Open Calls

In 1955, writer John Berger declared his belief that “art critics will be unnecessary” in an opinion piece for Art Review (then known simply as Review). He reflects on the nature of criticism, suggesting that it extends beyond mere subjectivity and serves as a way of seeing, interpreting, and situating art within broader social and historical contexts.

More than sixty-five years later, his provocation still lingers. What does it even mean to be an art critic/writer today? Especially in India?

We invite critical essays that answer this question and examine how we write about art across disciplines—performing, visual, film, culinary, and craft traditions, and beyond. This call is for writers who are interested not only in art itself, but in the language, forms, and habits we use to describe, critique, document, and imagine it.

What does it mean to write about a dance, a painting, a meal, a performance, or a handmade object? How do different art forms demand different writing styles? What happens when criticism becomes storytelling, when description becomes interpretation, or when theory meets lived experience?

Submissions may be analytical, reflective, or experimental in form, but should engage seriously with the question of art writing itself—its purposes, politics, pleasures, and possibilities.