Editor | Thomas Lawson and Susan Morgan |
---|---|
Categories | Visual art |
First issue | March 1979 |
Final issue | 1994 |
Country | United States |
Based in | New York City, New York |
Language | English |
REALLIFE Magazine was a publication featuring written and visual material by and about young artists that was co-founded and published by artist Thomas Lawson and writer Susan Morgan between 1979 and 1994. [1] [2] It served as a clearing house for new ideas and examinations of mass media and art, while chronicling New York's developing postmodern alternative art scene. It was strongly associated with The Pictures Generation group of artists. [3] [4] [5]
The magazine's first issue was made possible by a National Endowment for the Arts grant in art criticism, awarded to Lawson through Artists Space (New York). REALLIFE Magazine was based in New York and attentively addressed current art and its influences while continuously speculating about culture and questioning politics. Starting with a focus on the 'Pictures' artists - and an affinity with the world of TV, film, and popular culture - the magazine charted the rise of the postmodernism and postfeminist debates before moving into more political issues, from institutional critique and hypertext to AIDS and the civil war in El Salvador. As the 1980s unraveled, and priorities and interests shifted in the art world, the magazine remained a forum for artists' opinions, providing exposure for those overlooked by the mainstream, and introducing the work of a new generation of practitioners. The wide range of featured artists included Sherrie Levine, Félix González-Torres, Mike Kelley, Dan Graham, Louise Lawler, Joseph Nechvatal, Matt Mullican, [6] Jeff Wall, David Hammons and Critical Art Ensemble, among others.
In March 2007, Artists Space hosted the exhibition. Curated by Kate Fowle, the show looked at the 80s decade through the lens of this publication and its roster of contributors, including Richard Baim, Eric Bogosian, Glenn Branca, Critical Art Ensemble, Jamie Davidovich, Jessica Diamond, Mark Dion and Jason Simon, Jack Goldstein, Kim Gordon, Group Material, Hammons, Michael Hurson, Ray Johnson, Kelley, Barbara Kruger, Lawler, Levine, Sol LeWitt, Robert Longo, Ken Lum, Allan McCollum, Paul McMahon, Mullican, Adrian Piper, Richard Prince, David Robbins, Cindy Sherman, Michael Smith and James Welling. [7]
The exhibition coincided with the publication REALLIFE Magazine: Selected Writings and Projects 1979-1994, edited by Miriam Katzeff and published by Primary Information (NY, 2007). With an introduction by Matthew Higgs, the anthology features writings and projects by Doug Ashford, Jo Baer and Bruce Robbins, Judith Barry, Dara Birnbaum, Joseph Bishop, Bogosian, Jennifer Bolande, Derek Boshier, Jim Bradley, Elsa Bulgari, Rhys Chatham, Dion, Spencer Finch, González-Torres, Gordon, Graham, Group Material, B.P. Gutfreund, The Holy Ghost Writers, Kellie Jones, Judith Kirshner, Kruger, