Art Blogs Maintain Relevance Amid Social Media Dominance, Highlighting Four Distinct Platforms

In a 2012 column for artcritical's BOOKMARKED series, artist Joanne Mattera champions art blogs as superior to social media for viewing and reading about art. She highlights four regularly visited blogs with distinct approaches. Henry Samelson's Buddy of Work invites artists to pair primary and peripheral works, featuring over 70 participants including Gelah Penn, Lori Ellison, Katherine Bradford, Karl Bielik, and Emily Auchincloss. Chris Ashley's Look See alternates HTML drawings with travel photography from his Oakland base. Mira Schor's A Year of Positive Thinking offers lengthy feminist, political, and art essays, referencing Louise Bourgeois and Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof's The Artblog provides comprehensive Philadelphia art scene coverage with reviews, interviews, and podcasts, assisted by art historian Andrea Kirsh. Mattera, a painter represented by DM Contemporary in New York with work in the New Britain Museum of American Art and Montclair Art Museum, values blogs for their archived, contextual content.