I’ve recently been introduced and/or have been reminded of some on-line publications that focus on contemporary artists and their work. The immediacy of placing something on the web versus the not-so-timeliness of the print world reminds me again the freshness of the digital world.
Studio Visit (SV) is an on-line magazine in PDF form with a singular focus of showcasing one artist at a time, essentially an on-line studio visit.
Iván Pérez, the artist featured in the current issue, lives and works in Spain. He’s a photographer interested in a strain of voyeurism that photography captures so well, the crowd as a subject. The photos included in the issue are all from a residency he held this year in New York City where he frequented the city’s zoos and gardens specifically to photograph the visitors.
Each issue features an introduction to the artist followed by images of their work and then followed by the artist’s CV. All work showcased in the issue is for sale through kmap, an art company which works in conjunction with SV.
Who is kmap?:
kmap represents and works with artists, places work with collectors, develops exhibition and curatorial projects, provides advisory services, and publishes the online periodical SV .
I find the PDF format interesting. The design is intended to let you download each issue onto your computer to keep handy. One advantage for the artist, images in PDF format aren’t as easily (ok currently) reproducible as your standard .jpeg will allow. I have found still though patience is a virtue in letting a PDF load.
Other issues of SV have been dedicated to Satch Hoyt who does sculpture and drawing, Lucio Pozzi, who paints beautiful watercolors and other 2-D works and my personal favorite of the bunch, Peter Dudek a printmaker whose suite of Dream House prints I particularly like. Painter Marilyn Minter is in one of the older editions that focuses on a photographs originally created for purposes of source material for a series of paintings (included are studio shots of Marilyn working on a painting). I noticed with the exception of Iván Pérez, the artists showcased are New York City-centric, undoubtedly in part because kmap is stationed there.
Like I mentioned above, I think this is an exciting experiment in what a periodical can be, and look forward to what else they have up their sleeve.
Works + Conversations
Last week when I walked into City Lights bookstore, I found a new copy of works + conversations, a magazine which I thought had ceased publication. Technically, although they do not have the content of their latest issue on line, I definitely consider them a digital periodical, as large selections of their archives become available when they publish a new issue. I was a little out of touch, as I was also unfamiliar with issue number 7 which is dedicated to Los Angeles. Similar to SV, interviews and studio visits with folks in the art world is the concentration of w+c’s content. Based in Berkeley they maintain a focus on California artists. There is however a rather interesting interview in the current issue with Ursula von Rydingsvard, a Brooklyn based sculptor who has been making art since the 60’s. The interview in issue #8 that I found most satisfying is with Ann Hatch who is founder of The Capp Street Project. Hatch has some interesting ideas to bring to the table as far as what the current state of the art world is in the Bay Area:
And also when going to museums, I was very struck that there are no young people. They’re not using these resources unless they’re on some forced march from school, which doesn’t happen so much with public school kids anyway. And the museums are really sort of hollow places….in the Bay Area it just seems we have these massive, beautiful buildings and these multi-million dollar budgets and its not working for the full spectrum of people. It’s kind of a self-aggrandizing club of folks that go to museums. It needs to be much more inviting to kids, and has to be more meaningful for them. And so I thought, well, what happens in their education? And I realized the relation with art is getting quite whittled away.
Ann Hatch founded The Capp Street Project in 1983, after getting out of the apple business. CS is, as their mission statement reads a “visual arts organization dedicated solely to the creation and presentation of new art installations”.
works + conversations is published in hard copy format, which you can order from The Society for the ReCognition of Art, or keep your eyes open for occasional newly installed on-line content.