John McDonald and Michael Reid to Discuss the Future of Art Criticism

Sydney Contemporary will present The Last Critic Standing on Saturday, 5 September 2026, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the 10th Edition Collector Lounge at Carriageworks. The event is part of the talks programme for the fair’s tenth edition.

The conversation will feature independent art critic John McDonald and gallerist and former newspaper art-market columnist Michael Reid OAM. They will discuss where Australian art criticism has been, its current position and where it may be heading. The event description also frames the discussion around shrinking arts coverage in Australian media, the changing role of critics and the pressure on independent voices to avoid difficult judgments.

McDonald has written about art for more than four decades and served three periods as senior art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald. He was Head of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia and wrote The Art of Australia: Exploration to Federation. He has continued publishing independently since the Herald ended his column in 2024.

Reid spent a decade as The Australian’s weekly art-market columnist and six years writing a weekly column for the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend. He chairs Michael Reid Galleries, which operates spaces in Australia and Berlin and plans a Los Angeles location for late 2026.

The session places criticism, the media landscape and the commercial art world in the same conversation, asking what the Australian art community loses when fewer independent critics are able to publish sustained judgments.