Jennifer Allen

“In 1994, I wrote my first review and faxed (!) the text to my editor. The review was about publicsfear, a now defunct New York artists’ publication, and appeared in Parachute, a now defunct Montréal magazine about international contemporary art.

But what looked like internationalism in 1994 – writing in Montréal about New York – would eventually bifurcate into globalisation and digitisation. When I moved to Berlin in 1995, globalisation and digitisation were already having an impact on the life of the art critic, the methods of art criticism and art itself.

Since 1994, globalisation has made the once-parochial art “world” truly global, yet the impact of digitisation on contemporary art is harder to discern. While critics, artists and others rely on mobile digital gadgets, the artworks have not fully dematerialised into virtual space, nor been unsettled by digital reproduction. Seeing exhibitions – in contrast to reading books, listening to music or watching movies – is still bound to physical spaces.”

In addition to offering a personal overview of her work as a critic, Allen will explore why art traditions continue to thrive while digitisation upended other forms of mass culture: books, movies, music.