Relations between critics and artists can be fraught — ‘A critic never fights the battle; they just go around shooting the wounded.’ But where would actors, authors, artists and musicians be without expert critics? Is traditional criticism even relevant in the digital age when opinions and platforms proliferate?
To find out, spend an evening with three practising critics discussing what reviewers in New Zealand do, what deserves their time and opinion, and how to foster new critics and artists. The panel will also consider the difference between art and entertainment, and how critics manage the tensions when economic imperatives push criticism away from editorial and journalistic copy towards advertorial writing and promotion.
Panelists:
Margaret Agnew is an award-winning journalist, editor and writer, who has reviewed everything from books, film, TV, music and theatre to comedy, restaurants and bars. She was chief film reviewer for The Press for a dozen years, edited Your Weekend magazine, and created the GO (Going Out) Guide for Fairfax Media. Highlights included seeing her Lord of the Rings film review appear on the front page, correctly predicting all the 2004 Oscar winners, and interviewing famous film folk, including a grumpy Keanu Reeves. Since it began, she has helped judge the 48HOURS Furious Filmmaking contest. She works at the University of Canterbury, and with her husband is raising two little critics of her own.
Dr Erin Harrington is a film and theatre critic who started out (ages ago) doing on-air and written reviews for student media. In recent years she has reviewed more than 130 productions for New Zealand performing arts review website Theatreview. She has written for online arts and culture journal Pantograph Punch, which has included reviews and commentary for the site's film festival coverage. She has also reviewed theatre for RNZ National, provided end of year critical commentary on Christchurch performing arts for The Playmarket Annual, and contributed film review essays and cultural criticism for a range of national and international publications, including academic journals. Recently, Erin has also acted as a judge for the Sheilah Winn Festival of Shakespeare in Schools, the 48 Hour Furious Filmmaking Competition, and the South Island RAW Stand Up Comedy Competition.
Anna Rogers’ critical 'training' really began when she was 18 and first assessed a few manuscripts for her publisher father. Since she became a book editor in the late 1970s, she has assessed many, many manuscripts, both for publishers and independently. She was a founding member of the New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors. Anna reviewed largely fiction for the Press, and later the Fairfax weekend magazine, for a number of years from the late 1990s and was one of three finalists for the 2005 Montana New Zealand Reviewer of the Year Award. In the last year or so she has been reviewing regularly for the Listener.
Professor Paul Millar is a sometimes book reviewer, manuscript assessor and awards judge. One of his earliest critiques was of the work of Wilbur Smith. In a 1997 article for the Evening Post titled ‘A sexist, racist formula’, he observed that Smith’s work evinces a disturbing degree of misogyny and racial stereotyping, relying for sales on a formula of sex and gore garnished with sado-masochism to titillate male fantasy. These startling insights were met with international indifference and Smith’s sales continued to soar. However, Millar’s sporadic local reviewing career and three experiences judging the New Zealand Book awards led to some angry approaches from disappointed authors and publishers and even damaged friendships. His advice to young reviewers is that only the local is real.
The only good critic... An Evening With Margaret Agnew, Erin Harrington & Anna Rogers – chaired by Paul Millar, Tuesday, 4 June, 6pm-7.30pm in the Recital Room, UC Arts at the Arts Centre, 3 Hereford St, Christchurch. Register to attend free.
