TheArtsFuse.com encourages provocative reviews and commentary on the arts.
TheArtsFuse.com: Igniting Cultural Dialogue
From an early age, Bill Marx knew his life’s passion: learning to articulate what made the arts valuable.
When he read a compelling book, attended a gallery opening or watched the curtain rise on a new play, he wanted to share his response with others who cared about the arts. Culture does not exist in a vacuum – it is a vital part of society’s consciousness of itself, challenging or reinforcing its goals and beliefs.
The New England native began writing arts and culture reviews and commentaries professionally in his 20s, and never looked back. He built a reputation, particularly with his literature and theater reviews, in the Boston arts and culture community.
Sensing back in the early ‘90s that journalistic criticism of the arts was vulnerable to the power of the "new media," he began to explore ways to talk about the arts online that went beyond one-line judgments, endless “best” lists, and ill-informed blather. The challenge then remains the same – how to bring the best of arts criticism of the past into the brave new world of the Internet.
Launch of TheArtsFuse.com
Awards were bestowed, accolades rolled in. But then the "traditional" media -- as Marx had predicted -- began to decline.
The shift did not catch Marx unawares. He'd been exploring how to cover arts and culture on the Internet for years, posting opinions, reviews and commentary on many sites. Marx finally dove headfirst into the web when he parted ways with employer WBUR, one of Boston's premier public radio stations.
"In 2006, I won an Online Journalism award for my ‘new media” work with WBUR -- and then the station laid me off," he says.
"That's when I started TheArtsFuse.com."
Lively arts commentary and reviews welcomed
Marx's ambitions for TheArtsFuse.com are considerable. He envisions it evolving into a site where those serious about the arts in New England -- literature, theater and music in particular -- will gather to create a provocative, ongoing dialogue that will be of interest to readers throughout the world. The aim is to create new models for judging the arts, for talking about issues of artistic quality, pleasure, and meaning.
"If we don't evaluate the arts in substantial ways they become just another consumable, like a plate of food, for sustenance only," he says.
"Art should be something one is challenged by as well as something that gives us pleasure. To simply experience a work or act of art and move on without further discussion about its impact misses the point: appreciation is part of a conversation, a community of differing, in some cases contesting, points of view."
Marx already has a half-dozen talented writers and critics, young and old, writing reviews and commentary for the arts and literature site. He wants to add many more writers interested in generating a meaningful critical language for the Internet generation.
But the writers aren't the central focus of TheArtsFuse.com. Their role, he says, is to attract others, to send out provocative ideas and reasoned evaluations that spark old and new forms of debate and dialogue about the arts in New England across the Internet. edit A broad audience for arts reviews and commentary
"Who do I want to come to the site? Grantmakers, marketers, arts lovers, performers, people engaged in arts education," Marx says.
"I want visitors who are serious about evaluating arts and culture. If you're looking for a "thumbs up, thumbs down" review site, that isn’t what we are about. We want something with critical credibility, a perceptive but not solemn conversation that will stimulate interest in the arts."
If we don't talk about the arts and evaluate the arts, they become a consumable, like a plate of food, for sustenance only.Bill Marx, founder of TheArtFuse.com
Yes, Marx does want to make some money from TheArtsFuse.com. But it's not the only gig for this veteran arts critic, who continues to do freelance writing on literature and New England theater.
He's currently editing a feature about books in translation for "The World," a nationally syndicated radio program on international news co-produced by the BBC World Service in London, Public Radio International and WGBH Boston.
He also teaches courses on the novel and arts criticism at Boston University. But TheArtsFuse.com is where his passion for re-crafting the art of judgment finds its fullest expression.
Not your father's arts and culture source
"This site strives to be different from anything else out there," Marx promises. "The goal is to marry the strengths of “new media” with the independent evaluations that traditional journalistic criticism in the mainstream media used to provide, before they began their slide into terminal triviality."
