art periodicals 1945-75
TRANSCRIPT
ART PERIODICALS 1945-75
JOHN A. WALKER (Copyright 2009)
Writing history is an extremely problematical enterprise - even writing the
history of such a restricted subject as the development of art periodicals
during the past thirty years - because historians choose certain events from
the infinity of events, according to their ideologies, and promote those selected
to the rank of historical events. (1)
Each historian writes at a particular moment in time from· a vantage point
within a culture; therefore, it is inevitable that my singling out of certain
periodicals as worthy of mention and the varying amounts of space allocated
to each one reflects the ethos of the Western society to which I belong.·
Consequently. American and European journals are stressed rather than
those published elsewhere. Furthermore, since my personal commitment is to
contemporary art, periodicals dealing with new developments are given
precedence over those devoted to past art.
Out-of-date issues of magazines are treasured for a variety of reasons: their
period flavour, their illustrations, their graphic design or their literary
quality, but the primary value of old art magazines is their art-information
content. Thus Tiger's Eye, It Is, Possibilities and Art News, dating from the
1940s and 1950s are valued as sources of information about Abstract
Expressionism; Neon, Bief, Medium and Le Surréalisme Même for Surrealism;
Structure and The Structurist for recent trends in Constructivist art; the Swiss
review Spirale
Medium (new series) no 4, 1955.
Six issues of Art News from the period 1952-54
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for Konkrete Kunst; Die Schastrommel for Wiener Aktionismus; the
bulletin Page for its news concerning Computer art, etc.
Estimations of the historical significance of such magazines are dependent
upon judgements concerning the historical significance of the artists,
movements, groups, styles and art centres with which they were associated.
However, the history of art periodicals is not merely a footnote to the history
of art since they also help to determine that history - for example, by
publicising some artists and not others and so furthering the careers of the
former at the expense of the latter. They also act as a feedback mechanism:
the kind of art they feature, and thereby lend authority to, influences the
work of young artists and hence the evolution of art. Also, at a primary
rather than a secondary level, there are reviews such as Dau Al Set, Zero, V-
Tre, Syn, Nul-O, Spur, Cobra, Anonima, De-Coll/age, produced in the period
1945-75 by groups of artists, containing articles and statements which are
virtually manifestoes. In these instances the history of art and the history of
art periodicals coincide.
Because of their periodicity, single issues of magazines devoted to
contemporary art provide 'snapshots' of art at particular moments. The back
runs of such magazines themselves constitute a history of art, albeit an
unrefined one. This fact becomes more significant as time elapses: future art
historians attempting to rewrite the story of art from 1945 to 1975 will
depend heavily on the texts relating to this period; consequently the contents
of art periodicals will be a major factor in determining what that revised
history is to be.
Evidently the relationship between art and its documentation is a
reciprocal one. Furthermore, if Walter Benjamin's suggestion that the whole
character of art has been altered by the mass reproduction of artworks
which followed the invention of photography is correct, then every illustrated
art periodical extends and reinforces that transformation. (2)
Fourteen years ago Stanley Lewis identified five trends in art periodicals:
a more inclusive definition of the sphere of art activity; a new and broader
art market; an internationalism of approach; widespread acceptance of
contemporary forms; emphasis on visual rather than literary
communication. (3) Some of Lewis's points are still valid but others now need
qualifying; the list also needs expanding. Nevertheless, his analysis provides a
useful starting point. (The order of Lewis's list will not be adhered to).
Economic base: 'a new and broader art market’
Art periodicals are commercial products which are subject to economic
criteria. They are vulnerable to competition, rising costs, falling circulations
and changes in public taste. Television, radio and newspapers have
contributed to the failure of many famous magazines, but in this respect art
periodicals are fortunate because the mass media pay so little attention to the
visual arts that art periodicals enjoy a virtual monopoly.
One important function of art magazines is to provide income for editorial
staff and contributors, and profit for publishers and printers. Sometimes a
printing firm will back an art magazine simply to keep a certain press busy
or will use an art magazine as a showcase to advertise the quality of the
firm's workmanship. Since income from sales is seldom sufficient to sustain
an art periodical, many rely upon advertising revenue supplied by art
galleries (periodicals of this type arc usually arranged like a sandwich:
adverts/editorial matter/adverts). Even then they may run at a deficit, as
Artforum is reported to do. (4) In periods of economic recession advertising
declines and this exacerbates problems of viability.
