsulating everything for Artnet. 

But one of my favorite moments was this one:

Your argument today, Saltz in an Open Wound, feels like the most widespread takeaway to have emerged from this saga: that crypto artists can’t deal with criticism, that this is a problem plaguing the entire space, and that until crypto artists do begin to embrace, even seek out criticism, there can be no further push into the spotlight. Crypto art will seem, forevermore, in your own words, “childish.”

While I believe there’s merit to your conclusion, I think you —and most everyone else— is overlooking a crucial underpinning of this entire situation. I actually don’t think this Refik/Jerry brawl has anything to do with how crypto artists handle criticism. 

Which I understand this is a somewhat iconoclastic view, but it’s rooted in, as I see it, the most underlooked part of the entire Saltz vs. Anadol heavyweight fight:

There was never any art criticism here. 

It wasn’t like Jerry Saltz —a Pulitzer laureate twice-over, recipient of three honorary doctoral degrees, a man who has published five bestselling books about art or art criticism— provided Refik Anadol with a thoughtful artistic analysis. There was no gestalt conceptual argument, no theorists invoked, nor a discussion of aesthetics, a lack of links thrown back and forth through art history, nary even an argument, let alone a shred of the intelligence that Saltz could have assuredly pulled out of his back pocket at will, if he so chose. But he didn’t choose. There was no well thought-out reasoning. No proofs, no specificities, no insights. 

No art criticism.

Everyone is obviously entitled to their own hair-trigger opinion about every artwork they see, even Jerry Saltz. Especially Jerry Saltz! But that’s not criticism. And it’s not analysis. It’s something different. Unimpressive reactivity, that’s all. No different than a child walking through an art museum, saying, “I like this,” or “I hate this,” just we’re dealing with a really accomplished child and a really sensitive museum. Not everything out of a critic’s mouth should be elevated to the level of criticism. 

And they don’t give out Pulitzers for talking shit.

Nevertheless, as I said Saltz in an Open Wound, I do partly agree with you: Crypto art does have a criticism problem. Or, rather, in my estimation, they have two. 

Criticism Problem #1) Crypto artists can’t handle real criticism.*

You’re probably wondering: “Why the asterisk?” 

Because while I agree with the statement itself, I think this is less a crypto art specific issue and more the evocation of a social-media-motivated attitude shift away from self-awareness, away from humility, and towards self-certainty. Inability to handle criticism is what apps like Twitter and Facebook do to our brains. Need an example? Look no further than how the man who owns Twitter responds to criticism.

Hint: not well. 

Social media encloses us within echo chambers which make us certain of some specific information, plying us with all sorts of ultra-convincing reasons why our hardening beliefs are not just accurate but vital. When we leave our echo chamber only to find a cavalcade of contradictory attitudes and perspectives, we rage. We were convinced that our little parochial world was the actual world, and we’re left with only two options:

A) accept these new perspectives as somehow also legitimate even though we can’t make sense of them, thus reconfiguring our entire perspective of the world based on this notion that our ability to understand is limited and based on arbitrary socio-cultural value systems , or 

B) get pissed off.

Refik Anadol —offering himself up as a stand-in for crypto artists at-large— has been living in a masturbatory echo chamber basically since he started minting NFTs, achieving not only massive financial success but constant, almost sycophantic praise from institutions and individuals. That’s going to be somewhat connected to the aesthetics of his work, yes, but more so to how much money he can make his investors. No shade to Refik, that’s just how it goes in crypto art circa 2023. Many people have obviously thrown their financial weight behind him as an artistic genius, and they must thereafter ply both the artist and the entire world with the vocalized strength of their conviction. Their vociferousness will infect others, thus helping the artist compound sufficient success and influence that their own investments and taste-making prowess will be solidified in the future.

So imagine trafficking within this environment —being overtly endorsed by Nvidia, Google, the Sphere— and then being the recipient of criticism. And not just any criticism, but criticism that obviously hit a nerve. Jerry Saltz, man, that guy can be mean. And his comments were mean. We can all say, “Man, if that were me, there’s no way I would respond, I wouldn’t care, blah blah blah,” but that’s bullshit. We can’t control what gets under our skin. 

