the release of "digger," and the response to it, has got me mulling over the state of arts criticism, and how much it's come to reflect the polarization of the world around us. "good" or "bad." masterpiece or disaster. the rush to deliver a verdict, to take a side, to be right. as though the critic's job is to be a judge, rather than a translator, an interlocutor, a guide through unfamiliar territory. i've always appreciated cultural criticism that feels like a conversation with works and ideas, rather than a pronouncement about them. criticism that holds space for curiosity rather than certainty, and extends that curiosity even to work that confounds us -- especially from artists who've already taught us new ways of seeing. i tend to find it more exhilarating to encounter something on its own terms rather than on my own, especially when i don't yet know what to make of it. that feels like a superpower these days, one we're neglecting and forgetting how to use. criticism has the power to resist the flattening of public discourse, to remind us of the value of nuance, ambiguity, and contradiction -- all increasingly in short supply. and i've been thinking more broadly, too, about how there is safe art, tasteful art, accomplished art, art that meets our expectations. and then there is brave art. not that these are mutually exclusive categories. but there is art that looks beautiful and polished on a museum wall, art that knows how to look like Art. and then there is art that breaks the rules, that doesn't particularly care whether it looks like art at all, that isn't trying to be anything except the truest possible expression of itself. and how, if you make brave art, a lot of people are going to give you a lot of shit. you're going to get bad reviews. you're going to be mocked, dismissed, misunderstood. because you're doing something that many of us don't yet have the language, the reference points, or the imagination to recognize. of course not everything experimental or misunderstood is brilliant. not every provocation is profound. harsh criticism can be justified, illuminating, essential. but this seems like a moment to remind ourselves that making the art we need -- not necessarily the art we want, or even the art we deserve -- requires a willingness to be illegible, unpopular, ridiculous. to resist the temptation to make something everyone already knows how to appreciate. because art isn't only here to confirm what we already know, or to reward us for having good taste. it's also here to make us uncomfortable, confound our expectations, challenge our assumptions, show us something we don't yet know how to see. that takes bravery from the artist. but it also takes a great deal of courage from the audience. a willingness to encounter something without immediately needing to understand it, categorize it, approve of it. to sit with uncertainty. to open up questions instead of shutting them down. to entertain the possibility that what looks like failure, absurdity, or bad taste just might be the first sounds of a language we haven't learned to speak yet. nytimes.com/2026/10/14/opini…