Art periodicals dependent upon advertising often function as publicity
and promotional vehicles for galleries and their stables of artists. Moreover,
since they are an integral part of the art marketing system, their fortunes
tend to fluctuate with the state of the art market. (5) Surges in the numbers
of art magazines in the post-war era, for example the spate of new titles in
France - Art d'Aujourd'hui, Artitudes, Art Press, Cimaise, Connaissance des
Arts, Chroniques de l'Art Vivant, La Calerie, L'Humidité, Jardin des Arts,
Opus International, VH-101: in Germany, Artis, Extra, Heute Kunst,
Interfunktionen,
Interfunktionen No 6 1971
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Kunstchronik, Kunstwerk, Magazin Kunst, Nummer; and in Italy, Art
Dimension, Arte Milano, Arte Oggi, Bolaffiarte, D'Ars, Data, Flash Art, King
Kong International, Metro, NAC can be directly linked to the boom in the art
markets of these countries.
Some galleries publicise their exhibitions by issuing their own bulletins.
Examples include: Art & Project (Amsterdam), Derriere le Miroir (Maeght
Gallery, Paris), Nothpforten-Str (Galerie Jesse, Bielefeld), Signals (London),
Umbrella (Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh). The promotional character of these
publications is obvious to all, but the incestuousness of the relationship
between certain periodicals and the art trade is not always so evident: in one
instance an apparently independent magazine is funded by a gallery, in
another the editor is the wife of an art dealer. (6) It seems unlikely that
impartiality and objectivity can be maintained in these situations.
Frankly acknowledging the fact that in our society artworks have
exchange-value rather than use-value are several periodicals of the
newsletter type which give advice to collectors on the tricky business of
speculating in art. Art Aktuell, for example, provides 'confidential
information on the international art scene'. It is limited to 500 copies
available on subscription only and is produced by Dr Willi Bongard,
inventor of the famous 'KunstKompass' (a periodic listing of 100
international artists ranked in order of reputation). Bongard constantly
urges investors to think of art as art rather than art as business, but the
existence of Art Aktuell and the plethora of magazines devoted to current art
is ultimately explained by the large sums invested in contemporary artworks.
At this point it is worth pausing to consider the magazine Leonardo, a
quarterly founded in 1968, because it differs markedly from the majority of
art commercials. As its name suggests, Leonardo's primary purpose is to
serve as a channel of communication between professional artists: especially
those, like its editor Frank J. Malina, whose intellectual horizons encompass
new developments in science, technology and communications. By publishing
texts by artists about their own work Leonardo overcomes the problem of
dealer promotion and avoids the filtering effect of art criticism. As far as the
publishers are concerned there is a financial benefit to be gained from this
direct approach in that artist-contributors do not need to be paid.
Frank J. Malina
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One disadvantage of Leonardo's open door policy is that much of the art
featured is mediocre in quality. For ethical reasons Leonardo deliberately
excludes adverts from private galleries and provides instead such useful
features as a list of international opportunities for artists, lengthy book
reviews, a glossary of terms, and summaries of articles in other journals.
During the post-war periods of affluence many new higher educational
establishments, art libraries, cultural institutions and organisations were
founded and existing ones were expanded. New art periodicals were created
by, or received support from, these bodies. For example, in the 1950s the
Royal College of Art (London), the University of Wisconsin, the Black
Mountain College (North Carolina), a consortium of Dutch museums, and
the Hochschule fur Gestaltung (Ulm) produced, respectively, Ark, Arts in
Society, The Black Mountain Review, Museumjournaal, and Ulm.
Ark No 10 1954.
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In the following decade the Swedish Institute of Art History (Lund), the
British Society of Aesthetics, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London),
and the Moderna Museet Humlebaek (Denmark) founded, respectively,
ARIS, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Living Arts, and Louisana Revy.
Periodicals subsidised by institutions and organisations are more
independent of market forces than other types of art periodicals but their
fate is inextricably linked to that of their parent bodies.
Quantitative and qualitative changes
Art & Literature, Collage, Eidos, Flug/Fluxblattzeitung, Fylkingen, Image,
Kulchur, Kunst-Zeitung, Monad, Motif, Pages, Possibilities, Prisme des Arts,
Motif No 11, Winter 1963/64. Shenval Press, edited by Ruari Mclean.
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Trans/formations, Signals, Spirale, Uppercase, and X were some of the more
interesting titles which were founded and which foundered in the period
under review.
Uppercase No 2 1959, edited by Theo Crosby
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Nevertheless, despite the high mortality rate of new art periodicals, economic
conditions in the post-war era have favoured expansion: there has been an
increase in the .number of titles, circulations, number of pages, page sizes,
number of illustrations, and number of colour illustrations.
