ArtSlant.com is a global network that maintains local staff in each city to cover openings, art events and news. The aforementioned Erik Wenzel writes for us and currently has articles up on the site (if you have noticed Art or Idiocy is less active it’s because he is working for us). We do writing but we are also a resource for artists. Anyone can create their own profile, submit an exhibit, and have the chance for over 90K visitors to see it.

Though Tom Wolfe may hate new media, we’re here to stay and we’re here for Chicago and Chicago artists.

Let “institution” equal “traditional media outlets,” especially NY-based print.

They’re struggling. And in large part that struggle is a result of competition with on-line publication.

That the “Old Guard” falls might be a good thing. But the owners of said entities tend to have assets [capital] to sell for income; while the writers and photographers [labor] are being let go, not uncommonly at ages 40-60, to find [?] employment elsewhere.

Writing and photography are now worth less than ever before, because of the ease and rapidity with which those things are reproduced and circulated, globally.

I don’t mean to be a didactic [sense: boorishly pedantic] douche bag about this, and cause Meg, or you, or anyone else to be upset.

But, I would argue, we owe it to each other, as artists, to make a real effort to respect the intellectual property rights of creators. If we don’t, who will? That we report, document, promote and critique is a good thing. That’s fair use.

But to take a work in toto, separating that work from its author’s name, absent consent, isn’t the Law of the Land; it’s piracy.

The BAS podcasts are original creative works; they should be treated with some respect. You guys labor to make them; and your guests need a “pair” to agree to do the interview. For some other site to begin to offer them [podcasts], unknown to you, would seem problematic? No?

Yes, there are, now, many relatively young arts-media outlets:

Carl Warnick’s non-profit documentation on Flickr; the SAIC students at onthemake.org; Paul Klein’s artletter.com; Wesley’s sharkforum.org; Ed and Rachael’s Proximity Magazine; Erik Wenzel’s artoridiocy.blogspot.com…etc.

And, yep: New City has an arts format that is much more reader-friendly than, ironically, The Reader.

Things are different; time will tell what that difference mean for us, and for art.

Meg doesn’t intend to plagiarize anything. To imply that that was attempted is just wrong. Maybe she should have more directly excerpted the article and created a second link to encourage further reading at the source, fair enough. To imply that BAS attempted to claim authorship is wrong. We have never claimed “authorship” of what occurs in the news stream. Meg and Christopher keep it updated as a way of helping people stay informed and they do it because they believe it is valuable and helpful. That is obvious and clear.

We are trying to get more people to create original content and we are working towards providing a more robust and useful tool for investigating the art world and worlds we are a part of. We are interested in seeing more folks contribute original content. So if your interested contact us.

We will attempt to change the “written” to “posted” as you advise by the intention was not to deceive but to inform. We are not a magazine, we are a web site and as so subject to a different informational flow and notion of “publishing.”

BAS is essentially still just a bunch of artists and art worlders interested in sharing our experience of, what a good friend of mine refers to as, Planet Art. We do no member of this community any favors by being willfully ignorant or encouraging others to also be ignorant.

Wait are we the institution? When did we become an institution? I am pretty sure that this is still volunteer-ist organization and I use the term “organization” loosely.

On a side note I was pretty sure Michael was just trying to get us to quit and fuck him for it. We just started to get good at this.

We agree on the fact that Chicago needs more arts coverage. It is our community, either we are interested in supporting it and discussing the things that go on in it or we are not. I for one hope that we are.

duncan.

PS.

Check out what New City is rocking on the interweb…

http://art.newcity.com/

In a previous comment you stated:

“I just finished listening to this podcast and I think that your comments about the financial crisis and the art market were naive and misinformed, punctuated by a lot of wishful thinking.”

Reference:

Episode 163: San Francisco Fall 2008

http://badatsports.com/2008/episode-163-san-francisco-fall-2008/

———

What I notice, here, is that while the words “Written by Megonli” appear at the bottom of this article, the text was written by Jerry Saltz.

And the photograph accompanying the text was taken by Linda Nylind.

But Jerry Saltz’s name and Linda Nylind’s name appear in no other place than this comment.

And if the link back to the article “Frieze After the Freeze” is sufficient, why not simply provide the link — and not copy and paste the entire text?

———

The point that I am driving at is that Bad at Sports is valuable, endearing even, because of the (1) local, (2) original and (3) honest content that it contains.

To the extent that Michael Workman was attempting to make that point, I think that he’s correct: Why “dump” on the amateurs laboring for love, and then applaud plagiarism of the institution?

News about New York, and news about the economy, has never been hard to find; the same cannot be said of Chicago visual arts coverage.