The art press: Three decades of art magazines / journals (1976)

John A. Walker
artdesigncafé | Creative Business & Entrepreneurship | Published 27 December 2011
This article was previously published with the title "Periodicals since 1945" in The Art Press: Two centuries of art magazines, (Eds.) T. Fawcett & C. Phillpot (London: Art Book Co, 1976), pp. 45-53, which was published on the occasion of the exhibition focusing on the art press at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

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Out-of-date issues of magazines are treasured for a variety of reasons: their period flavour, their illustrations, their graphic design or their literary quality, but the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; Néon, Bief, Medium and Le Surréalisme Même for Surrealism; Structure and The Structurist for recent trends in Constructivist art; the Swiss review Spirale 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, Amonima, 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.

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