One growth area has been in magazines similar in type to Art in America
(founded in 1913) - that is, magazines covering art being created and
exhibited within a circumscribed geographical region. Most developed
nations now have an art periodical of this type: for example, Canada has
ArtsCanada, Australia Art in Australia, South Africa ArtLook, Spain Goya,
Ireland Arts in Ireland, Britain Arts Review, Mexico Artes de Mexico, Belgium
Clés pour les Arts, Italy Le Arti, East Germany Bildende Kunst, Rumania Arta
and Norway Kunsten Idag. Although such periodicals are not purely
nationalistic in character, they do export to the outside world a favourable
image of national achievements in art and culture.
Art in America, May/June 1975.
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Also swelling the total of art periodicals are the bulletins and newsletters
which are now produced by virtually all museums, art centres, artistic
groups and art organisations. In London, for example, the Greater London
Arts Association, the Institute· of Contemporary Arts, the Art Meeting Place,
Art Net, the Artists Union, the Art Information Registry, and the
International Art Centre all issue event sheets, bulletins or newsletters. While
some of these publications are slight and ephemeral - the Art Meeting Place
issues a single poster-sized sheet - others, like the magazine U issued by the
International Art Centre, are quite substantial.
Fortunately the task of maintaining bibliographical control over the
daunting accumulation of art literature and its massive annual increments
has been eased by the introduction in recent years of two indexing and
abstracting services - Art, Design, Photo and Artbibliographies Modern - to
complement that already provided by Art Index. However, these new indexes
cannot cope with the newsletter material described above. Periodicals
emanating from Eastern Europe tend to be ignored by English language
bibliographies. The analytical bulletin issued by CNAC (Paris) containing
abstracts to articles in such journals as Dekorativnoe Iskusstvo, Hudoznik,
Iskusstvo (USSR), Kultura, Projekt (Poland), Umeni, Vytvarny Zivot
(Czechoslovakia), Arta (Rumania), and Problemi na Izkustvoto (Bulgaria) is
therefore especially useful. (8)
It· appears that the present economic recession has halted the expansion
of art periodicals for the time being (James Fitzsimmons' 1975 journal Art
Spectrum was absorbed into Art International after only three issues) and is
influencing the publishing methods of existing ones (Studio International has
reduced the frequency of its publication in order to cut printing and postage
costs).
Accompanying the all-round expansion of art periodicals were certain
qualitative changes. In terms of illustration there were improvements in the
accuracy of colour reproduction; exemplary in this respect are L'Oeil,
Realites and Artforum. The demand for colour illustrations of contemporary
artworks, particularly by the education industry, is partially met by Art Now:
New York, a periodical founded in 1969, which consists of colour plates of
work on display in New York plus short texts by the artists represented.
Larger magazines meant that more exhibitions could be covered and
reviewed in greater depth; longer, more discursive articles were also possible.
Notwithstanding the large quantity of sycophantic journalism passing for art
criticism this craft is, in general, far more sophisticated and of a far higher
intellectual standard than it was thirty years ago. One has only to compare
articles in any current issue of Studio International with those in The Studio
in the 1940s to appreciate the magnitude of the change. During the 1960s
criticism acquired a new seriousness and a new exactitude in the pages of
Artforum when that journal's critics developed a formalist style of writing to
match the formalist art being discussed. In the past decade both artists and
critics have adopted a more theoretical approach to art and have been
influenced by such disciplines as philosophy, linguistics, sociology,
psychology and anthropology. In consequence, many contemporary art
periodicals resemble scholarly academic journals in the humanities or
research journals in the sciences; that is, they are highly specialised and they
are aimed at specific professional groups. Two scientistic journals - Control
and BIT International - illustrate this point.
Control No 1, 1965.
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Control was established in London by the artist Stephen Willats in 1965 and
is unique in the type of art it discusses. Most of the artists who contribute to
it are British and a nucleus of them are developing a socially orientated art
form which exploits concepts and methodologies derived from cybernetics
and the behavioural sciences. Although the artworks described in Control,
particularly Willats' projects and machines, are addressed to audiences
outside the professional art community, the texts in the magazine itself are
too specialist for the layman. In other words, Control provides a forum in
which artists call debate technical and theoretical issues. BIT International
was founded in 1968 and is published in Zagreb. Each issue is as thick as a
paperback and contains texts in two languages. The articles in BIT are very
technical and treat such topics as aesthetics and information theory, visual
research, computer applications in art and design, and analysis of the mass
media. Elaborate diagrams are a notable feature of both Control and BIT.
