In Contemplative Immersion: Benjamin, Adorno & Media Art Criticism in Transformations (No. 15 November 2007) Daniel Palmer makes the following observation about art criticism:

One important way in which the experience of art becomes more than a private affair is in the form of art criticism, when critics – professional or amateur – publish or discuss their reaction to a work in newspapers, magazines and online. Art criticism is an interpretive portal between art production and broader engagement by others. Yet art criticism today is widely held to be in crisis. ... In an age defined by pluralism, art criticism has become piecemeal and ad hoc, driven by the market and curatorial fashion; art criticism’s authority is weak, its rationale is unclear and its impact diminished. Yet one wonders if conventional notions of art criticism are premised on obsolete aesthetic assumptions. In theory, art criticism assesses the aesthetic excellence of works of art, just as in the popular imagination the critic is first and foremost someone who judges. But a survey of visual art critics at American newspapers ....is particularly interesting in this respect; it ranked judgement well behind education as the perceived task of the critic. Since minimalism, conceptual and performance art in the 1960s, aesthetic judgements about artworks have become more difficult if not obsolete. In the absence of “skill” as an accepted quality of good art, no clear criteria for evaluative judgement have emerged. This is intensified in media art that further devalues the material qualities of individual media and heightens the value of audience participation.