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Introduction: 

We have all experienced it. The hypnotic, infinite scroll of an Instagram feed. An image of a painting bold, colorful, immediately pleasing flashes onto the screen. It has 50,000 likes. The comments are a cascade of fire emojis, heart-eyes, and declarations of "I need this!" This is the new, global face of art appreciation, a high-speed, digital referendum on culture.

This phenomenon represents what many have celebrated as the "democratization of art criticism". The "once-exclusive arena of aesthetic analysis" , long dominated by "elite circles" of academics and writers for print journals, has been shattered. The digital revolution has handed a megaphone to anyone with a smartphone, turning a monologue into a global conversation.

This disruption, however, has created a profound crisis of authority. We have traded a world of "authoritative voices" for a world of "information overload" and "noise". This raises a central question that sits at the very heart of our modern cultural experience: What is art criticism today? When "everyone holds a critic's pen" , does the professional critic the trained expert still matter?

This article argues that the critic is far from dead. The gatekeeper the singular, elite arbiter of taste is gone, and rightly so. But in their place, a new, more vital role has emerged: the critic as a guide. In an age defined by the "algorithmic hype" of the "Filterworld," where popularity is often mistaken for significance, the expert who provides history, context, and deep analysis is no longer a gatekeeper to be feared. They are an essential guide to help us find meaning in the noise. The first step on this journey is to move beyond the chaotic feed and engage with intentionally selected works. This is why platforms that offer a curated collection of original contemporary art are so crucial; they provide a space for focused looking and analysis, away from the digital battle for "likes."

1. The Critic as Gatekeeper: A Brief History of Classical Art Criticism

To understand where we are, we must first understand the "distinct critical tradition characterized by the use of theory" that defined the art world for over a century. This tradition, which fully formed in the 18th and 19th centuries , was not just about "reviewing" art. It was about defining it. Historically, this critical practice broke into two main camps.

Defining the Discourse: Formalism vs. Social Context

The great debate of 20th-century criticism was about a simple question: should art be judged on its own terms, or as a product of its world?

1. Formalist Criticism: This approach, which "dominated the development of modern art until the 1960s" , argues that an artwork's value is intrinsic. It focuses solely on "visual elements and principles of design" , analyzing "colour, brushwork, form, line and composition". The narrative content or its relationship to the visible world is considered secondary. The most famous definition, from the painter Maurice Denis in 1890, laid the groundwork for this perspective: "Remember, that a picture, before it is... a nude woman, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colours arranged in a certain order". It is the philosophy of "art for art's sake" , championed by critics like Roger Fry and Clive Bell, who coined the term "significant form" to describe the unique aesthetic feeling that formal qualities could convey.
2. Contextual (Social) Criticism: This is the direct opposite. It argues that art is not autonomous and cannot be understood in a vacuum. To interpret a work, one "considers the artwork's historical, social, political, and cultural context as essential". This approach, which gained prominence with postmodernism's "critique of universal aesthetic standards" , looks outside the frame to the world, the artist, and the society that produced the work.

This historical binary has not disappeared; it has been replicated and amplified by social media. The Instagram "like" is the ultimate, crude, mass-market formalist judgment. It is a near-instantaneous, context-free reaction to the purely visual "form" of a JPEG on a screen. Conversely, the "comment section" is often a hotbed of crude contextual criticism. Think of the endless debates about an artist's identity, their political message, or accusations of cultural appropriation. The intellectual battle that defined 20th-century criticism is now being waged daily by millions of "amateur critics" , just without the theoretical rigor.

The Critic's Historical Role: Arbiter of Taste

In the classical model, the critic was not just a reviewer; they were a "gatekeeper". This power was immense and centralized.