Internationalism/ Decentralisation
Although the international art community is minute compared to the total
world population, it is large enough to sustain a number of art journals
whose scope is not restricted to the art of anyone country, or to anyone
medium, or to any one style of art. Chief among the internationals
established since 1945 are: Art & Artists, Art Dimension, Artforum, Art
International, Artitudes
Art and Artists, Vol 1, No 1, April 1966. Edited by Mario Amaya.
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International, Art Press, Arts Magazine, Billedkunst, Chroniques de l'Art
Vivant, Cimaise, Data, Flash Art, Heute Kunst, Kunstforum International,
Kunstnachrichten, Metro, Mizue, L'Oeil, Opus International, Quadrum and
Studio International (although founded in 1893, The Studio became virtually
a new magazine in the 1960s).
Studio International, October 1974.
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Salient characteristics of these magazines include: the assumption that art is
an international language; contributions from artists and writers in many
different countries; correspondents resident in the major art centres of the
world regularly supplying exhibition reviews; multilingual texts or
summaries in translation. Also they are generally glossy, expensive products.
Collectively, the internationals provide a conspectus of world art which no
other communication channel can match.
Art International, edited by James Fitzsimmons in Switzerland, is perhaps
the most truly international of the internationals but it must take second
place
Art International, November 1969.
Artforum, December 1974.
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to Artforum in terms of prestige. Artforum, an irritatingly floppy magazine,
difficult to photocopy because of its square shape ('Close to the shape of the
paintings themselves' according to its editor John Coplans), is arguably the
world's most influential art journal devoted to modern art. Its range is
international but pride of place is given to exhibitions in the United States
and to the work of living American artists. Artforum was first published in
1962 by John Irwin (editor-publisher) in San Francisco (a fact which
emphasised the growing importance of the West Coast as a cultural region)
but since 1967 its editorial offices have been located, appropriately enough,
in New York, the post-war art capital of the world. From the beginning the
strengths of Artforum were the depth of its coverage and the quality of its
printing, colour reproductions and art criticism. Recently Artforum has been
attacked on the grounds that it is the trade journal of the commercial
galleries of New York and the main agency through which the hegemony of
New York art is maintained over that created in the rest of the 'free' world.
One persistent complaint about the internationals is their sameness. In a
review of twenty-two art periodicals Jasia Reichardt remarked: 'What is
striking about these publications is not the differences between them, but
their similarities in content, scope and layout. There appears to be a certain
formula which is adopted to a lesser or greater extent in all these journals .. .'
(9) The internationals all tend to review the same travelling exhibitions and
to feature the same set of 'star' artists. No doubt it is to avoid overlapping,
duplication and the tyranny of topicality that so. many editors of the
internationals are increasingly favouring the in-depth approach of special
issues devoted to particular themes (a notorious example is Studio
International's 'fish' issue).
If the rise of the internationals in the post-war era can be seen as an
outward movement, a reversal of direction is now evident: the movement in
the mid 1970s is inwards. (10) Internationalism continues but it is now
suspect. Indeed many artists regard international styles of art as proof of the
imperialistic domination of local cultures by metropolitan centres such as
New York; hence the present demand for decentralisation, hence the
emergence of new art magazines serving particular cities, regions or
communities. Eight North American magazines of this type, all founded since
1970 - Artweek, Journal, File, The New Art Examiner, Original Art Report,
Sunday Clothes, Straight Turkey/Artmind and Vanguard - were described by
Alan .Moore in a recent article. (11) A 'local' art magazine has even appeared
in New York: Art-Rite, a small, cheaply produced, irregular magazine, lively
and informal in style, addressing itself exclusively to the New York art
community.
Art-Rite, No 4, 1973.
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Specialisation/diversification
The all-round expansion of art magazines encouraged greater specialisation.
For example, there are now four journals devoted to the subject of art
therapy - American Journal of Art Therapy, Art Psychotherapy, Inscape and
the Japanese Bulletin of Art Therapy - whereas in 1945 there was none. There
is even a periodical (Vincent) devoted to the work of a single artist (Van
Gogh).
Many commentators disapprove of specialisation, especially in the field of
art, but if we consider art periodicals as a whole it becomes clear that,
paradoxically, it is specialisation which produces diversification. In fact, both
specialisation and diversification are the inevitable consequences of the
continuing growth of human knowledge and the pluralism of modem society.
