I was going through ArtThrob's archives today, for an arbitrary reason, and I stumbled across a 2003 special on Art Criticism. It was funny, and then depressing to see that many of the issues that were valid then are still valid today: A lack of professional critics, a small pond, newspapers not covering art, artists turned critics out of desperation, multiple hats. Read articles by Andrew Lamprecht and Virginia MacKenny here and here respectively. With little having changed in the last six years, I wonder though if what is missing is an audience of criticism, or at least a responsive audience. Looking at ArtThrob's perennially empty feedback section, the seldom published letters at Art South Africa, and the inane comments section here which has drastically slowed down. To get better, it is unfortunately up to us.

To conclude the Criticism section Sean O'Toole wrote a list of people who were actively contributing to the discourse. The list now seems pretty outdated, with many of the people having moved on. Who would you add to that list today?