Why Do Exhibition Texts Spoil the Art? with Jennifer Braun, The Gen Z Art Critic

And now enjoy Romeo and Juliet. By the way, they both die in the end. Have fun! A translator from bullshit art speak to normal language. There's an elephant in the room right now, and you're very good at ignoring it, but I'm not going to ignore that elephant. I try to understand the choices and not the intentions. Now that I'm spelling it out, My opinion of that exhibition changed.

First of all, Jennifer, thank you for taking your time. I wanted to ask you, for those that don't know about your, let's say, brand or persona or just like who you are online, would you give us an elevator pitch? What do you do and who is the Gen Z art critic?

Well, I am first and foremost an art critic, not an influencer, not a content creator. I just like to use Instagram as my living room, if you will, to hang out with my mutuals, with the friends on my pewter. Um, criticism from my generational perspective. That's why it's called the Gen Z Art Critic, not because I want to represent all the Gen Z in the world, but because I know that my perspective on contemporary art or on anything in life will be informed by my place and time in history, and that is being Gen Z in Germany in this environment that we are in right now. So I want to offer this as context as to why I see art the way that I do, and I want to invite people to, yeah, reflect on this subjective opinion to build their own. So subjective opinions.

Okay. That's a good pitch. You practice that. Um, and basically, so you have like an Instagram page and a Substack and also like a podcast, right?

Yes, I do. So, uh, the podcast actually, it's called A Bigger Schnack, inspired by David Hockney's A Bigger Splash. And I co-host it with my colleague, Lars Fleischmann, who's also an art critic and a journalist. And that podcast is entirely in German, except for me speaking Denglisch, because I just like throw in English phrases wherever I can. And that podcast is really about the Rhineland art scene and the gossip we pick up everywhere. Oh, lovely. But sometimes it's investigative journalism.

Nice. And your like academic background is in art history?

That is correct. I actually am still about to finish my art history master's degree in Cologne. But you know, with everything going on, it kind of got into a lower priority category now.

Okay. Um, okay. But like, if I scrolled down enough, I think you started around in 2023?

Yes, that is right. In summer 2023.

What was the moment that led you to this?

Um, it was 2 things. So first I was living in Venice. at that time during the summer, and I have been seeing a lot of exhibitions, and I was just annoyed by how pretentious the texts and the communication around those exhibitions was. Because I understand that contemporary art can be tricky. I understand that it's not everybody's cup of tea. That's fine. But communication should be clear, even if the art is more elusive or abstract. ambiguous, but all those texts were just a whole lot of bullshit. And I thought somebody has to do like a translator for art speak, not even art criticism, but just like a translator from bullshit art speak to normal language. What is going on here? Yeah. And then I was having a conversation with a friend and I was telling them how I wanted to Start writing about art. And I didn't know how to do that. And you could really use that moment in time as a Substack commercial because that person was like, well, you should try Substack. And I was like, what is Substack? Substack is an all-in-one platform that helps you build your community. You don't have to start anything by yourself. You just get the newsletter, your subscribers, and you write your stuff and it's for free. So it was really like a commercial in that moment. And I was like, okay, cool. So I guess I'm gonna go on Substack. And that very day I subscribed, or not, I created my account on that day. And that's also why I chose my title, The Gen Z Art Critic, because that's the third part of the story. I was walking past the, what is it called, the museum shop of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. And right in the storefront, they had a book, which was Gilda Williams' How to Write About Contemporary Art. That was like in the same week. And I was like, oh, perfect. That's, that's what I need. So I got that book. I read it in 2 days. And that taught me how to write really art criticism, art criticism, among some other things. But there was one little phrase in that book, you know, it's like really just a byline, but I made it my whole identity. She said that she recommended aspiring art critics to write criticism about their own generation as well as a generation older and younger, because that way a critic has a better understanding of the life circumstances of those artists. Like, you have something in common, you know where it's coming from, what historical events have led to their art, rather than dealing with someone who was born like 50 years before you and you have like You don't know nothing about that life. And that way I thought, okay, well, according to that logic, I am Gen Z. So I guess I am the Gen Z Art Critic now. And that's how I chose my name.

Amazing. And such a good story. And I want to, I want to go back to what you said about the art speak and kind of like the art English, where some wall text is just impossible to digest and understand. And with, with contemporary art, it can be even harder. How do you approach that? Like, if you ever like take someone to exhibition that it's not from the art sphere world, um, how do you approach explaining like what is there standing in front of them?