While some art journals focused on strictly defined topics, simultaneously
there were others which adopted a broader approach: some, like Ambit, Art
& Literature, Tiger's Eye and New Departures, brought the literary and the
visual arts together; others, like Trans/formation, Arts in Society and VH-10l,
adopted an interdisciplinary approach; while others, like Chorus, Chroniques
de l'Art Vivant, and Kulchur, included music, dance and the cinema in their
terms of reference. The 'more inclusive definition of the sphere of art
activity' identified by Lewis is confirmed by the fact that most art periodicals
now include items on video, performance, ecology, science fiction, comics,
photography, etc. in addition to the traditional fine art media. Painting and
sculpture still receive plenty of coverage but it is symptomatic of their
parlous condition that apart from 'how to do it' journals there are few
devoted exclusively to them. The review Peinture - Cahiers Theoriques,
founded in 1971 by a group of French painters called 'Support/Surface, is
therefore exceptional. The painters established the review in order to take
charge of the theoretical analysis of their own pictorial practice. Its
seriousness and high intellectual level reflect the situation of the theory of
painting in the aftermath of Conceptual art.
In the mid 1960s sculpture achieved a temporary ascendancy over
painting and this fact was confirmed by the emergence of Sculpture
International. Its editor, Fabio Barraclough, claimed in the first issue that art
had entered the 'Age of sculpture' (it lasted four years!).
Influence of printing technology and the alternative press; new formats
The relative cheapness and availability of IBM typewriters, photocopiers,
duplicating machines and small offset-litho printing machines enable a small
group, or even a single individual, to produce a presentable magazine, hence
the current rash of art newsletters. Even quite ambitious magazines make
use of such equipment: the irregular Fluxus compilation known as Schmuck
is obviously the product of a duplicating machine (it is so consistently badly
produced that we must assume its creators deliberately cultivate a rough-
hewn effect). Incidentally, Schmuck exemplifies a currently fashionable
method of producing an art periodical, namely assembling or gathering
together items contributed by artists from widely scattered addresses. This
method is an aspect of the Mail art phenomenon.
Offset lithographic printing is, according to Ruari McLean 'the most
flexible and versatile process for low cost printing of text and illustrations ...
the only process in which type, properly printed photographs and fine line
diagrams can all be printed together on the same paper, which does not need
to be coated 'art' but may even be poor quality newsprint'. (12) It was for
these reasons that the process was so popular with the producers of the
underground, or alternative, press publications in the 1960s and, following
their example, with the publishers of new art magazines including
Chroniques de l'Art Vivant, Art Press, File, Artitudes International and Flash
Art. Publications like It, Friendz and Rolling Stone employed the newspaper
format and this was another facet of the alternative press which has
influenced the design of recent art periodicals though some credit must be
given to Art News & Review (now Arts Review) for its use of the tabloid
format as early as 1949 and to other pioneers such as Louisana Revy,
Vernissage and Gazette dating from the early 1960s. Since 1970 some art
newspapers have reverted to the more conventional magazine format (Flash
Art, for example) while others have moved in the opposite direction
(Avalanche, for example). The appeal of the tabloid format is that it gives a
sense of the now, of throw-away immediacy (it makes cheap paper acceptable
). (13)
To paraphrase Adorno: art is a serious business but then again it's not
that serious. Taking their cue from the tradition of satire and parody
established by the pre-war Dadaists and the underground press of the 1960s,
a number of artists, particularly Canadian artists, have founded humorous
art magazines. File, a magazine whose cover design imitates that of the now
defunct Life (and whose title anagrams its name), pays homage to Dada by
giving its place of origin as 'Canadada'. Its contributors display a high order
of lunacy and mount irreverent attacks on the great names of modern art by
means of a photomontage technique. The alternative press can also be
blamed for the eccentric titles given to some recent art periodicals: Straight
Turkey/Artmind, Avalanche, King Kong International, and Sunday Clothes.
Even though alternative press publications like Oz and underground
'comix' like Zap are not generally counted as art periodicals, they are
acquired by the more enterprising art librarians because of their flamboyant
graphics (anticipated in 1960 in Spur, the magazine of a group of German
Situationists).
Spur No 6, 1961. Spur in exile issue.
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In the past twenty years comic strips have had a profound influence on
'mainstream' art and the history of 'la bande desinée' is now a minor
academic industry. Indeed, comics are a popular art form in their own right
and there are a number of reviews devoted exclusively to them, for example,
Phénix, Arcade, Funny world and Graphic Story World.
