Page 21 - Studio International - May June 1975

`Studio', the Hearst organization also Press . . . Not to mention the attention of restrict their appeal to those who can
tired of it, offered it around, found no television and Sunday supplements, respond within strictly delimited
takers, and prepared to run it into the whose coverage of the visual arts may be boundaries. Such products are generally
ground. Anyone who studies the issues for indifferent in general but who reach the supported financially by their
1965 would quickly realize just how it was same sort of market. participants or perpetrators and their
being pared down. friends.
It was then that a medium-sized firm This brings me back to my use of What I am talking about is magazines
of printers, Mackays of Chatham, `elderly' in the sense of traditional or that should aim to be self-sufficient
specialists in fine book printing and long-established. Such a history imposes financially, because they should not
bookbinding, not known in the trade for its own limitations. The limitations may depend on the charity of their owners;
the cheapness of their work, moreover be comfortable and comforting, that should reflect sufficient market
having no magazine to their name, picked rewarding in the sense that they provide interest in that they appeal to a market
it up fairly cheaply. a warm base or convenient platform; at wide enough to support them.
Which is where I came in. the same time they may be constricting in Obviously these are commercial
that they preclude dynamic change or considerations, and to be effective
Why such a firm should buy such a development other than gentle evolution, they mean a constant watch on monthly
magazine I have never quite worked out. or encourage complacency, because, at trial balances, no exceeding editorial
When rich individuals take over or buy least in Britain, they allow a devastating budgets, the lowest possible overheads,
into hard-pressed cultural publications continuation of middle-class cultural regular trimming of costs, and a
one has a fair idea of the range of reasons : history, replete as it is with dilettantism very careful look at payments made
status, prestige, a foot in the door to and fireside chats on fireside art. Though, to contributors; though payments to
profitable or pleasurable aspects of the to be accurate, such a history can contributors should be made promptly,
arts, coupled with the advantage of a tax constitute a strength, a continuity, an with as much extra payment in the way
loss. In the case of Mackays, however, established clientele, a list of of introductions to publishers, artists
the reasons were certainly different; subscribers committed or conscientious and other writers as possible.
probably the assumed advantages or asleep . . . a kind of hypnosis on Contributors are the lifeblood of any
of having an elegant shopwindow the part, say, of librarians who, seeing a magazine; they must be paid well and
in which to display their printing, twenty-year run of a magazine on their regularly; and I cannot pretend that
and of having a piece of 'printer's shelves, will simply go on ordering more contributors to Studio International have
meat' which could occupy printing of the same. been paid well or regularly of late — it's a
presses during the inevitable slack deficiency that is dangerous for any
periods. But somewhere there was a So what do you do ? You try and turn magazine.
quixotic touch, as though someone had such a magazine around, not by altering
determined in a moment of nostalgia to the format too much, going into In the event, in early-1966 the
preserve a tiny fragment of history and newspaper format, using newsprint, etc., course of the magazine changed
bring it back into British ownership. etc. You probably couldn't do that in any radically. I would still stand by the
case. You are too bound by the accepted editorial statement made in the January
There also proved to be something almost glossy format, perhaps unfortunately so, 1966 issue: that the scope of such a
quixotic in their concern for editorial and by the price; rather, by altering the journal had to be widened because the
independence. Relations between owners contents and approach to bring it closer boundaries between the various art forms
who are printers and the journals to immediate requirements, if you were dissolving, and that it had to take
themselves are not always as easy as they believe you can judge those requirements. into its purview architecture and
might appear on the surface, but the only In so doing you run the risk of performance insofar as they relate to the
attempt at editorial interference by alienating subscribers long inured to a visual arts, video and film and
anyone at Mackays that I can recall was certain kind of presentation. It's a risk photography, the polemics of art, art
when a Moral Rearmament group in the you must take, in the hope that you will education, the politics of art institutions.
works protested at our using a drawing pick up subscribers elsewhere, and so And though as a result we lost those who
by Gerald Scarfe, about whom John extend the potential of the publication. concerned themselves with embroidery
Berger had written an article, showing In my case the first thing I did was to and incarcerated their tastes in the '30's,
the Queen mounted on a horse on whose assemble an Editorial Advisory Board and we gained the subscriptions of those who
undercarriage appeared the face of a changing group of contributing editors, had moved more willingly into our
Prince Philip. Even that interference was a collection of people of vastly varying century. Again, in fairness to my
avoided. opinions and expertise which I and my predecessor, I should say that he moved
(I should add as a rider that editorial colleagues could draw upon. out when traditional definitions of 'Fine
eventually Mackays themselves sold the No one person is competent to keep tabs Art' were being destroyed, and that I
magazine; that they approached me as to on so wide a field as that covered by moved in when the barriers were being
whether I could find purchasers, which Studio, let alone depend on his or her taken down.
after r8 months I did; hence the present judgement as to the relative importance
owners, another story altogether.) of this item or that. I see an editor's role The generalised experiences one acquires
very much as that of a conductor — of, say, in doing this kind of work, month after
Meanwhile, throughout those years, a small hotel orchestra — rather than that month, relate conveniently to The
competition had been growing, not so of a soloist. Audience, Power, How an Issue is Put
much in the UK as abroad : Art Other editors, other styles. In the case Together, Dealer and Advertising
International (1956) in Switzerland, of Studio International, however, from Pressures, The Responsibility of a
Artforum (1962) first West Coast, then that point onwards the editor's 'I' was Magazine to its Local Constituents,
New York, both now with circulations dimmed by the editorial 'We'. Promoting Younger Critics, Working
nearing 20,000; Art in America, with a with Artists. Here I touch on them
vastly greater circulation; Art News; Arts A magazine is a magazine is a product. briefly, in that order.
Canada (1943 under a different title); at Like soap flakes or corn flakes. It has to
home, Arts Review (1949) and, from 1966, appear in a presentable cover, contain Studio's audience has been partly
Art & Artists, the founding of which was attractive, engaging, stimulating material. determined by its past history;
spurred on in part by the expected demise Run good reproductions, and preferably institutions, art school students,
of Studio. (For comparison, Studio some colour, even though most of us collectors, dealers, some practicing
International print order 8,500.) know that all colour distorts, and some artists, art historians, critics, the cultural
The field was no longer so empty. colour distorts most abominably. In other middle-class who want to keep in the
Moreover, within another five years or so words, an art magazine is a magazine first cultural swim. In other words a fairly
it was to become positively crowded with and an art magazine only secondly. predictable, fairly specialist audience.
the emergence of Continental art I am not thinking of such journals as Add to this readers abroad who want to
magazines, some of them bilingual — Circle or, say, Art & Language. These are keep in touch with UK or European
Flash Art, DATA, L'Art Vivant, Art or were publications that deliberately developments, and those who have little
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