The Essential New Art Examiner

by Griffith, Terri; Born, Kathryn; Koplos, Janet

• ISBN13: 9780875806624
• ISBN10: 0875806627
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-01
• Publisher: Northern Illinois Univ Pr

Summary

The New Art Examiner was the only successful art magazine ever to come out of Chicago. It had nearly a three- decade long run, and since its founding in 1974 by Jane Addams Allen and Derek Guthrie, no art periodical published in the Windy City has lasted longer or has achieved the critical mass of readers and admirers that it did. The Essential New Art Examiner gathers the most memorable and celebrated articles from this seminal publication. First a newspaper, then a magazine, the New Art Examiner succeeded unlike no other periodical of its time. Before the word ;blog ; was ever spoken, it was the source of news and information for Chicago- area artists. And as its reputation grew, the New Art Examiner gained a national audience and exercised influence far beyond the Midwest. As one critic put it, ;it fought beyond its weight class. ; The articles in The Essential New Art Examiner are organized chronologically. Each section of the book begins with a new essay by the original editor of the pieces therein that reconsiders the era and larger issues at play in the art world when they were first published. The result is a fascinating portrait of the individuals who ran the New Art Examiner and an inside look at the artistic trends and aesthetic agendas that guided it. Derek Guthrie and Jane Addams Allen, for instance, had their own renegade style. James Yood never shied away from a good fight. And Ann Wiens was heralded for embracing technologies and design. The story of the New Art Examiner is the story of a constantly evolving publication, shaped by talented editors and the times in which it was printed. Now, more than three decades after the journal's founding, The Essential New Art Examiner brings together the best examples of this groundbreaking publication: great editing, great writing, a feisty staff who changed and adapted as circumstances dictated-a publication that rolled with the times and the art of the times. With passion, insight, and editorial brilliance, the staff of the New Art Examiner turned a local magazine into a national institution.

Author Biography

Terri Griffith is the literary correspondent for Bad at Sports, a weekly podcast about contemporary art that focuses on the practices of artists, curators, critics, dealers, and other arts professionals. Her writing has appeared in Bloom, Suspect Thoughts, and Bust Her novel So Much Better-was published in 2010 by Green Lantern Press. Kathryn Born is the editor-in-chief of Chicago Art Magazine, which she founded in 2009 at the suggestion of Derek Guthrie. She has since expanded the publication into an online network of websites that offer a comprehensive and organized view of the Chicago art scene. Janet Koplos wrote for the New Art Examiner in the 1970s and 1980s. She was for eighteen years a staff editor at Art in America and is currently a contributing editor there. She has written extensively on contemporary art and has published over two thousand articles, reviews, and essays in two dozen periodicals over the last thirty years.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xiii
The Way We Were by Janet Koplos	p. 3
Founding Editors Introduction by Derek Guthrie	p. 7
A Painter Reviews Chicago, Part I Summer 1974	p. 15
A Painter Reviews Chicago, Part II November 1974	p. 19
The Tradition February 1975	p. 24
Letter to Aspiring Filmmakers March 1976	p. 35
Dear Profession of Art Writing June 1977	p. 40
The Flavin File June 1977	p. 49
Art Criticism-A Pan-African Point of View February 1979	p. 54
N.A.M.E. at Six-Re-denning the Role of Alternative Spaces June 1979	p. 71
Speakeasy February 1982	p. 79
Young Chicagoans Prefer Engagement to Avant-Gardism May 1982	p. 81
Editor The New Art Examiner Three Decades Ago-A Memoir byAnn Lee Morgan	p. 91
The Word vs the Image-Some Thoughts on Reading Photography December 1979	p. 97
Reflection on Glass Summer 1980	p. 103
A Reader's Guide to Structuralist Criticism February 1981	p. 111
Harris Bank Facelift Raises Legal Questions October 1981	p. 121
The (Declining) Power of Review November 1981	p. 126
Introduction by James Yood	p. 135
Explicit-Towards a Feminist Theory of Art Criticism January 1985	p. 139
Who Follows the Hairy Who? March 1985	p. 147
'Chicagoization - Some Second Thoughts on the Second City May 1985	p. 155
Art Scene of the'80s October 1985	p. 165
Sponsorship or Censorship November 1985	p. 176
Speakeasy March 1986	p. 191
The 'Madness' of Chicago Art May 1986	p. 194
Editor Introduction by Ann Wiens	p. 202
On View-Chicago May 1993	p. 207
Comfort Cut on the (Gender) Bias-Out of the (Linen) Closet September 1993	p. 213
Public Domain-Frank Stella, The Town-Ho's Story January 1994	p. 217
Art's Demise-Censors to the Right of Me, Censors to the Left of Me March 1994	p. 221
Please Pay Attention Please January 1995	p. 232
In a Place Like This?-What s a Contemporary Art Show Like 'About Place-Recent Art of the Americas' Doing at the Art Institute of Chicago?September 1995	p. 235
Bigger, Better, Faster, More?-Chicago's New and Improved MCA May 1996	p. 243
On View-Chicago May 1996	p. 255
Editor A Day in the Life-Editing and Writing for the New Art Examiner by Jan Estep	p. 259
Heroin Chic, Trendy Aesthetics, and the Politics of Pathology November 1997	p. 265
Art Is Dead-Long Live Aesthetic Management April 1999	p. 280
Ha Ha Ha-Ray's a Laugh September 1999	p. 292
Test Family-Children in Contemporary Art October 1999	p. 299
Kerry James Marshall-Agent of Change February 2001	p. 308
Notes on a Midwest Makeover May/June 2001	p. 314
Biographies	p. 325
Acknowledgments	p. 337
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