Many alternative press magazines served as megaphones for oppressed
groups and were often produced by the groups themselves. Since the
artworld is male-dominated, women artists tend to be overlooked, or
discriminated against, hence the appearance of such militant magazines as
the Feminist Art Journal and Womanspace Journal edited and staffed by
women and concerned exclusively with Feminist art.
In response to the expansion of the art market. in America and Europe
during the 1960s, a new type of art journalism emerged, exemplified in the
first half of the decade by journals such as Art Voices and Vernissage, and in
the second half by Flash Art. Art Voices, a large-format monthly printed by
lithography on coated paper, was founded, published and edited by Joseph
Akston in New York from 1962 to 1967. It was a vulgar, ebullient magazine
which prided itself on its independence from cults and its 'strong, fearless
editorials'. Art Voices represented a determined attempt to apply the formula
of popular journalism to the specialist field of art. Flash Art, the brash
Italian magazine edited by Giancarlo Politi, was from the outset a more
sophisticated venture. Politi's aim was to deconsecrate art and he was
prepared to use such crude publicity techniques as the sale of T-shirts to
promote his magazine. Flash Art is totally committed to the fashionable
avant-garde; it provides a résumé of information on the international art
scene and gives precedence to the work of young artists and critics.
Spoof (?) advert issued by Giancarlo Politi, editor of Flash Art.
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According to a reporter in Newsweek, magazines like Flash Art answered the
need for a 'hotter, tougher product interested in issues, ideas and even
politics' with the result that now 'art magazines are no longer the staid
repository of scholarship, no longer the passive judge and recorder of art
but are 'part of the action'. (14)
New Media
Much vanguard art of the 1950s and 1960s was multi-media in character and
this tendency provided the inspiration for Aspen, 'the magazine in a box' (or
envelope), published in New York from 1965 to 1971. According to its editor,
Phyllis Johnson, Aspen was the first three-dimensional magazine (she used
the term 'magazine' in its original sense of 'a cache of objects'). A typical
issue
Aspen, vol 1, no 3 December 1966. Pop art or Andy Warhol issue. Designed
by Warhol.
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contained an assortment of booklets, reproductions, broadsheets, and
recordings on plastic discs. Besides being multi-media in form Aspen was also
multi-media in content, in that various arts are represented in each issue.
Aspen exemplified the 1960s' search for a total experience via a breakdown
of traditional categories; it was an exuberant, if pretentious magazine.
Technical improvements in sound recording equipment in recent years
have made available cheap, compact, convenient cassettes. Since tape
recorders are now commonplace, a great potential for audio magazines in the
field of art exists, though so far only one has been produced, namely Audio
Arts, a British venture dating from 1973.
While music and poetry are the arts best suited to this medium the visual arts
can be represented, as Audio Arts has shown, via artists' statements,
theoretical discussions and interviews. Furthermore, since many
contemporary artists have switched from visual media to language, the
second recording is an ideal means of making their work available.
Bill Furlong, editor of Audio Arts, recording the words of Joseph Beuys.
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Microfiche and videotape are two other forms offering an alternative to the
conventional printed magazine, and once microfiche readers and video
monitors are more generally available no doubt they will be used for new art
periodicals. (15)
Art and the art periodical
Extra, a recent avant-garde journal published in Germany, claims to be 'the
only one not about art but as art'. In fact, it is not alone in presenting itself as
art, but its boast highlights the most crucial development in art periodicals
since 1945, namely the conflation of art and the art periodical. Since this
change has caused much confused thinking what follows is an attempt at
clarification. Analytically, three kinds of art periodical can be distinguished.
First, the periodical which is about art. These are meta-linguistic in
character; that is, they consist of writing about art and reproductions of
artworks. Second, the periodical as graphic art. (16) Any periodical can be
regarded as an artwork in its own right in the sense that it is a fine example
of printing and graphic design. Art periodicals are mixed-media products
and collective artworks; they also have a temporal dimension (they are read
sequentially). Third, the periodical as anthology or art gallery. The
periodical format often serves as a means of presenting examples of other art
forms; that is, those which have an existence independent of the periodical
itself, such as literature (fiction, poetry, criticism), photography, graphic arts
(lithographs, etchings). If a periodical is used as a means of publishing a set
of photographs or prints then it serves as a kind of portable art gallery.
Issues of the famous Parisian magazine Verve (1937-60) include specially
commissioned series of lithographs; once these prints are individually
mounted and hung on walls (as they were at a recent Royal Academy
exhibition) the periodical disintegrates.
