Podcast: Season 1, Episode 3, “Art Criticism vs. Journalism”

Season 1

In the first episode of Momus’s new “Criticism in Conversation” podcast series, an art critic and an art journalist parse the differing responsibilities and approaches of their craft. Catherine G. Wagley (a Momus contributing editor, and a critic for ARTNews and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among others) and Julia Halperin (Executive Editor of artnet News, and former Museums Editor for The Art Newspaper) compare notes and find common ground as they consider, in particular, the example of a potent piece of journalism published by Halperin concerning the influence of five commercial galleries on worldwide institutional programming. Wagley wonders if this kind of reporting isn’t also the province of criticism, as these politics affect what we see – and how.

This episode of Momus: The Podcast is edited by Angela Shackel and features original music by Kyle McCrea. It is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts “New Chapter” grant, and syndicated by NTS Radio.

Hosts: Sky Goodden and Lauren Wetmore

momus_ep3_carousel — Agnes Martin, *Untitled #1*, 2003. Courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris © 2015 Agnes Martin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

About the Guests

About the Guests, and more

Catherine G. Wagley is a journalist, critic, and editor based in Los Angeles. She is co-editor at Momus and her book She Wanted Adventure is forthcoming from FSG.
Julia Halperin is an arts and culture journalist, editor, and co-founder of the Burns Halperin Report, the largest report of its kind tracking equity and representation in the art world. She is a contributor to the New York Times, W Magazine, and the Financial Times, among other publications. She also serves as editor at large of CULTURED magazine and a contributing editor to the Art Newspaper, where she writes a monthly column about changes and challenges in American art museums. From 2017 to 2022, she was executive editor of Artnet News. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Magazine, and WIRED. Her writing and reporting focuses on power and money in the art world, how change happens, and who is leading it.

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