I mean, the most important thing I guess that I do is also to Just say it when I don't get it either. Like, it's not about pretending that I know it better when there's nothing to know better. Sometimes art doesn't make sense, and that's okay. And like, or you just don't get it, and that's okay. I don't get everything in contemporary art. A person who has never dealt with contemporary art might also not get everything. That's fine. It happens. It's not bad. The other thing is that I try to give just a little bit of context if I know anything about the position. Just like, why is this important in art history? If it's like a more famous artist, or like, why are they famous? What are they famous for? Really, I'm not trying to make them like me. the art. Like, it's not my job or not my responsibility or not even just my goal. I don't want to force them into liking contemporary art. I just want to, like, offer a little bit of context to get a new perspective on it and make their own decision or create their own judgment about it. And it's okay if after a gallery hopping day they still don't really feel anything for contemporary art, that can take some time. Maybe it's not going to happen at all. That's okay. So, um, I would never put any pressure on that, I'd say.

Okay. So a wonderful, wonderful tangent to my, my, my question. Like you visit a lot of student shows and a lot of studios, if I understand correctly. Um, when it comes to emerging artists, Your perspective looking at the art from like the Gen Z, so the same generation, you kind of know what's going on with the social media, what's maybe trending, what are the memes, which are like a big part of our culture in a way. You, you, I, I, somewhere I read that you don't really prepare for the exhibition. So you go there with like an open mind and just like kind of see what's happening. what's going on and only after read the text and kind of try to get it. Is that correct? What's, what's kind of the process when you, for example, let's say today you're visiting 3 artist studios. How does it work? You walk in, what happens first?

I mean, seeing an artist studio is to me different than seeing an exhibition because regarding exhibitions, I approach it like watching a movie. When I watch a movie, I don't want to know anything in advance. I see the poster and that poster is helping me determine whether I want to see the movie or not. I don't need to know in advance what the director wanted to accomplish with that movie. I don't want to know the plot twist of the movie before seeing it. And this is how many, like, artists, but especially curators, approach— telling you something about the art. They will be like, and now enjoy Romeo and Juliet. By the way, they both die at the end. Have fun. Like, why would you ruin this experience for me? Why would you ruin this experience of me having my own interaction with the work? Because now I'm going to know what I have to expect. That's boring. And so this is why I don't read anything in the beginning of seeing an exhibition. I want to see for myself. I want to form an impression for myself. And once I have that first impression, I then get more information and compare it to the intentions of the artists and of the curators and the institution or whatever. But it's important to first have that impression before going in for secondary information, because otherwise you can always say, ah, yeah, sure. I totally saw that right away that they wanted to deal with ecological systems, right? So obvious. So like, if you didn't see it in the beginning and then you find out something later, that's something cool you can compare, but like, don't ruin the experience right from the beginning by spoilering yourself. This is, I really call it like a spoiler in—

Yeah, it's true. You said it so well with like the movie reference. How about the artist studios?

Well, the artist studios. I mean, usually I already know the artists before going to their studios, or like, I don't know them maybe personally, but I've seen their exhibitions somewhere or their works at a collection, and then I ask for a studio visit. So usually I know something about it. Um, but even when I'm invited to a studio, it's that It's not about, okay, now you tell me what you wanted to do. I try to understand the choices and not the intentions when going to a studio. So I don't want them to tell me that they wanted to deal with a feminist point of view on society. That's like very broad and it doesn't essentially say nothing because how is it different from the other thousands of artists? that are dealing with a feminist standpoint on society. So when I'm in a studio, it's like always just a casual conversation, but I try to ask questions that go to the root of the choices. So why this material? How does this material help you really realize your vision better than another material? What does this How does this material help you? Um, what do you like? Why do you choose this scale? How does it help you in that? Like, how does the format help you realize your vision? What, how would it be different to shrink it down? Why would that not work for you? Why would it not work for you to work monumentally? Is it just a purely pragmatical question of like, the studio is small, so I have to work on a small scale? Or is it really a, um, conscious decision that only a small scale— Mm-hmm. works for the artwork. So I want to know those choices that lead up to the result rather than compare the result to an overarching intention of what the work should be about.

Okay. Oh, that's so interesting. How do artists react when you go?

Like, I don't know. How do they react? I mean—

Are they, are they like excited that someone is like really curious about every aspect of their work?