We can look back to 19th-century figures like John Ruskin, an English "polymath" whose "hugely influential" essays on art, nature, and society could literally make or break the careers of artists like J.M.W. Turner or the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In the 20th century, this power consolidated. Critics became the primary arbiters of new movements. Roger Fry, for example, "gave Post-Impressionism its name" in 1910, and his eloquent analysis of Paul Cézanne effectively defined him as the "founder of a new Modernist aesthetic" for the entire English-speaking world.

This gatekeeping was an "exercise of power". The critic's judgment was the first, essential step in a process of consecration. It determined "which voices and artworks to include" in the historical canon, which in turn dictated which artists were acquired by museums and which ones would see their prices soar in the market. The critic's review, published in an elite journal, was the key that unlocked the gates of cultural and financial value.

2. The Apex Predator: Clement Greenberg and the Tyranny of Formalism

No single critic exemplifies the apex of this "gatekeeper" power more than the American essayist Clement Greenberg. For the middle of the 20th century, his word was law. He was the high priest of Formalism, and his theories defined the very terms of "high art" for a generation.

Case Study: Greenberg's "Avant-Garde and Kitsch"

Greenberg’s cultural dominance was built on the foundation of his 1939 essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch.". Published in the Partisan Review , this text became a manifesto for high Modernism.

The essay's premise is that the same industrial civilization "produces simultaneously two such different things as a poem by T. S. Eliot and a Tin Pan Alley song". Greenberg’s goal was to build an unbreachable wall between them.

• He defined "Kitsch" (a German term for cheap, marketable pictures) as "ersatz culture" a fake, "parasitic" form of culture that requires no effort from the viewer. Kitsch, he argued, "imitates its effects" (the feeling of art) but not its processes (the intellectual and formal rigor). It is "easily digestible" , "tied to mass production" , and "mechanical".
• He contrasted this with the "Avant-Garde," whose job was to "resist the 'dumbing down' of culture" by focusing on art's own processes on art for art's sake.

At the time, Greenberg saw this as a political imperative. Kitsch was dangerous because it was "easily employed by the powerful for their own purposes" , serving as propaganda for totalitarian regimes. The "difficult" , self-critical avant-garde was, in his view, the only true form of cultural resistance.

This 1939 analysis is startlingly predictive. Greenberg's definition of "kitsch" "mechanical," "reproducible," "imitates effects," "easily digestible," and designed for a "popular" audience that is "insensitive to 'the values of genuine culture'" is a perfect description of the content that a social media algorithm is designed to identify and promote. Content that is "accessible, replicable, participatory" and "easily digestible" generates the most engagement and is therefore amplified by the system. The Instagram algorithm, in effect, is the 21st-century's most efficient Kitsch-production machine. The "flattening effects of mass culture" that Greenberg warned about have been fully automated.

Defining Abstract Expressionism: The Critic as Kingmaker

Greenberg didn't just theorize; he put his ideas into practice. He became the "primary advocate for Abstract Expressionism" , a movement he believed was the "pinnacle of modern art" because it fulfilled his formalist destiny.

He used his "dogmatic" theories to create an "evolutionary model of art history" , arguing that all painting was "progressing" toward "autonomy" and "purity". His primary criterion was "flatness" , the idea that painting must embrace its two-dimensional reality rather than create illusions of three-dimensional space. This rigid framework was the intellectual basis for what is Modern Art.

As a kingmaker, he championed artists who fit his theory most famously, Jackson Pollock —and dismissed those who didn't. This was the zenith of formalism and the critic's power, cementing the 20th-century split between figurative and abstract art as a moral and intellectual battle.

The Counter-Argument: Harold Rosenberg's "Action Painting"

Greenberg was not the only powerful voice. His chief rival was Harold Rosenberg , and their interpretations of the same art movement were "diametrically opposed".

In his seminal 1952 essay "The American Action Painters" , Rosenberg coined the term "Action Painting". His thesis was a direct assault on Greenberg's cold formalism.