In practice most art periodicals combine characteristics from each of the
above categories. A conflation of all three categories is particularly likely to
occur where an artist, or group of artists, contributes to an existing magazine
(see, for example, the issue of Studio International for July/August 1970) or
publish their own journal.
A striking example of the willingness of contemporary artists to treat
magazine production and journalism as art activities is provided by Andy
Warhol's Interview. This tabloid is based on Warhol's insight that in an age
of mass media everyone can be famous (for 15 minutes) and on his notion
that the interview is an art form.
Interview Vol 1, no 9, 1969.
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During the late 1960s a major paradigm shift occurred in the practice of art
consisting of a number of different but inter-related changes. There was a
shift of emphasis from visual to non-visual media (language, symbolic logic).
There was a negation of the uniqueness of the art object by the adoption of
media capable of mass replication (printed texts, photography, diagrams and
multiples). There was a downgrading of the physicality and materialism of
the art object and an upgrading of its conceptual component. And there was
a decline of interest in traditional artistic media. All these changes served to
enhance the importance of the art periodical.
Towards the end of the decade there was a vogue for post-studio and time-
based work (Land art, Performance). The initial difficulty galleries
experienced in assimilating such work, in obtaining items for display and for
sale, was soon overcome by promoting documentation of artistic behaviour to
the status of fine art: a series of photographs of a landscape or an action was
transformed into a 'photo-work'. Such material was ideally suited to
reproduction and magazines such as Avalanche, Flash Art and
Interfunktionen took full advantage of this fact.
In the early issues of Avalanche, a mannered narcissistic magazine published
by the artist Willoughby Sharp, the photographic image is given top priority
while textual matter is reduced to a minimum and consists chiefly of short
news items and interviews. Conventional art criticism is avoided because the
aim of Avalanche is to present the work directly rather than through the
experience of an intermediary. As Lawrence Alloway has pointed out, the
availability of portable tape recorders has encouraged art journals to print
interviews with artists instead of analytical, evaluative articles by critics. (17)
The adage 'one reproduction in an art magazine is worth two one-man
shows' testifies to the promotional power of the art periodical. Artists quickly
perceived that if the works themselves were presented instead of illustrations,
the promotional power of the magazine would be increased. Hence, some
artists by-passed the art gallery and disseminated their work to a larger,
more international audience via art periodicals. For a while it seemed that a
more democratic means of communication between artist and audience had
been found.
Although artists specialising in the visual arts have in the past written
manifestoes, treatises and articles, their texts have generally been classed as
'theory' and have been considered separately from their artefacts. In recent
years, however, certain visual artists have argued that theory and practice
are one while others have adopted language itself as a primary mode of
expression, accelerating what Alloway terms 'the verbalisation of art'. (18) It
may be recalled that Lewis's last point was 'emphasis on visual rather than
literary communication'. On the one hand his observation is confirmed by
magazines like Avalanche but on the other it is refuted by the emergence of
new art journals which contain no illustrations at all.
In May 1969 the first issue of Art-Language, sub-titled 'the journal of
conceptual art', appeared and was soon followed by several others of a
similar type (Statements, Analytical Art, Frameworks, Art Dialogue). Apart
from the odd diagram, Art-Language contains no illustrations for the simple
reason that there are no works, in the traditional sense, to illustrate: the
journal itself represents a large proportion of the output of the artists who
contribute to it. However, we must beware of the temptation to reify the
written texts by regarding them as art objects (even though manuscripts of
the texts have been marketed as such) because in the first place the medium
of Art & Language artists is language not writing (in Saussure's view
language is a combination of sound-image and concept, not its graphic
representation via ink on paper); secondly, the texts are not discrete, finished
artworks but rather the fragments of an on-going enquiry; and thirdly, the
texts are not unique originals like paintings (they present the work - the
discourse of a number of collaborators - which could equally be made public
by sound recording, radio or conversation).
Conceptual art journals have a restrained functional design style similar
to that of academic journals in the fields of philosophy, linguistics and
sociology; in fact, the very disciplines ransacked by Conceptual artists. Since
these artists trespass on the domain of professional philosophers of art one
might have expected their writings to be published in such journals as Revue
d'Esthetique, British journal of Aesthetics and The journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism. Perhaps artists are excluded by the editors of such journals or
perhaps they are put off by their dreariness and scholasticism.
The Fox No1 1975.