Um, I mean, I think it's, it's a casual situation, if that answers your question. Like, I, I just hope that artists aren't feeling interrogated by me, I hope. Like, we're just having a conversation on their art together, and I'm not just like playing a detective asking like, why did you do that? No, but usually artists have like very good reasoning for the choices that they make. Usually they can tell me exactly why they chose the materials and the scales and everything that they chose. So, um, So I think it doesn't come like out of nothing. Um, I just, yeah, I'd say it's just like fruitful conversations in that way. So, so far nobody has, nobody has complained about my way.

Nobody threw you out of the studio. Enough with the questions. Um, I mean, art criticism. It's such a nostalgic— I don't know why, but for me it comes really nostalgic. I really want to, want to ask you how you see art criticism.

I mean, you are very much right about the nostalgic aspect. I also feel sometimes like art criticism is this extinct dinosaur profession that is in the museums, but it's not around anymore. Like it's, It's not part of our life in a way. And this is also why I wanted to use art criticism as my profession, because it is not extinct. It looks like that. People always say, oh, art criticism is dead. It's not real anymore. But it is important to be critical. And this is why I have such an aversion to being called a content creator or an influencer, because an influencer at the end of the day— is a human billboard. Like, if you look at it from a marketing perspective, I mean, you have that perspective, like you have that background, right? Yeah. So an influencer is not about sharing your own informed opinion, but being a billboard for the brands that are willing to pay for you to advertise their product. The only thing that might be another factor is just like the vibe of the influencer, like the Um, the brand that they created for themselves and whether the product is working with that brand, whether there's an alignment.

Yeah.

That might be something helpful, but otherwise it's all for sale. It's transactional. But in art criticism, it's not the job of the art critic to appease any artists or galleries or institutions. It's not their jobs to— it's not their job to write nice texts. You know, this is always also somehow— it's also why I kind of feel offended when people introduce me as, oh, this is Jennifer, she writes very well. It's like, yeah, that's part of it, but my job is not writing nice texts. It's actually presenting an informed opinion so people can form their own informed opinion. It's not about writing nice unicorn and flower texts. That's copywriting and I'm not a copywriter for museums. So this is why I do that distinction. And also to really answer your question, I need to go back to the roots of the Gen Z Art Critic once again, because as I told you before, I first thought of just doing translation of art speak. Mm-hmm. And I didn't even consider art criticism a possibility. And then as I was reading Gilda Williams' book, How to Write About Contemporary Art, which is really a book I can recommend to anyone. Okay. There she said that it doesn't matter who you are or how much experience you have or how much expertise. If you have a well-reasoned argument, you can write art criticism about anyone and anything. And it doesn't matter if you're just starting out and it's like the big star in a blue-chip gallery that you're critiquing. And I was like, oh, okay.

Okay. That's me.

Yeah. I was like, let's, let's try that out. It sounds interesting. And, um, I really started to understand that art criticism is a form of empowerment because it helps you form an opinion through writing. And this is also why writing is so important to me, because when I'm speaking about an exhibition, It's more like first impressions. It's like, you might say, oh, I like this. And then as I sit down to write the review, I have to find more determined words for those impressions. And then I realize, okay, now that I'm spelling it out, my opinion of that exhibition changed.

Mm-hmm.

And what I initially liked is kind of like, is it really that good now that you see it on paper or like on your computer? Is it? it's kind of not it anymore, or something that I thought I hated, and as I'm describing it and finding words for it, I'm realizing, no, actually that artist did have a point. I didn't see it in the exhibition, but now that I'm thinking about it more, I can actually appreciate their perspective. And so this is why writing is such an important part of understanding art. It's not just about chit-chatting at the gallery. This is not where understanding art stops, but it actually continues all the way into writing your perspective.

I love, I love this last part you said. So it's so easy to just speak about the exhibition and like throw around some, some terms. Yeah. Okay. I see that. But then when you sit down and you try to think about it and like, just The mere fact of like expressing your own opinion and like finding it inside of you, which is not easy, at least not for me right now. But yeah, how do you, um, do you sit down to write a review immediately after seeing the show?

Um, no, because I'm a heavy procrastinator. I love writing, but I also hate writing. Yeah,

I think you can't love, you can't just love writing. It's a hard labor.

It is. It is. So I kind of like wait until the very last moment because I always have my deadline on Sunday, 8:00 PM. That's when I publish my reviews on Substack. And I kind of really start writing on Sunday in the afternoon.

Just, okay.

Just a few hours and I have to be really focused before that. I will just scroll. scroll reels with my open review in front of me. And I will not touch my review until it's like, oh, 2 more hours. Shit. Now I have to write. You're welcome, Gen Z.

I love that we are all like having the same problems with focus.