Rosenberg argued that the canvas was "an arena in which to act". The painting was not an object to be formally analyzed, but the record of an existential "event". For him, the work was all about the "artist's inner struggles, emotions, and personal experiences". It was a "performance" , a "process". This existential, process-oriented view led him to champion different artists, like Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline , whose work was more gestural and less "pure" than Pollock's. This "stream of consciousness" approach, where the painting is a "conversation with the canvas," is a legacy that lives on in the Sirvan Kanaani Collection, whose practice is described as "fluid and full of motion".

This historical debate uncannily predicts the split in today's social media art world. The static, grid-based layout of Instagram is an inherently Greenbergian platform. It forces a formalist judgment of the final object the glossy, finished JPEG. TikTok and Instagram Reels, by contrast, are Rosenbergian. They are dominated by "process videos" that showcase the act of creation. They celebrate the performance, the gesture, and the event of art-making, just as Rosenberg described. The modern artist must now navigate both.

3. The Walls Come Down: How the Internet Broke the Monopoly

For decades, the Greenberg-Rosenberg model of the all-powerful critic reigned. The debate was fierce, but it was contained within a small, elite group. The internet, and specifically the social web, changed that forever. The effect was "seismic".

From Print to Pixels: The First Wave

The first cracks in the dam appeared in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The "Golden Age of Blogging" and art forums allowed, for the first time, voices from outside the established elite to publish "partial, passionate, political" criticism and find a global audience.

This was quickly followed by the rise of professional online-only publications that challenged the dominance of legacy magazines like Artforum and Frieze.

• Artnet, which began in 1989 as a service to track auction prices , launched Artnet News in 2012 (beta) and 2014 (official). It became a "one-stop platform" for market trends and breaking news, operating at a speed print could never match.
• Hyperallergic, founded in 2009 , was a more radical intervention. Its founders were "weary" of the old-guard magazines and their impenetrable jargon. They wanted to "reinvigorate art criticism" by making it "accessible" and "relevant to readers who are curious about art but who are not just art world insiders".

This first digital wave was not an abolition of criticism; it was a reformation. These platforms sought to fix criticism by making it faster, more inclusive, more transparent (especially about the market), and more politically engaged than the print-based, "old forms of critical authority". This new accessibility paved the way for the total "democratization" that social media would unleash.

The "Democratization" of Criticism

If blogs and online magazines were a reform, social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok were the full-blown revolution. This shift "disrupted this exclusivity" and "democratized" the entire field by fundamentally changing the power dynamics.

The key changes were:

1. Direct Artist-to-Audience Access: Artists could now "showcase their work directly to a global audience" , "bypassing galleries and exhibitions" and critics entirely.
2. Amplification of New Voices: The system "amplified marginalized voices" , allowing BIPOC artists, queer artists, and creators from non-Western regions all historically shut out of the traditional canon to build careers and find collectors on their own terms.
3. The Audience as Critic: Most profoundly, "everyday individuals... are shaping artistic narratives". As one report notes, "everyone holds a critic's pen".

This term "democratization," however, is highly contested. Online debates reveal a deep suspicion of the term, with many seeing it as a "PR slogan" from tech companies. One user made a key distinction: "What actually democratized art was the availability of pencils, paints, paper... Having an algorithm output an image is the exact reverse... You're back to being the patron... ordering... a commission".

This debate exposes the core crisis of the new art world. The "democratization of criticism" has triggered a "democratization of value." Historically, an artist's "cultural and financial value" was built by critics and exhibitions. Now, "social media presence" and "social proof" (likes, followers) are key factors in "valuation". The critical question then becomes: if value is set by the crowd, does "quality" a concept Greenberg obsessed over even mean anything? Or has it simply been replaced by "popularity"?.

4. Criticism as Public Dialogue: Are Likes and Comments Enough?

In this new, democratized landscape, the metrics of engagement likes, comments, and shares have become the de facto form of criticism. But is this "feedback" a valid substitute for nuanced analysis?