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The atmosphere of stringency and pessimism of the mid-1970s concomitant
with the economic recession is reflected in the grey cardboard cover, cheap
newsprint and querulous contents of The Fox, a new journaal produced by
the American branch of Art & Language. Some of its contributors have
discovered, somewhat belatedly, the writings of Marx, which brings us,
finally, to Communist and radical left-wing art magazines such as Artery,
Left Curve and Praxis.
Artery, No 5, February 1973. Editor for this issue Andrew Turner.
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In resources, size, circulations and influence these magazines are puny in
comparison with the internationals described earlier, but in the present
economic climate, cheap journals debating the social and political functions
of art produced by dedicated groups may prove more viable than expensive
periodicals dependent upon advertising and a booming market in
contemporary art.
Conclusion
'Art has entered the media system' remarks Harold Rosenberg in a
perceptive essay. (19) To the question 'how then do we distinguish between
the products of the media and works of art?' he answers: 'The power of
defining art is vested in art history, whose physical embodiment is the
museum'. The art periodical can be regarded as a museum, in the sense of
Malraux's 'museum-without-walls', and given the expansion and growth in
influence of the art periodical traced in this paper its power to define art is
greater now than at any time in its history .
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Notes and References
1 Althusser, L., 'Contradiction and over determination‘, (1962) in For Marx,
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin 1969), pp. 89-128.
2 Benjamin, W. 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction'
(1936) in Illuminations, (London: Fontana, 1973).
3 Lewis, S. 'Periodicals in the visual arts' in Library Trends, vol 10 January
1962, pp. 330-52.
4 'Art as news' in Newsweek, vol 80, 18 September 1972, pp. 66-67.
5 See Richard Cork's editorial 'Pitfalls and priorities: an editorial dialectic'
in Studio International vol 190, July/August 1975, pp. 2-3.
6 Robertson, K., 'Art criticism in France, part 2: the art journals,' in Studio
International, vol 189, March/April 1975, pp. 140-1.
7 An accurate estimate of the number of art periodical titles currently being
published is difficult to obtain. If 'art' is defined very broadly there may be
over 1,000 titles; if defined narrowly, perhaps 100.
8 Art, architecture, design: bulletin analytique des periodiques de l'Europe de
l’est, (Paris, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, 1975).
9 Reichardt, J., 'Potted art' in Studio International, vol I71, June 1966, pp.
226-7.
10 See the remarks on sub-cults in the article 'The magazine addicts have hit
it rich' in File, vol 2 (1 & 2) April/May 1973, p. 8.
11 Moore, A., 'New voices' in Artforum, vol 13, December 1974, pp. 63-5.
12 Mclean, R., Magazine design, (Oxford: OUP, 1969).
13 Op. cit. (10).
14 Op. cit. (4).
15 A proposal by David Rushton and Paul Wood for a new art journal
involving the use of microfiche is described in ARLIS Newsletter No. 23, June
1975, p 47.
16 See Marshall McLuhan 'Understanding magascenes' in Print v 24,
July/August 1970 pp 20-1.
17 Alloway, L. 'Artists as writers, part one: inside information' in Artforum v
12, March 1974 pp 30-5.
18 Ibid, p 33.
19 Rosenberg, H. 'Art and its double' in Artworks and packages, NY: Dell,
1971 pp ll-23.
I have drawn extensively on Clive Phillpot's writings on art periodicals: the
'Feedback' column in Studio International and the articles 'Art magazines' in
ARLIS Newsletter No. 10 February 1972, pp 3-4 and 'Art periodicals, indexes
and abstracts and modern art: an annotated topography' in ARLIS
Newsletter No. 19, June 1974, pp ll-24. I am also grateful to Paul Martin for
the loan of the magazines discussed in his article 'News and notes: sources of
international art information' in Studio International v188 July/August 1974
p 43. See also: Goldberg, R. 'The word on art, or the new magazines' Net no.
1, 1975.
NB. See also http://www.benjamins.com/jbp/catalogs/cat_279.pdf
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This article was first published as ‘Periodicals since 1945’ in The Art press : two
centuries of art magazines : essays published for the Art Libraries Society on the
occasion of the International Conference on Art Periodicals and the exhibition, the Art
press at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; edited by Trevor Fawcett & Clive
Phillpot, (London: Art Book Co., 1976). The original article was not illustrated.
John A. Walker is a painter and art historian. He is the author of many books and
articles on contemporary art and mass media. He is also an editorial advisor for the
website:
"http://www.artdesigncafe.com">www.artdesigncafe.com</a>