And thus, Anadol’s response, proof for many that crypto artists can’t take criticism, seems more like a natural 21st-century, social-media-motivated, general human response than one specific to crypto art. 

We have here an art movement completely rooted in internet sensibilities. And that means all internet sensibilities, like ‘em or not.

Which brings us to Criticism Problem #2, which I think actually exonerates Refik Anadol, and justifies his response to some degree. Problem #1 is the more recognizable, certainly the more universal, but this one is much more damaging, much more infuriating, and if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll notice that it’s unrelenting. 

Criticism Problem #2) Crypto artists aren’t getting real criticism. 

When I wrote a column about the lack of writing in and about this space, the greater implication was that there isn’t much writing/thought/analysis coming from outside of it either. If you didn’t see it last week (and I’m sorry to be the one calling your attention to it now), things like the Observer’s Digital Innovators Business of Art Power List —which famously featured 9 men and 1 woman, the 99 year old Vera Molnar— represent the vast majority of “analyses” performed on crypto artistry, as far as I can see. When someone like Jerry Saltz takes notice of crypto art, you’d be forgiven for expecting thoughtful, insightful criticisms of the kind he’s built a career making elsewhere. Hell, you might even be excited that he’s taken notice of this wild, wacky, place. 

But all we get are a few tweets here and there. “This I like” on a Diewiththemostlike piece. “This is great” on an EclecticMethod remix. Where are the lengthy breakdowns of our cultural milieu? Where do we see artists being put in conversation with others? Where do we see the artistic continuum being bent to include us, or even just brush us as it walks by? Where are the examinations of our motivations, our influences, our emotions, the trends we engage in that only an outside source can help make less murky? Where is the god-damn respect we deserve!

 I think it’s completely within our rights as an art movement to expect the same respect from the dominant cultural establishment that they breathlessly provide for themselves. Hell, we should demand it! Crypto art is all-too-rarely visited by influential thinkers from the outside world. When we are, it’s only natural that we should want to be seen for all we are, not reduced to platitudes or generalities.

And I simply don’t see that happening outside of RightClickSave, to be quite frank. 

So, do I necessarily think Refik Anadol raging against Jerry Saltz’s denigrating comments was justified? No, of course not: That shit was silly and childish and encapsulates a lot of the interpersonal ills we’re suffering from in the social media age. But do I think very highly of Jerry Saltz, or he Mr. Saltz goes about his business? Not at all. Less everyday. He positioned himself as a complete schmuck, and  now had the audacity to complain that people are treating him like a schmuck.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Give respect to get respect. Otherwise (and this view is entirely my own), buzz off. 

Crypto art must sort out our own internal shit, that much is clear. But this is and has always been a give-respect-to-get-respect kind of artistic ecosystem. If the traditional art world’s emissaries are going to continue coming into crypto art and treating us like children to scold, scorn, exploit, or otherwise diminish, I think any tantrum we thereafter throw is entirely understandable. Get what you give. You don’t have to be a super-genius to see that we’re a nascent art movement seeking acceptance and legitimacy. This Jerry Saltz commentary is the kind of stuff people tweet on the toilet, and that continued lack of respect is only going to further alienate us going forward. I’m angry that we seem to so often be gestured towards the kids table. I’m tired of this trad-art-world commiserating about our lack of obsequiousness. 

Fortunately, we’re the future, and that’s the past, and everything comes out in the wash eventually, right? Cream rises, so on and so forth. 

So basically, I think everyone is in the wrong here, and I think, Saltz in an Open Wound, you were right in your basic argument. But nobody gets mad at me when I write about their work, even if I dislike or misunderstand it. Because I think the care I put into my work is clear. I spend time on it, I think about it, I wonder if it’s fair. And when I receive criticism, I try to listen to it, learn from it, and grow. That we can all, myself included, keep front of mind.

But as for that all-important question of yours: How will crypto artists react to real criticism coming from those with “real experience?”

I’ll let you know when they give us any real criticism. Until then, TBD. 

- Your Friendly Neighborhood Digital Art Museum,

M○C△