Art-writers are perpetually at the mercy of what critic Peter Plagens has called the timeless art ratio, ‘10% good art: 90% crap’. It is no easy task to write a smart, supportive text about barren, uninspired work. Such writing will sound like hokum, because it is. Write first about artists whom you genuinely revere, the art you most believe in, so you don’t have to fake it. And if a work fails, say so with gusto. Faked feelings rarely produce good writing.