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Art Periodicals 1945-75 PDF
Art Periodicals 1945-75 PDF
during the past thirty years - because historians choose certain events from
the infinity of events, according to their ideologies, and promote those selected
to each one reflects the ethos of the Western society to which I belong.·
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
review Spirale
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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
virtually manifestoes. In these instances the history of art and the history of
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
history is to be.
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
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).
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
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
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
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
between certain periodicals and the art trade is not always so evident: in one
another the editor is the wife of an art dealer. (6) It seems unlikely that
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.
those, like its editor Frank J. Malina, whose intellectual horizons encompass
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
Frank J. Malina
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One disadvantage of Leonardo's open door policy is that much of the art
excludes adverts from private galleries and provides instead such useful
founded and existing ones were expanded. New art periodicals were created
by, or received support from, these bodies. For example, in the 1950s the
Ark No 10 1954.
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In the following decade the Swedish Institute of Art History (Lund), the
ARIS, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Living Arts, and Louisana Revy.
independent of market forces than other types of art periodicals but their
interesting titles which were founded and which foundered in the period
under review.
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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
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
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
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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
has been eased by the introduction in recent years of two indexing and
complement that already provided by Art Index. However, these new indexes
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
reduced the frequency of its publication in order to cut printing and postage
costs).
work on display in New York plus short texts by the artists represented.
reviewed in greater depth; longer, more discursive articles were also possible.
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
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
research journals in the sciences; that is, they are highly specialised and they
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
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
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
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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the most truly international of the internationals but it must take second
place
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difficult to photocopy because of its square shape ('Close to the shape of the
world's most influential art journal devoted to modern art. Its range is
and to the work of living American artists. Artforum was first published in
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
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.
striking about these publications is not the differences between them, but
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
duplication and the tyranny of topicality that so. many editors of the
suspect. Indeed many artists regard international styles of art as proof of the
New York; hence the present demand for decentralisation, hence the
communities. Eight North American magazines of this type, all founded since
1970 - Artweek, Journal, File, The New Art Examiner, Original Art Report,
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
For example, there are now four journals devoted to the subject of art
the Japanese Bulletin of Art Therapy - whereas in 1945 there was none. There
Gogh).
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,
de l'Art Vivant, and Kulchur, included music, dance and the cinema in their
activity' identified by Lewis is confirmed by the fact that most art periodicals
photography, etc. in addition to the traditional fine art media. Painting and
parlous condition that apart from 'how to do it' journals there are few
seriousness and high intellectual level reflect the situation of the theory of
the current rash of art newsletters. Even quite ambitious magazines make
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
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
Vernissage and Gazette dating from the early 1960s. Since 1970 some art
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,
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
blamed for the eccentric titles given to some recent art periodicals: Straight
'comix' like Zap are not generally counted as art periodicals, they are
Situationists).
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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,
groups and were often produced by the groups themselves. Since the
artworld is male-dominated, women artists tend to be overlooked, or
the Feminist Art Journal and Womanspace Journal edited and staffed by
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
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
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
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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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
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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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
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
While music and poetry are the arts best suited to this medium the visual arts
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Microfiche and videotape are two other forms offering an alternative to the
monitors are more generally available no doubt they will be used for new art
periodicals. (15)
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
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
and collective artworks; they also have a temporal dimension (they are read
forms; that is, those which have an existence independent of the periodical
mounted and hung on walls (as they were at a recent Royal Academy
(see, for example, the issue of Studio International for July/August 1970) or
of mass media everyone can be famous (for 15 minutes) and on his notion
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During the late 1960s a major paradigm shift occurred in the practice of art
There was a negation of the uniqueness of the art object by the adoption of
the art object and an upgrading of its conceptual component. And there was
Towards the end of the decade there was a vogue for post-studio and time-
experienced in assimilating such work, in obtaining items for display and for
by the artist Willoughby Sharp, the photographic image is given top priority
news items and interviews. Conventional art criticism is avoided because the
aim of Avalanche is to present the work directly rather than through the
shows' testifies to the promotional power of the art periodical. Artists quickly
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
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
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
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
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
Art Criticism. Perhaps artists are excluded by the editors of such journals or
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with the economic recession is reflected in the grey cardboard cover, cheap
the American branch of Art & Language. Some of its contributors have
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economic climate, cheap journals debating the social and political functions
of art produced by dedicated groups may prove more viable than expensive
contemporary art.
Conclusion
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
influence of the art periodical traced in this paper its power to define art is
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6 Robertson, K., 'Art criticism in France, part 2: the art journals,' in Studio
226-7.
10 See the remarks on sub-cults in the article 'The magazine addicts have hit
11 Moore, A., 'New voices' in Artforum, vol 13, December 1974, pp. 63-5.
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.
18 Ibid, p 33.
19 Rosenberg, H. 'Art and its double' in Artworks and packages, NY: Dell,
1971 pp ll-23.
ARLIS Newsletter No. 10 February 1972, pp 3-4 and 'Art periodicals, indexes
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
p 43. See also: Goldberg, R. 'The word on art, or the new magazines' Net no.
1, 1975.
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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>