I thought this was interesting if your curious about polaroid and how it got to where it was. My wife gave me this the other day, I think it’s from the latest Departures magazine.
Tag: Magazines
I used to love Wallpaper Magazine, a few years ago it was sold to Time-Life and included in that sale was the departure of founder and publisher Tyler Brule. I think a lot of the brilliance of Wallpaper came directly and indirectly from him, well now his brilliance is showing again with his new magazine Monocle.
Monocle is somewhat type-heavy for a magazine published about style. The Monocle’s eyebrow (that’s the description above or below the logo) is “A BRIEFING ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS, BUSINESS, CULTURE AND DESIGN.” It seems like it was probably written that way on the business plan as well. One thing I think you will appreciate is that Monocle is adult – even the “fashion” is reasonable. They have very good instincts on where to find great under-the-radar products for those of us who like our labels on the inside. Let’s face it – the label always belongs on the inside. Unless it’s a painting and then the label (or signature) should be on the back.
Leave a CommentRecently I spent some time in a faraway land (it’s called Reston) for a quick get away from the house and to have an indulgent type of weekend. Other than room service, decent restaurants, and sitting on my ass, for me that usually means buying a bunch of books or magazines, that weekend was no exception. So here is the beginning of the magazine roundup.
Cabinet. At fist I thought I had made a big mistake with this because it has a feel of “we are based in Williamsburg and we are trying real hard”. Well the fact is, that they are trying real hard and succeeding on a number of levels.
Jocko Weyland’s article; Square Watermelons and Leg Art, a story about the lost images of the Associated Press was worth the price of the magazine alone. However it is followed up with a small portfolio of Greg Jones recent photographs Make Model Mark, which although simple and banal are in fact supercharged images of automobiles that respond as artworks about class as well as using a quotation of minimalism to address and further its viewpoint. Top all this of with Trevor Paglen’s great article about symbols and insignia of classified military units.
This magazine is almost like an onion, I keep reading from it and get more and more each time.
JPG is a magazine with a huge web presence. It has a very egalitarian approach to curatorial decision – they are voted on by people who visit the site and sometimes it matter and sometimes it does not. This is good and bad. The magazine has great photos, but the problem for me is that there are too many single images from one photographer. It is a bit like going to a show where there are 47 works by 47 different artists – you see some great images but there is no depth – nothing that gives you enough to make a real decision about any of the artists.
I should note, JPG, is not trying to be the next Aperture so maybe this lack of curatorial / editing is more my problem than the typical reader. your milage may vary – still enjoyable though.
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In the coming week I’ll be posting a round up of a few new magazines (art based) I’ve been reading – I’m sure that will prove incredibly insightful. So today, I’ll be writing about a magazine that has been out of print for over 20 + years. Enjoy.
Wet Magazine was started in 1976 by Leonard Koren, the publication revolved around the idea of “gourmet bathing.” early issues were actually filled with this kind of information. However very quickly things changed – and for the better. Wet began to push into broader areas where art met street and high culture. I was introduced to Wet by Nancy Roeder while I was at VCU in the early eighties – this is where I first learned of Frank Ghery, and the art fringe of Los Angeles. In contrast Wet had an east coast “sister” as it were in “Interview”, which focused on New York. (don’t even for a minute think it focused on the east coast) Of course Interview had Andy Warhol behind it (as well as Glen O’brien) and seemed to have more money to use – although as far as ground breaking visual approaches Wet was always more interesting than Interview. This is especially clear as “The New Wave” began to take it’s hold. The visuals for that period in time may not have been 100% developed by Wet, (See ads below) but they sure were brought to the front from pink flamingos, leopard skin, wacky asymmetrical design, plastic palm trees, air brushy trendiness, and graph paper design, Wet became the archetype of everything we think of when we think of the eighties.
Interestingly enough, Wet was also forward thinking; articles with/about W. S. Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, Frank Ghery, Love Hotels of Tokyo, buildering (a small subset of rock climbing), Henry Miller, Brian Eno, Jim Carroll, Yoga, Dick Dale, Kenneth Anger, and a hundred other oddball ideas and people made Wet the definitive idea source of its time. (I like Wet as much for its ads as well as its content)
Usually you can find a few copies of Wet on ebay and every once in a while at yard sales. I would be willing to bet that it’s easier to find issues in LA – but I don’t live there so I can’t say for sure.
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Matthew Collings in Modern Painters
Have I ever mentioned how much I love his column in Modern Painters each month? I’m sure he is one pain in the ass to deal with as far as not pissing off your advertisers and being an all around crusty old guy. Thank god I don’t have to deal with that because, I love his column. One of Matthew Collings and Emma Biggs’ paintings is above.
Following up on: Laika
As you might remember a number of months back I mentioned that First Second was going to be publishing a graphic novel about Laika the cosmonaut. It has clearly missed it’s publishing schedule. The author, Nick Abadizis is one of the rising stars in of graphic novels, however, the project seemed to have a good bit of energy behind it at one point – even though the publishing date has been pushed to the fall of this year.
Corcoran curatorial staff makes a wise decision
Mr. Gopnik from the Post this weekend ran a brief article about why and who the Corcoran borrowed artworks to fill the gaps of the Modernism exhibit. It is a pretty well known fact that most traveling shows are not the same from location to location – shows even tend to read differently when hung in different venues (a great example is the DC and NY versions of the DADA show this year). All I can say is this was the right thing and smart thing to do. Reaching out to seven local organizations for 19 or 20 pieces can give a show more texture and depth. Even better it gives the viewer a better experience. Let’s hope we see more cross-town loans like this in the future.
The Corcoran has big hopes for this show and is trying it’s best to get people back into the gallery. At least this show doesn’t have an image of a frog playing the banjo.
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