The "Like" as a Critical Act

Is a "like" a form of criticism? The answer is yes, but a shallow one. It is a "new indicator of popularity and impact" , and studies confirm that artists "expect more likes" as a form of feedback and validation.

The problem, as noted by Naturalist Gallery, is that this is "popularity... as measured by likes and shares," which "often supersedes nuanced analysis". A "like" is a reaction, not analysis. It is a binary vote for resonance, not significance. It registers immediate visual pleasure, but it cannot explain why a work is important, how it fits into history, or what it is trying to say.

That said, the platform can be used for smarter, more engaging forms of popular criticism. The (now-defunct) Instagram account @whos____who became famous by posting "uncannily similar artworks side by side... without caption". This simple act "created a lively place for debate over issues of originality and plagiarism" , effectively turning its 64,000 followers into a critical jury. This was a brilliant use of the platform for criticism, not just as a popularity meter.

The Dangers of the "Filterworld": Art vs. The Algorithm

The dark side of this new public dialogue is the algorithm itself. In his 2024 book Filterworld, author Kyle Chayka argues that algorithms create a "pervasive sense of 'ambience'" where "what thrives... tends to be accessible, replicable, [and] participatory".

This is the automated Kitsch that Greenberg warned about. The algorithm is a machine for promoting "easily digestible" content. As a result, artists feel "pressured to create art that conforms to mainstream trends" simply to "please these algorithms".

This leads to a "homogenize[d]" visual culture defined by "gimmick" trends. Painting, "an easy fit to the space of a JPEG," was an early victim, leading to waves of "zombie formalism" and "zombie figuration" that were "fully captured by the internet and the market". The underlying anxiety is that "algorithmically driven art is the obviation of the artist".

This algorithmic "flattening effect" is precisely why we need critics (and curated platforms) that champion art that defies the algorithm. The algorithm struggles with complexity. It cannot process the Solmaz Nabati Artworks, whose "dark art" explores "mythology motifs" and "confusion" in a way that demands far more than a simple "like." Similarly, the algorithm flattens culturally-hybrid Blue Escape, by Nafiseh Moeini. An algorithm sees a "pretty blue picture," but a critic is needed to unpack its "surreal convergence of bodily and mythical forms" and its "references [to] both Eastern miniatures and Western fables," revealing an "identity as a layered world" the exact opposite of the "accessible, replicable" content the "Filterworld" promotes.

5. Case Study: Who is the Modern Critic?

If the 20th-century model was the "apex predator" critic like Greenberg, the 21st-century has produced a new model: the critic as a "celebrity-influencer". And no one embodies this role more than Jerry Saltz.

Jerry Saltz: The Critic as Celebrity-Influencer

Jerry Saltz is perhaps the most famous art critic in the world. He is the senior art critic for New York Magazine and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Yet, his entire public persona is built on being an "outsider."

He famously tells his story of being a "failed artist" who, after a decade of driving a truck , began writing criticism in his 40s with "no degrees". He even served as a judge on the Bravo TV reality show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.

His writing style is a conscious rejection of the old guard. He has "dispensed with the intellectual pageantry and pretension" that defined 20th-century criticism. His prose is "punchy, unpretentious" , filled with "informality... candour, humour and self-deprecation". He is famously the anti-Artforum, a magazine he once said he "never understood a single word" of. Instead, Saltz "writes for the common reader, not the art audience". His Pulitzer Prize-winning portfolio is a testament to this accessible yet expert style.

Instagram as a Tool for Re-Centering Criticism

Saltz is an "innovative user of social media" who has fully embraced his role as an influencer. With over a million followers , he doesn't just write at his audience; he uses his platform to foster a sprawling, messy, public "conversation". He has made the "critic... as vulnerable as the artist".

His method is the antithesis of Greenberg's.

