Ben Davis on What’s At Stake in Art Criticism Today

If you’re an art critic, it helps to feel that something is at stake in what you’re writing about. It sharpens the pencil, so to speak.

When reading the criticism of Ben Davis, the feeling of stakes is ever-present—the sense that art and its aims, concerns, and debates are not frivolous but core, nested within the broader sweep of human affairs like a thinking heart.

This is why for a long time I’ve considered Ben to be the best, most consistently interesting art critic anywhere. I’ve also been lucky enough to have worked with him for almost a decade across tours of duty at Artinfo and Artnet, and I’m proud to call him a friend.

So what’s at stake in art today? A lot. The world is in transition, with our old political, cultural, and media institutions in crisis and AI speed-running us into an uncertain and encompassing new paradigm. Things are palpably in a state of reorganization. Lots of cheese is being moved. Ben argues that, amid all of this flux, art itself is under threat.

Today, for the conclusion of season two of these Artwrld conversations, and for my final episode here at Artwrld before moving on to new projects, I’m very happy to talk to Ben about the state of the art today.