Sun 1/26 @ 1pm
The shrinking of coverage of the arts in all forms and media has accelerated in recent years. With the retirement of visual art critic Steven Litt at the Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com, an outlet that once had a full team of writers covering everything from visual arts to dance to classical music to film to television to books to comedy now has — no one full-time on staff. It parcels out what remains of its coverage to freelancers. And Cleveland’s paper isn’t unique — it’s happening across the country. Alternative newsweeklies which used to pick up some of the slack are shrinking too.
That’s the topic of journalist/critic Mary Louise Schumacher’s new film Out of the Picture, which focuses on one particular aspect of this dire situation: the disappearance of visual art writers such as Litt. Her film was intended to fuel conversation about “the nature of art, modern life and how meaning gets made in our time.” Shumacher herself was downsized out of her job at the major newspaper chain in 2019 and began filming the following year, based on a national survey of arts journalists she’d done in 2017. The film features interviews with a handful of art critics who will look at the role of what they do in our contemporary society. They include Carolina Miranda of the Los Angeles Times; Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic; Jen Graves of The Stranger; Jeneé Osterheldt of The Boston Globe; and independent critic Seph Rodney.
The film will screen at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque Sunday May 26. There will be a post-film Q&A moderated by Litt. Go here for tickets.
https://cinematheque.cia.edu/movies/out-of-the-picture/