The Monthly increases online art and culture reviews
The Monthly magazine has announced it will increase online art and culture reviews, in a move to counter the decrease in media coverage of the two areas.
The announcement:
The Monthly magazine has long been one of Australia’s boldest voices on politics and culture. The Monthly will now increase its online coverage of books, films, television, theatre, music and art with reviews and essays by some of the country’s best writers and critics.
In a conscious move to counter the decrease in media coverage of serious arts and culture, and the decline in thoughtful criticism of Australia’s creative output, the Monthly’s online offerings, themonthly.com.au and the Monthly Today, will be redoubling their efforts in this important but endangered area.
Nick Feik, Editor, the Monthly: We’re seeing sweeping cuts to arts funding, the pillaging of small and medium companies and neglect of emerging artists. In Sydney we’re seeing iconic music venues closing their doors. From our politicians we’re seeing and hearing nothing but disdain for art and artists and the value they bring to a society. And now, after drastic cuts by
Fairfax and the ABC, we’re also seeing a massive decline in not only the quantity of prominent arts coverage, but the quality. Very few media outlets are taking arts and culture seriously anymore – and we hope to change that.
Anwen Crawford, arts critic for the Monthly, wrote in a recent piece: I cannot imagine how I would make sense of the world without art, but nor can I comprehend how I would make sense of art without criticism.
Effective criticism is timely, and alert to the times in which it is made; it forms one strand of a wider public conversation that we are each entitled to join, by virtue of being alive. But in Australia we are all, increasingly, being denied participation in, and exposure to, art and arts criticism.
Film distributors, television networks, theatre companies, record labels, book publishers, art galleries, cultural institutions and festival promoters are encouraged to contact the Monthly with any press or advertising enquiries.
Source: The Monthly
