Interview: Walter Michael Miller, editor and publisher, arttattler.com
May 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Walter Michael Miller is editor and publisher of arttattler.com, which provides “Commentary and surveillance of more than 800 current and recent art exhibitions around the world, organized geographically with archives of exhibitions from the last year, including architecture and design.” See also the Art Tattler blog here. (The image of Miller is from arttattler.com.)
MW: When and why did you start Art Tattler?
WMM: I started Art Tattler in September 2006, after having left Review, a regional visual art magazine I founded in 1998 in Kansas City, Missouri. I designed, published, and edited it. The name for the first nine months was Pangaeology.
MW: Since its launch, what patterns, if any, have you seen in religious art?
WMM: That would be hard to say, since there are elements of the metaphysical in virtually all art. I’m sure there are artists who would describe themselves as religious, but it could be a majority who describe themselves as ethical humanists, and some who would describe themselves as good businesspersons. It has always been the religious — the metaphysical — that has been the magnet in artwork that has drawn me in — what might not be readily seen in the art.
MW: How frequently would you guess exhibits feature a religious component or content?
WMM: Exhibitions, by and large, do not contain religious components or content. Here we have to make a distinction between modern and contemporary art and historical art. Historical art tends to be rife with obvious religious references because it was created in a time where the church was not only the state, but it was a major collector of art.
MW: Have you found there to be any regional patterns to exhibits of religious art?
WMM: It depends on how overt the religious references are in the art. Even in modern and contemporary Latin American art it is not unusual to see a Sacred Heart or a Virgin of Guadalupe represented, although they have attained the status of vernacular representations.
MW: How often do questions of censorship arise in response to exhibits?
WMM: Censorship rears its ugly head seldom. I fear more the reality of unconscious self-censorship in a xenophobic society and culture.