Yeah, really the attention span of a goldfish. I swear, even in writing. But so yeah, it takes some time for me to write about it. I mean, Usually it's the same week that I write an exhibition, but sometimes rarely. For example, I remember there was one review that I wrote a month after seeing an exhibition, and that was, um, there was an artist in, um, in the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice last year. And She had an exhibition that I first despised when I was there because I thought, oh, it's just like precarity porn. Look at this huge foundation doing an exhibition in this old scuffed building in Venice and everything is scuffed in there and all those rich people are going to be like, oh, this is so authentic. And I really disliked it. when I first saw it. And then I went again, like a month later, with my friends who are also in the art world. And we didn't talk in the exhibition, but as I went in again after that month, my whole worldview on that exhibition changed. And suddenly it was one of the most poetic things I've ever seen. And it was not precarity porn anymore. It was actually very genuine. the way that the facade was crumbling and you didn't know what was the artistic intervention and what was just like the building kind of collapsing. And you— I started just to listen in all to all those details and they were really mesmerizing then. And that's how I changed my opinion by seeing it a second time. And I thought, well, there is actually much more to that exhibition than I first thought when I was here one time.

Interesting. So it wasn't easy to write down because you were kind of not really sitting with your opinion inside and you had to kind of see, what do I really like? What do I even think about it? Is that like a situation?

I mean, I guess it was just an exhibition that takes more time. Like, it's— maybe it's a stupid metaphor, but it's like pickles. Like, you need some time in the jar for it to really create the flavor, and you don't get that flavor when once you put the, like, cucumbers in the jar and close it.

Okay, okay.

Okay, now I want my pickles. So to me, it was an exhibition that really needed and insisted on more time to expand its flavors in a way. That happens sometimes with exhibitions.

Does your process involve, uh, taking photos of exhibition and like scribbling down some notes, voice notes, whatever?

Yes. Yes. A lot of that because I have very much trust issues with press packages from institutions because sometimes I ask them for a press package and it's 3 pictures. I'm like, what am I supposed to do with 3 pictures? That's not the whole exhibition. I just like, I need a list of all the works that were there. I need to like reconstruct it after I've seen it. Yeah. And so considering that this happened quite a few times, I'm just like taking pictures of everything I think is relevant. And just like, I'm trying to do a 3D scan with my phone.

Yeah, you're basically doing like a 3D reconstruction of the exhibition.

Exactly, just like everything, panorama, everything, just to make sure that I have it all. All the wall labels, all the work labels twice in case something is just like bad quality. Also, I sometimes, even if I just hear a random sound, I try to record a video to keep that sound. What if it's part of the installation? What if it's a bird outside? I don't know. What if it's important? So I try to really get in everything. And regarding notes, I always do like on WhatsApp, I send myself my notes. So I'm writing them down as I'm going through the exhibition. Sometimes I'm doing voice notes and it's so fun to go through those notes like months later. Because I have no clue anymore what I wanted to say afterwards.

Yeah. That's why it's important to write down a review in a week. Because

yes, that's when I know still, but I was, I had like once a note after a theater play of a friend of mine. And, um, like it was Sophia Süßmürrich's play in, um, Berlin. And I wrote down something like, Boyfriend gift teddy bear meltdown. And in that moment, it was like, yeah, absolutely, it makes sense. I know what I want to say. But like, if I were to read that 3 months later, I would be like an Egyptologist deciphering the Rosetta Stone. I have no idea. So that's why it's important to keep the note-taking to review writing span very, very short.

You write a Substack every week. Is that correct?

Yes. Yes.

That's amazing. Like, I don't know, how do you keep up with it?

Dopamine addiction. It's—

Ah, you don't want to miss a week. I see.

Yes. Yes. It's, it's really how it started because Substack sent me an email when I first started and they asked me, how often do I want to post? And they recommended doing once a week or every 2 weeks. And I said, okay, let's try once a week, because when I started, I have seen a lot of exhibitions and I was like, okay, I can write like 4 reviews right now because I've seen a lot.

Mm-hmm.

And then they said, cool, so every time you're publishing on time, you'll get an email. And that's what started happening. So every single week I got an email that said, congrats, you're a great person, your parents love you, you are worthy of love, here is your Substack streak, you are in the top so-and-so percent of most active users. on Substack. Right now I'm in the top 0.5% of most active users of Substack.

I

kind of, uh, like, exactly, but I didn't get an award yet. Substack didn't reach out yet, which I find quite offensive.

That's very offensive.

