Page 22 - Studio International - July August 1975

Pitfalls and Priorities Richard Cork

1 A damning case can readily be mounted against the Nothing is more affirmative and necessary than a
raison d'etre of modern art magazines. modern art magazine which manages to avoid at least
some of its endemic pitfalls.
2 Their inevitable dependence on advertising revenue 2 If it succeeds in attracting a wide and loyal readership
culled almost exclusively from the private gallery through the high level of its debate and the intensity of
network means that they are bound up, to a greater or its commitment, commercial interests will want to
lesser degree, with a value-system propagated by advertise irrespective of whether they are being directly
powerful and sometimes cynical commercial motives. served by its editorial policy.

3 Their natural desire not to lag behind in the 3 In view of the galleries' notorious reluctance to
presentation and discussion of 'new' developments sponsor any new work which does not fall in with their
encourages an unqualified enthusiasm for the limited notions of viable and marketable exhibition
avant-garde tradition regardless of its merits or material, a magazine can play a vital role in airing
continuing relevance. activities that have little hope of finding a comparable
platform elsewhere.

4 The fact that they are expected to devote themselves 4 There is nothing inherently wrong with a magazine
to art alone, and to the small audience interested in which concentrates wholly on art if it is aware of the
reading the detailed analyses they provide, only need to relate its contents to the broadest of social bases:
exacerbates the isolated role which art has played in newspapers, with their far greater ease of access to the
twentieth-century society. mass of the public, signally fail to discuss art in any
depth, and so it is important to nurture the forum that
an albeit compartmentalized magazine can provide.
5 Contributing writers, necessarily aware of the 5 If the specialist magazine did not exist, writers would
specialized context within which they operate, tend to find it almost impossible to find any other outlets for
indulge in verbal technicalities and enclosed references the kind of sustained, meditative and fully elaborated
that further seal art off from any potential cross- discussion which art requires if it is to engage in a
fertilizing contact with other disciplines. meaningful interdisciplinary discourse.

6 The mandatory use of illustrational material 6 An art magazine ought to be able to cure itself of the
automatically favours, and draws the greatest attention nervous tic which insists on a high illustrational content
to, those artists who benefit most from photographic throughout its pages: after all, both colour and
documentation, however misleading or even spurious monochrome reproductions are invariably used as a
it may be as an accurate reflection of their original form of window dressing designed to attract
work. consumers who are too lazy to think about art with the
seriousness it deserves.

7 Like journalism in general, art magazines are to a 7 For the sake of its own continuing relevance, a
certain extent incestuous animals: they feed off their magazine has to ensure that it never sinks into a
own stables of favourite artists, perpetuating a status complacent and repetitive celebration of those artists
quo which turns all too easily into an established who, although widely admired within the media
consensus of media opinion bearing very little relation network, have long since been superseded by other
to the situation outside their rigid hierarchy of initiatives more worthy of close examination.
over-exposed reputations.

8 Concerned with fostering the illusion of 8 Any magazine setting itself up as a paternalistic
unimpeachable reportage and weighty critical legislator is guilty of abusing its proper function, which
assessments, so that their readership feels it cannot lies far more in questioning, testing and opening up the
afford to overlook the information and judgements on way art is changing its identity through fruitful
offer, they promote an 'authoritative' image of interaction with different areas of thought than in
themselves dangerously at odds with the honest doubt asserting a series of unassailable rules fit only for a
and confusion experienced by anyone who thinks fossilized modernist academy.
seriously about the direction of contemporary art.

9 The inevitable centralization of art activity in a few 9 The art magazine ought to use the power it exerts
major cities throughout the world leaves the rest of the over readers with no other extensive access to
art community over-reliant on a set of criteria and contemporary art in a responsible fashion, emphasizing
frames of reference laid down by art magazines, which that everyone shares a potential responsibility for
consequently find their version of the truth accepted determining the future character and efficacy of art
without question as the only available guide. by strengthening it with a fully engaged audience
feedback.
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