An Aside: Art Magazines

This little tangent started as part of my post about Adrian Ghenie and Romanian artists, and took on a life of its own. In the original post I mentioned that I have way too many art magazines. Every month I read the "big three": Artforum, Art in America, and ArtNews. I also read Flash Art and Modern Painters and some of the quarterly publications dealing with regional art scenes, such as Art Lies and Art Ltd.

Artforum is probably the biggest art magazine right now - it has some of the best critics out there writing for it, and all varieties of art are covered - film, installation, painting, sculpture, conceptual, you name it. Sometimes they're a bit heavy on film coverage at the expense of other media, but that's a minor complaint about a solid magazine. It's supposed to have an international view, but half of the reviews are of New York shows. It does review shows from overseas, but usually just one or two per country in each issue. Speaking of being "the biggest art magazine" and "solid," issues of Artforum tend to be really thick (like Vogue, its bulk is mostly ads, but ads can be a good way to find out about exhibitions). Also, it's like a big square, which is cool since it sticks out past the other magazines on the bookshelf.

Art in America is kind of stuck in the middle between Artforum and Art News. Last year they had a series of opinion articles written by Dave Hickey, which were great reads, but his contract seems to have expired or something by now. Art in America is one magazine I don't really have an opinion about - I read it, but nothing really strikes me as being either excellent or horrible. Recently they raised their price to $9 an issue, which is just a dollar less than Artforum. If I had to choose, I'd pay an extra dollar and get double the magazine.

I keep all my issues of ArtNews in a basket in my bathroom. Why? In case I run out of toilet paper. In all seriousness, ArtNews isn't a total asswipe, but it's definitely the bottom rung of art magazines. The articles remind me more of Time and Newsweek than Artforum or Art in America - they seem over-generalized and written for people who don't know anything about art. I suppose it would be a good entry-level magazine for those new to the art world, and they occasionally have interesting articles, but it's really more of a news magazine than an art magazine. Their reviews are a waste of time - they never really say anything, and they tend to cover galleries from art scenes that nobody really cares about (Key West, for example).

Flash Art is supposed to have a global view of the art world, but it mainly covers Continental Europe. I've found Artforum's European coverage to be spotty, so having a whole other magazine devoted to it is nice, especially since there are some excellent artists who are big in Europe but nigh unknown in the states. The big problem with Flash Art has been finding it. The vast majority of newsstands don't carry it, and a subscription winds up costing about $20 an issue. I found one newsstand that had it, in Grand Central, but it closed down. There's another one on 42nd Street near Port Authority that sometimes has it, but they mark it up to $16 an issue, which is insane. I've occasionally seen it in St. Mark's Books, but again, not reliably. After I moved to Williamsburg this past September, though, I finally found my source: Spoonbill and Sugartown, an awesome bookstore on Bedford Ave that will probably be the subject of another post. They actually get Flash Art regularly, which seems to be a rarity. Interestingly enough, last March, I went to the Flash Art booth at the Armory Show and talked to the representative about my trouble finding the magazine - she said that they were having distribution problems, which was kind of an understatement. By the time I got there they were sold out of the current issue and all their back issues, so I guess a lot of other people have been searching for the magazine as well.

Modern Painters is a slim volume but it tends to be a good read. Despite the name, some issues contain little or no mention of painting. Like Art in America, I read it but nothing particularly strikes me most of the time. One thing about it that does stand out is the magazine itself - it's too tall to fit on any of my bookshelves, so I have to put it on its spine, which makes it jut out past the Artforums.

I also occasionally read smaller circulation magazines that deal with local art scenes. Art Ltd. covers the West Coast, but it's not all hip LA art: there's also the photorealist galleries of Santa Barbara and the terribly corny stuff coming out of Santa Fe. Art Papers has in-depth criticism, good interviews, and some excellent writing, but their focus is oriented towards installation/conceptual art, (granted, I've missed a few issues, so this might not be an accurate statement) which I appreciate, but as a painter, I'd like to read about stuff on the walls sometimes. Art Lies covers Texas, but not cowboy art - there's actually some cutting-edge stuff coming from there, which makes it an excellent read as well.

So, overall, I read a lot of magazines. I don't throw them out, either - they can be an excellent resource for looking up artists or just for inspiration in the studio... or "inspiration" in the bathroom.