The Washington Post eliminated its weekly In the Galleries art column effective immediately, as first reported in BmoreArt and confirmed by Hyperallergic.
In an email sent to several DC-area art exhibition spaces on Monday, August 19, column author and critic Mark Jenkins announced the series would shut down after the last iteration runs in this Sunday’s print edition.
Jenkins, a freelance critic, authored the column for 13 years. It ran online each Friday.
Jenkins’s In the Galleries series focused its criticism on the DC area, providing readers with consistent local art criticism. In a statement to Hyperallergic, a Washington Post spokesperson said that the paper “remains committed to local art coverage, including galleries and museums, across all platforms.” Jenkins declined to comment.
Some think the decision represents a blow to the paper’s local arts coverage.
“Removing his column would equate to eradicating an invaluable pillar of support for local galleries, art agencies, and artists alike, creating a significant ripple effect on the DC art economy,” Timothy Brown, director of the International Arts and Artists at Hillyer nonprofit in Dupont Circle, told Hyperallergic. The organization’s recent solo exhibition of works by Andrea Sherrill Evans was included in last week’s column.
Other spaces reached by Hyperallergic, among them BlackRock Center for the Arts and Zenith Gallery, said they were saddened by the loss. Some speculated that the Jeff Bezos-owned publication is looking to capture a more international audience.
“A city’s arts coverage will never garner as many online clicks as a national story, especially one centered around politics and outrage,” Cara Ober and Michael Anthony Farley wrote in BmoreArt. (Ober has also contributed to Hyperallergic.)
“However, the readers of regional cultural criticism are much more engaged than the average reader,” Ober and Farley continued. “These are the readers who are going to show up to events. These are the readers who are going to eat in the restaurants on the way to the theater. These are the readers who are going to buy the art.”
The Washington Post’s decision to cut Jenkins’s weekly art column marks an increasingly slim art critic workforce. In 2018, New York Magazine’s Senior Art Critic Jerry Saltz called those in the profession a “dying breed.”
A 2017 survey led by Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard of over 300 arts journalists found that a third of those who responded “write in a way that touches on politics regularly,” reinforcing their role in important societal conversations. The survey also revealed immense job insecurity in the industry, with more than half of respondents reporting an annual income of $20,000 or less.
Jenkins also writes features and individual reviews for the Washington Post. In the email he sent to galleries, reviewed by Hyperallergic, Jenkins said that he expects the paper to continue “some” individual reviews of local gallery exhibitions.