Where's my award? Where's my award? Uh, but really, this dopamine addiction of getting that email and seeing how long my streak is, this is what kept me going. I swear to you, if Substack didn't have that, I would have quit after 2 weeks.

Seriously.

I would not have kept going. This is my only motivation. It's not discipline. It's just an email.

Do you see an exhibition every week?

Um, yes. Yes. Several exhibitions per week. And I mean, it's helpful to go to art weeks because like in Berlin, then you have like 80 You have 80 weeks to cover. In theory, it— I wish, I wish I had 80 weeks to cover, but like last Berlin Art Week, I saw more than 80 exhibitions and I got 2 reviews out of that because there was nothing interesting. That can also happen. Yeah.

Cause that's also the thing. If it's not interesting, you can't write an a good negative review as well, because it's just nothing there.

Exactly, exactly.

You could post like a blank Substack and just like, I have no opinion whatsoever. This is just boring.

Yeah. And so many exhibitions are like that. I mean, it's exactly, it should be that bad that I have a reason and a justification to give it a bad review, or it should be that good that it deserves a good review. But if it's just like, room temperature, why would I— why, why, why should I bother my subscribers with a, hey, I saw stuff but it was boring? Like, what's their—

Yeah.

What do they get from reading a review like that? It should be a bit polarizing. So yeah, unfortunately this year regarding art weeks was very hard because Even though I've seen more exhibitions than ever in my life, I had, I had very little to write about this whole year.

Maybe your— is it possible that your taste developed so much?

I mean, that might be. I guess now looking back on some exhibitions that I've written about, like in 2023 or '24, I'm like, well, I guess I wouldn't have written about that if I were to see them now, but that's really a small part, I guess. Well, I think it's 2 things. I really think it's development of taste, but I also think that right now, 2026 wasn't such a good year for contemporary art in a way, unfortunately.

Okay. How about negative reviews? I listened to the conversation or like, um, a talk you had in Hamburg where you said that like writing negative reviews, it's not like fun per se, but, and it kind of keeps you up at night. Uh, so I want to kind of unpack that to see what's going on.

Uh, that is really true. Even after 2 years, that is true because I differentiate between a bad exhibition in the sense it's just not good art and it's like a provincial gallery somewhere. I'm like, my God, why should I bother? Let them live, let them do their thing. But if it's an exhibition that has bad art and pretends that this is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread, obviously I'm gonna say something. And this is something that happens a lot in institutions. It's not only that they are pretending that the art is so groundbreaking, they are also giving a framing sometimes that is extremely problematic. This is how I—

Sorry, when you say institutions, do you have in mind like academia, like blue-chip galleries, big museums, public museums, galleries, and

Mainly really institutions such as museums and biennials.

Okay.

Because a gallery, a commercial gallery or like a private museum, like they are free to do whatever they want. Like if they want to market a mediocre artist as like really cool because that's their, that's what they're into, that's what sells, like Okay, do that, I guess. But a museum has a different responsibility. And when they start showing art that is, for example, I can give you the example. Wait, I forgot her name. Jenny Saville. Jenny Saville. I wanted to say Jenny Holzer, but no, Jenny Saville at the Museum Ca''Pezaro in Venice. When I saw that exhibition, I was extremely rage-baited because that was an exhibition, first of all, supported by Gagosian. So Gagosian is basically also— same press release basically in the museum as on the Gagosian website. So who wrote it? Interesting. So is it a museum exhibition or did Gagosian pay to get Jenny Saville into a museum, right? So this is something that doesn't sit right with me immediately because now that the gallery is using the museum to legitimize and to—

The artist.

—amp up the prices. Yes, for the artist, not because the museum decided that it's a perfect time to show the works of this artist. And then there were works that to me were extremely disturbing because they were violent towards female bodies in the way they were painted, but also In their, like, in their subject matter. And I thought that's kind of weird to show that without any context because the exhibition, in the whole exhibition, it was all about, she uses so many colors, isn't that so wonderful? She has a chromatic vibrant palette. And I'm like, there's an elephant in the room right now and you're very good at ignoring it, but I'm not going to ignore that elephant. So that's a point where I have to step up and say something because that institution is bullshitting people. And writing those reviews, as you said, it's not that fun because I'm angry at those institutions not doing their job right and being intransparent about why they decide to do certain experiments. exhibitions and trying to cover everything up so it fits a neat narrative. That's what makes me angry. And I do not enjoy that process. So it looks like it's all fun and hee hee hahahaha, oh, she's roasting that artist, but it's really— what's the word? What's the word that I'm looking for? It's frustrating in a way.