• Instead of dictating taste from above, he uses his platform to champion "long-marginalized creators," including women, BIPOC artists, and LGBTQ+ artists.
• His 2020 bestseller, How to Be an Artist , is not a top-down manifesto on "quality" like Greenberg's. It is a bottom-up, therapeutic self-help guide that offers "creative encouragement" and emphasizes "joy".

The art world's "old guard" (and many artists) are not impressed. He has been called a "clown" and a "cheese-filling art critic" who "brings nothing intelligent to art criticism". The charge is that he has abandoned rigor, and that artists simply "cozy up to Saltz... for art-world validation" without having their work actually reviewed.

This debate misses the point. The "critic vs. influencer" debate is often framed as a binary. The critic Lori Waxman, for example, draws a hard line: "Critics are not influencers. Critics are experts". Jerry Saltz is the living proof that this binary is false; he is both. He has resolved the 20th-century's critical debates in a uniquely postmodern way. He has taken Harold Rosenberg's personal, existential, process-based approach and applied it to the act of criticism itself (making himself "vulnerable"). Simultaneously, he has completely rejected Greenberg's elitist, "high art" framework in favor of total accessibility. In doing so, Saltz has weaponized the tools of "kitsch" (social media) to champion the avant-garde (marginalized artists).

6. The Future of Art Criticism: Deep Analysis vs. Algorithmic Hype

The case of Jerry Saltz proves that the critic is not obsolete, but the profession is at a crossroads. The central problem of democratization is the loss of expertise. In an "age where everyone has a platform, few have earned it". We have, as one commentator warned, "replaced discernment with decibels".

Why We Still Need Experts in the "Age of Noise"

This is precisely why the expert critic is more necessary than ever. The critic's role in the 21st century is no longer to dictate taste from on high. Their new job is to contextualize.

An influencer can tell you that a work is popular; a critic can tell you why it is (or isn't) significant. As Lori Waxman argues, a critic is an expert who provides "immense amounts of context". We need this "frictional force" to push back against the "Filterworld". We need experts who can "develop new methodologies for evaluating" new forms like digital and AI-generated art.

An algorithm cannot provide this context. A "like" cannot provide this context. Only a critic can.

• A critic can look at a new abstract painting and place it within the century-long debate between figurative and abstract art.
• A critic can explain how the spontaneous, gestural approach of an artist like Mohsen Heidari is not just a random "mess," but a direct descendant of the European Tachisme movement and Rosenberg's "Action Painting".
• A critic can analyze how the Pegah Salimi Collection is more than a "pretty/sad" portrait, but a complex "reflection of the zeitgeist" and a "revolt" that directly "recall[s] the mood in the works of Expressionist artists after the world wars". This is a deep, social-contextual reading that an algorithm is blind to.
• A critic can move the conversation beyond the exhausted Western canon, providing the essential context for the global rise of Middle Eastern art and its unique cultural perspectives.

Conclusion: The Critic as Guide, Not Gatekeeper

The art critic is not dead. Their job description has just been "reborn".

The "gatekeeper" is gone. The "tyrant of formalism" the one who, as Greenberg did, told artists what to paint is gone. And good riddance.

In their place, we have the critic as a guide , an expert , and a context-provider. Their job is to fight the "algorithmic hype" and help us find the signal in the "noise". They are the ones who give us the vocabulary and the history the tools of Formalism and Contextualism to "open up the greatest number of horizons" (as the first modern critic, Charles Baudelaire, wrote).

This new, democratized art world does not ask for your passive "like." It asks for your active engagement. The critic is the one who gives you the tools to participate meaningfully. Navigating the art world today requires more than an Instagram feed; it requires developing this critical muscle.

The best way to practice this new-found critical eye is to step away from the fleeting scroll and spend dedicated time with art that demands it. We invite you to explore the rich, diverse, and context-filled works in the Sanbuk.Art collection. Here, you can move beyond the algorithm and begin the real work of criticism: looking, questioning, and discovering for yourself what truly matters. Explore our full collection of original art and find a piece that tells a story only you can unpack.