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In this article, the author discusses art criticism, literature, theory and global art history. For a few years now, there has been much discussion of ‘global art history’, but the author wonders if one can ever really understand how big the world is. As a way of addressing the sheer vastness of the world, he attempts to consider the relationship between literature and art writing. In the past, critics from Charles Baudelaire to Clement Greenberg wrote about both literature and art. Today's art critics seem less literary. Is it because they are more enamoured of theory? Who reads art criticism any more – especially in the context of the emerging arts discourses within Southeast Asia? Today, everywhere, there is more and more art – more biennales, more art fairs. There is even more art writing: reviews, catalogue essays, art books of all shapes and sizes. Yet there is also more talk about the decline of reading, the decline of university departments of literatures, and the decline of criticism. There is an...