As an expat living in Berlin, I get my news from home from two main sources: my subscription to the New Yorker (which arrives two weeks late, like clockwork) and the indispensable 104.1, National Public Radio broadcast in Berlin. Sadly though, both outlets are lacking when it comes to coverage of the visual arts. In the UK, one can pick up any one of the broadsheets and find at least some coverage of contemporary art. But you’re lucky if the New Yorker has a profile of an artist or a contemporary exhibition more than once a month – and even then, it’s most likely a mid-career male artist. But NPR’s arts coverage is even more seldom, and often veers completely off the mark. A recent segment about a Jeff Koons exhibition began, ‘Naked ladies, rabbits, and some basketballs are on display at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art’, closely followed up by the hefty price tag for his latest sale at auction. The elderly-sounding reporter then attempted to describe, in a slightly horrified voice, the paintings of Koons and his former wife ‘making whoopee, or making babies, or however you want to call it’ before asking the curator, ‘Is this art?’
Rather than illuminating the work or provoking curiosity about the exhibition, this kind of prudish, naive coverage treats the work of the US’s most famous contemporary artist as if it needs to be picked up with a protective tissue and held far from one’s nose.