Mm-hmm.

So, but at the same time, it's also kind of therapeutic to get it out and kind of release that negativity once it's out there.

I love the engagement, um, in the comments below your posts. Like there's always like this conversation happening. People are replying to each other and I feel like you basically achieve your objective. You know, they are discussing there and I find it so lovely. Yeah,

me too. I'm very happy then when people actually get to engage with the art as well and do not be like, oh, that's what she said, that must be the only right opinion.

And I wanted to ask, like, now that you have— sorry for me to say that, but you have an audience and you have some, I would say, influence and power. Do you feel like institutions are treating you differently?

Well, I mean, now more institutions know me. And I guess, of course, they're being nice because they want a review.

Hey, Jennifer. Hey,

do you want to come over? Do you need anything? Let us know. Just call us if you need anything. Like, yeah, right, right. Of course, of course, you'd say that. So, I noticed that. In a way, it was like, I, especially since I remember I was walking through, um, uh, Cologne Düsseldorf Open, DC Open, which is the gallery weekend. Um, and we were walking through the galleries and everyone like in the galleries, people were greeting us and stuff. And my friend was like, oh my God, I didn't know that people in galleries are so nice and so welcoming. And then they went, Oh wait, they were nice because it's you, right? It's you. It's like, yeah, I guess. So I think it's a pity that many institutions are like that to people they consider relevant and just not generally welcoming. Like, that should be the goal, to welcome people generally, because you also never know who a person is and treating them poorly just because you do not know who they are is kind of— it's not, it's not a good sign. Especially since I had galleries or institutions being like mean to friends of mine because they thought, oh, they're just interns or young people, whatever.

Yeah.

And then they're trying to like really— I forgot the word. Uh, so they're trying to be overtly nice to me, although they were mistreating my friends just a couple of minutes ago. And I'm like, you don't know who they are and you don't know who they could become one day, so why are you treating them like they are below your dignity or something?

Yeah, that's very not Gen Z, you know.

It should be more inclusive like that. And this is, for example, also why I'm critical of those, um, you've probably seen it as well this UBS slash Art Basel report on how Gen Zs are now the biggest collectors.

Yeah.

It's, yeah.

Do you know a Gen Z that's spending like €3 million on art? I don't.

Yeah. I don't know. Do you exactly?

I don't know. Like a Gen Z person that spends €100 on a print, cause they're like, we can order it online on Shein or IKEA, you know?

Yeah. Because it's so accessible. expensive. Everything is so expensive. Yeah. And like, I'm critical about those kind of these reports because I'm like, oh, now you care about Gen Z now that they— that there is a fraction of society that inherited a shitload, shit ton of money and they can spend that money. Now you care about them, but you didn't care about that generation or those young people before, or like when they cannot spend that much money. And it's really so selective when the art world, in brackets, when the art world cares about a group of people and when they're not, because suddenly once that group has money, it's like, oh, we need to talk about Gen Z. Like, you couldn't talk about them.

Yeah, they're missing, like, they need to, I mean, they need to groom or like educate young like children to like art. Because otherwise no one will like art. I mean, like art, no one will invest and like spend money on art in like 10 years.

Yeah.

Do you, do you purchase art yourself?

Um, I've, I mostly purchase editions. So it's like smaller works and often I exchange works for Exhibition texts with artists that I cherish. And that's a nice way to grow a little bit of a collection.

That's a really, really, really good way to grow your collection.

Yeah. I mean, it's like, if I appreciate the art, I'm going to write a text that is like that appreciative. And I like, in a way, I think it's also, how do I say that? Like, writing a positive exhibition text for someone and not wanting an artwork in return is kind of like a strange sign because like, if you like the art—

You want it.

Yeah, like, why wouldn't you want an artwork in return? And because otherwise I believe that you're just writing it to— yeah, like just to Get perceived. Yeah.

It's not coming from like an honest, yeah. From the honest point of view. I have a couple of quick questions for you for, um, for the very end. Rapid fire. Yeah.

All right.

Okay. Jennifer, what makes art good?

