Artforum Magazine Five-Year-Old Book About

Artforum magazine five-year-old book about Artforum, Challenging Art: Artforum 1962-1974 by Amy Newman, attempted to define the magazine's place in the world of art. While it is sufficiently amazing that any book would be written about an art magazine, it is even more astonishing that a book about just 12 years of the magazine's existence should run to more than 500 pages. Doubtless that says more about Artforum's place in the cultural world than the "inconclusive truism" reached by Newman: "it meant many different things to many different people (Allen, 2002).

Artforum was founded in 1962 when several people in San Francisco, who knew nothing about art or the art world, began a journal as an outgrowth of a printing company. It was heavy on publishing technology at first, and it still maintains a larger-than-normal footprint, being square rather than rectangular. In 1965, the publication moved to Los Angeles, and in 1967, to New York.

It never acquired, however, the 'old money' patina one might expect from a New York publication; on the other hand, it does not display an 'out there' West Coast image, either. What it does present, if the February 2005 cover is typical, is a nod to the 1960s and a wave to the current day. The cover is an image of MoMA after its recent renovation. Two pieces of sculpture are photographed against the windows of the museum; the lighting produces a greenish cast that is reminiscent of hospital walls.

But the central objects are framed in silhouettes created by solid walls and extending traceries of ivy, all in black. The magazine logo appears in an almost putrid yellow, almost. This cover might be taken as a metaphor, in fact, for the editorial stance of the magazine: it is not avant garde, exactly, nor does it uphold traditional forms of art, exactly. That it appeals to a wide segment of the art-loving world is not surprising. It is mildly quirky, but not aggressively so.

It is mildly supportive of modern art traditions, if that oxymoronic phrase is plausible, but does not insist on any particular approach to modernism. Allen (2002) notes that Newman's book is "as much about their (the founders' and early editors') passage from innocence to maturity as the art world's." It employed the art critic Clement Greenberg, who had both friendships and fallings out with several Artforum staff members (Allen, 2002), as well as shedding controversial light on various artists and movements.

Arguably, although he died a couple of years ago, the magazine's second editor, John Coplans, set a tone for the magazine that remains. Coplans took on leadership of the magazine after several other careers, including curator of the Pasadena Art Museum in the mid-1960s; there, he championed Pop art and was extremely supportive of the work of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Coplans, a Jewish South African, had also worked as a photographer and brought some exotic, third-world and slightly hair-raising exploits with him (Banks, 2004).

It is not surprising, then, that during the 1970s under Coplans' leadership, Artforum courted controversy by publishing a quasi-pornographic Lynda Benglis advertisement (1974). Several of the magazine's editors were incensed by the "indecent exposure" in the ad, but perhaps more upset by what they perceived as "collusion between the promotional and editorial policies of the magazine" (Allen, 2002). One of the formats apparently important to Coplans, and still frequently used in the publication, is that of the interview. Indeed, Coplans' own obituary in the magazine took that a form.

Allen notes that: Situated somewhere between written and spoken language, interviews combine the vicarious pleasures of eavesdropping with the virtuous pursuit of edification. Interviews are compelling, in part, because they convey such idiosyncrasies as speech pattern and sense of humor, allowing us to glimpse someone's personality. And yet, as in the case of Andy Warhol, this perception of immediacy can he misleading, for interviews are, in fact, highly contrived public performances, providing ample opportunity for self-promotion and blague (2002).

Allen also notes that interviews are often heavily edited, very likely to be true in the case of Artforum, where each interview hews to a standard of grammar and diction that may not be found in the speech of the interviewees. Six people -- artists, writers -- who had known Coplans were invited to contribute to his obituary. Irving Blum's reminiscence aptly explains the editorial direction of the magazine during Coplans' tenure, and, by observation of the February 2005 issue, today as well.

Blum notes that Coplans had a "bulletproof bull***** detector. He was astonishingly direct about every issue" (Banks, 2004). Blum notes that Coplans could both voice his feelings and explain why he did or did not like something, a feature of the writing in the magazine today. In addition, when the art public was giving some new ideas a lukewarm reception, and Coplans disagreed, he was not shy about pushing forward his own ideas about the works.

For example, the Warhol Soup Can show was greeted by the public and other critics with indifference at best, hostility at worse. Coplans, however, took the time to understand it and began, in fact, to promote it. Coplans also spoke his mind, a continuing feature of the editorial content of the magazine, and arguably what makes it influential with readers, art collectors, and artists alike. Banks says of Coplans "artists adored him on the one hand and were leery of him on the other.

It was not love-hate but love, because of his clarity, coupled with a kind of hesitation" (2004). This seems to be a metaphor for the magazine itself. Despite its influence, Artforum also covers older, less controversial issues in art, and older, more established artists. For example, the February 2005 issue included a review of Frank Stella, once a ground-breaking modern artist, but now a venerated artist, representative of a more innocent period of modernism.

On the other hand, the issue deals with extremely contemporary installation art; indeed, it is extremely contemporary because the artworks in question self-destruct, after changing by themselves, at the behest of wind and weather, in the locales where they are placed. Advertising in Artforum is abundant, at least as abundant in such popular general cultural magazines as Vanity Fair (to which, in its genre, Artforum might be compared).