Flash Art is a contemporary art magazine, and an Italian and international publishing house. Originally published bilingually, both in Italian and in English, since 1978 is published in two separate editions, Flash Art Italia (Italian) and Flash Art International (English). Since September 2020, the magazine is seasonal, and said editions are published four times a year.
Flash Art extensively covered the Arte Povera artists in the 1960s, before they became known in the English-speaking world.[1] It is especially known for featuring Andy Warhol's final interview before his death in 1987.[2]
It also publishes Flash Art Czech & Slovak Edition and Flash Art Hungary.
In 1973 was established the Giancarlo Politi Editore, which started publishing Art Diary, a landmark for the art system with the addresses and the contacts of institutions, museum, galleries, art critics and artists.
Jeff Koons independently published his iconic, color lithograph advertisements in 1988 in Flash Art along with Artforum and Art in America, advertisements that later became famous for being "deliberately provocative, questioning the merits of 'high art', whilst also endorsing popular culture."[5][6] "With slogans such as "Exploit the Masses / Banality as Saviour", the ads reflected Koons desire to 'remove bourgeois guilt and shame in responding to banality'".
During his tenure as Flash Art U.S. Editor Massimiliano Gioni started to collaborate more and more with Maurizio Cattelan. The latter continued his special relationship with Flash Art International in a series of sardonic interviews with young and promising artists. Years later, Flash Art International was featured in the form of a social-art experiment in the documentary "Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back" released in May 2017.[7]
In a 2017 ARTnews feature, MoMA PS1 founder Alanna Heiss revealed that "[t]he people hired by Flash Art were always interesting because they really liked art. I was interested in their peculiar hiring policy."[8]
Since 2015, Gea Politi is editor and head of Flash Art. Since 2019, she and Cristiano Seganfreddo are editors of the magazine, distributed in 87 countries, and of the publishing house that produces catalogues, essays, artists’ books and editions, with more than 300 titles. Flash Art, since 2019, works on ad-hoc communication projects for contemporary culture, collaborating with art institutions, galleries and fashion brands along with its partner Agenzia del Contemporaneo.
Reception
It was described by Tony Stankus as "the confident, international journal of European and North American contemporary art" and by Publishers Weekly as a "distinguished by a cacophony of voices and congenial chaos".[9][10]
Format
Flash Art acquired a magazine format in 1974. The magazine was published in three languages: Italian, English and French and was divided in two main parts. In 1979 it split into two editions: Flash Art International and Flash Art Italia.[citation needed] After Flash Art Russia, the brand new Czechia and Slovakia edition of the magazine underlined the former USSR satellite as the new epicenter of Flash Art Eastern Europe activities.[citation needed]
Books
Besides its magazine activities, Flash Art publishes books, monographs and catalogues, including Art Diary International, a directory that lists addresses and phone numbers of artists, critics, galleries, and museums. In 2016, Flash Art International published Chinese artist Wang Yuyang's monograph Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.[11][12]
In 1993, Politi published the catalogue of Aperto '93, a section of the Venice Biennale organized by his wife Helena Kontova.[13] Also in 1993, Giancarlo Politi opened the Trevi Flash Art Museum in his hometown, Trevi, which hosted exhibitions of important international festivals amongst which “Prima Linea” (1993). In the 2001 Giancarlo Politi started, together with Helena Kontova, the Tirana Biennale in Albania. In 2003 they started together the Prague Biennale in the Czech Republic and they have been the directors of the first six editions (2003-2005-2007-2009-2011-2013).
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Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian visual artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him being frequently labelled as a joker or prankster of the art world. Self-taught as an artist, Cattelan has exhibited internationally in museums and Biennials. In 2011 the Guggenheim Museum, New York presented a retrospective of his work. Some of Cattelan's better-known works include America, consisting of a solid gold toilet; La Nona Ora, a sculpture depicting a fallen Pope who has been hit by a meteorite; and Comedian, a fresh banana duct-taped to a wall.
Arte Povera was an art movement that took place between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in major cities throughout Italy and above all in Turin. Other cities where the movement was also important are Milan, Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples and Bologna. The term was coined by Italian art critic Germano Celant in 1967 and introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture.
Germano Celant was an Italian art historian, critic, and curator who coined the term "Arte Povera" in the 1967 Flash Art piece "Appunti Per Una Guerriglia", which would become the manifesto for the Arte Povera artistic and political movement. He wrote many articles and books on the subject.
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Helena Kontova is an art critic and curator based in Milan, Italy, where she has been the editor of Flash Art International since 1979. She is also a co-founder and director, together with Giancarlo Politi, of the Prague Biennale.
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↑ Douglas Eklund (ed.), The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984, exhibition catalogue the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 4/21/09 – 8/2/09, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009). ISBN978-0-300-14892-3
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