There's 3 points actually. And I've got those 3 points from a book by Collier Reichardt. And those 3 points are: has it been created already by someone else? The answer should be no. So there should be an originality or building on that originality. The second question is: can you destroy it? Can you destroy the artwork? And there the answer should be yes, because if you change any detail about the artwork, being the material, be it the scale, be it the composition, it should be destroyed. If anything goes and nothing matters in the artwork, it's not a good work. It should be very intentional about how everything is placed and made. And the third question is, can you substitute the experience of this artwork with anything else? And there the answer should be no, because if you can, I don't know, watch a documentary about climate change and be informed about climate change, and then you see an artwork that has the only purpose of saying climate change is a catastrophe coming at us, you don't need the artwork. You already have the documentary that is saying that So experiencing the artwork should give you something that you cannot put 100% into words. You cannot use poetry for that. You couldn't use a statistic for that or a diagram or a symposium, a discussion. It's only in the artwork that you get to fully experience whatever it is.

Wow. I love those three points. Nice. Second question: the most overrated and most underrated thing in the art world right now?

Overrated. Ah, damn! That's a difficult one. The most overrated thing in the art world. Okay. Let's do a quick Damien Hirst. And even if he's not a thing, he's a person, but he's overrated. And the most underrated thing— Artist books. Artist books are underrated because I've seen artist books that made me cry. I have gone through artist books that have like shoveled me up so much. That you have to find a comparison to an artwork that does that with you. And people do not really appreciate artist books because they think, oh, it's an edition, there's many books, it's not a painting that's on the wall. But this goes back to the 3rd aspect of what makes good art. There are artist books that only work precisely because they're books, and they wouldn't work as a painting, they wouldn't work as a sculpture or as a film. They needed to be books. And so this is a medium that should be more appreciated.

What's the title of the artist book? Or like, by which artist?

The book Developments by Tino Zimmermann.

Okay. Art speak exhibition text phrase you would ban forever?

Oh, there are many. There are many. But let's Let's go specific. What word would I ban? Any word that— like, not any word, but there are many words that add a suffix where it's not necessary. So I saw once the word futurity instead of future, and like, there is no way that this suffix was necessary to speak about the concept of future.

No, no, no.

That's where they lost me. That's where I stopped reading. So futurity suffixes at the end of normal words, think really, is it necessary? Most of the time it's not.

Okay. The 4th one, AI and art, a threat, a tool, or a boring debate?

I mean, I say If you use AI as like your, like if you outsource your brain to AI, you are as intelligent as a Tesla Cybertruck driver. Let me put it like this. So.

Good answer.

Yeah. That's what I would say.

The last one. Should museums and galleries, but I'm thinking about more institutions. So public, uh, public institutions should be free.

Definitely. Of course. Of course. Like, uh, uh, like in the UK or like any of those like public institutions, of course they should be free. They should be paid by the state and art public collections should be accessible to anyone because culture, as you said earlier, like people need to experience art from their childhood on to understand more about culture and being human. It's like, sorry, you said it was supposed to be short, but like, it's really important to me. No. I really care about it because it's such a privilege to get cultural capital from your childhood on. And people pretend that culture is not important. And then you look at all those people who are like now ruling our world, and they are like trying so hard to get cultural capital because they know it matters, even if they pretended for all those years and cut funding and cut opportunities. opportunities. Now they are trying so hard to get cultural capital because at the end of the day, it does matter. It does shape you as a human being. It shapes our society. It shapes how we see each other. And therefore, of course, public institutions should be free for anyone.

Okay, thank you. Um, okay, we are almost at the end. 5 artists. You would love and encourage people to discover?

Um, does it have to be only contemporary artists or can it be broader?

Whatever. Yeah.

Okay. Then my number 1, Janet Sobel. I am a Janet Sobel evangelist because this woman invented abstract, um, drip painting and Jackson Pollock stole it from, from her. And everybody knew in New York, and they didn't say anything. They didn't defend her, they didn't put it right, and this is why we have Jackson Pollock's drip painting written everywhere, although Janet Tobol invented it. So Janet Tobol on my number 1. Keeping it historically, I think Odilon Redon is a very underrated artist because he so much going into abstraction, and also he was already going into surrealism in a way before surrealism was even a thing. And I think it's just so mesmerizing to look at his work. So I don't know if there are any Odilon Redon retrospectives planned in museums, but please do one. Anybody, please do an Odilon Redon retrospective. I'd love to see that. Number 4, an artist—

3, we have 3 first.

Ah, well, okay. We have 2. Okay. I'm bad at math. That's okay. Um, number 3, I really like, um, like I recently came across Jan Huske's art. Um, I saw his work at, uh, the exhibition at the Private Collection Braunsfelder. Cologne, and I loved it. I loved it. It was like, I don't know what he's doing, but he's doing something. Like, he is— like, it looks like— I described it once as H.R. Giger doing abstraction. Like, if he were doing abstraction. That was intriguing as fuck. That was super interesting. So actually, I need to to do a studio visit with him. I don't know if I asked that. That's not my plans. Um, 1, 2, 3. Now we have 3, right?

