Archive Journeys: Reise | The Art Scene, Publications

Artist books | Art magazines | ArtstrA

Art magazines

Art magazines, until the 1960s, were specialist journals aimed at a small elite of scholars, museum professionals and dealers. During the 1960s however, the expansion in art education, resulted in a bigger network of art institutions such as galleries and museums, and an increased demand for information about contemporary art. Coinciding with cheaper printing and publication costs, this led to the appearance of a new kind of art journal.

Magazines such as Art International, Art Forum and Arts Magazine appeared on the market to cater for the surge in interest in contemporary art. The well established Studio International, changed its format, price, editorial policy and even its name, to keep pace with new developments in the international art scene and attract a new readership. Barbara Reise worked as a contributing editor for the magazine from 1969 to 1973.

Studio International magazine, June 1971,
which included Reise's article, 'Gurgles around the Guggenheim'
© Tate Archive, 2003

Bologna International Conference on Art Magazines

The organisation of a conference devoted to art magazines in 1976 in the Italian city of Bologna, reflected the increasingly important role of the medium by the 1970s in transmitting information about the contemporary arts. Reise attended the conference to research and promote her planned magazine ArtstrA, and described it as a:

constructive, interesting, and truly international conference of publishers and editors of art magazines sharing ideas, information and mutual problems during two days

Report, Bologna International Conference on Art Magazines, June 1976

A list of art magazines represented at the conference, gives some idea of the number and international nature of contemporary art journals on the market by the 1970s.

FACT FILE
The Art of Mass Communication

As a format the magazine was ideally suited to the work of, particularly conceptual artists. Inexpensive to produce and with the potential to reach a wide audience it was quickly appropriated as an artistic medium along with other means of mass communication (books, radio, film, television).

What are now widely regarded as two of the most important works of art in the 1960s appeared as articles in magazines. Dan Graham's Homes for America (1966) appeared in Arts Magazine and Robert Smithson's The Monuments of Passaic (1967) in Artforum.

Dan Graham, Homes for America, 1966
Courtesy Lisson Gallery and the artist(s)