Yeah.

Number 4, I, uh, from contemporary artists, I really like Anja Rausch. Um, she's an artist living in Berlin, but she, uh, just, I, I think she has not graduated Hamburg yet from the art academy there. But she does wonderful abstract painting that is very Gen Z in a way. It's like, you don't know whether it's, like, gooey texture or whether it's, like, star galaxies that are just, like, exploding. You don't really know what's going on. I like that. 1, 2, 3, 4.

The last one.

Number 5. I think— okay, maybe that one is debatable in the way that she's maybe too famous for me to say, oh, people— more people should know about her. But I, I do think that more people should know about Tricia Donnelly because I think she is the most interesting sculptor, the most interesting contemporary sculptor right now. in the world to me, really. I first saw her— I saw actually 2 exhibitions by her, once at Galerie Buchholz, I think it was 2 years ago, and I was like, I don't know what's going on, but it does something with me. And it was just 2 works. And then I saw it again last year at MMK in Frankfurt, and I was like, okay, this is actually delicious. This is fantastic work. So Tricia Donnelly. Definitely. Okay. Sculptor.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Do we have 5 now? Yeah.

Yeah, we have 5. We have 5. And we have the last question, which is, I mean, everyone listening can just check your Substack and find all the exhibitions you reviewed this year, but I want to hear it from you. What is like a top one, top, top one, or like top 3 exhibitions you saw this year? You saw, you said it's not like the best year.

Yeah. Yeah. It is a tough one.

So maybe you can choose just one depending on like how you feel.

Let me think. I definitely liked David Medalla at Exile Gallery a lot. Uh, it's actually the last exhibition at Exile Gallery. They closed after this one and I saw it, um, a couple of weeks ago.

In Vienna, right?

Uh, yeah. Yes. Wonderful exhibition because those were actually printing blocks and not the actual prints. And there was like so much—

It's so personal, so much craft. Right. I read that review of yours and loved it.

Yeah, it's really, it was, uh, an extremely endearing exhibition. I love to see that. So that was an exhibition that I really, really liked this year. So, another exhibition that I loved this year was Will Stovall, or Stovall, I'm not sure how to pronounce him. Limping Devil, that was the name of the exhibition at Drei in Cologne. I saw it really on the last day, so I couldn't review it, and I was so mad that I didn't see it earlier, otherwise I would have given it a very juicy review. I'm not sure what technique it was. It was on canvas, but I don't remember whether it was a drawing on canvas or whether it was actually painting.

Hmm.

But Will Stovall took some old folk tale about the devil going into people's houses through the roof, and everything was like a very ghastly, neon green, so it looks like those surveillance cameras. So it's like you're looking at those medieval houses or whatever through surveillance cameras, and the devil is descending on a very Leonardo da Vinci-esque flight machine.

Okay.

It mixes these ideas of surveillance and morality, and it was technically so interesting. So that was a top 3 as well.

2.

And oh, my favorite one in Venice, the unofficial pavilion of Taiwan, because unfortunately Taiwan isn't recognized as a state by Italy. Therefore, they do not have an official national pavilion, but we treat it as the national pavilion. So Li Yi fans scream melancholy. I loved it. I loved it. It was like more than an hour, just a crazy video in this prison in Venice. And there was this freak who looks really scary, but you get used to him or them. I thought this freak is non-binary, so I didn't want to assume its gender. And it's just— it looks first very appalling, but then you listen to this figure speak and it talks about animation and 3D animation and just like creating life within the screen, which is very philosophical in a way, but also referencing memes all the time. And it's just very overwhelming, but it's as overwhelming as digital, as the digital landscape itself. It is overwhelming and therefore makes sense that the exhibition itself is also as overwhelming. And I thought that was very well made. It was just like breaking all the fourth walls right there. You don't know what's real, what's not. Where is the illusion already finished and where does it reveal another plot twist? It was extremely fun to watch. I love that exhibition. So yeah, that was—

We got all 3. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you gave me a lot of homework. The artist book you mentioned, I will just list that all in the episode notes. So anyone listening can just, you know, find their homework and do the reading. I want to thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your thoughts and a piece of who you are with us. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It was, it was a pleasure.

Have a, have a great rest of the week as well.

You too. Thank you for everything. Bye-bye.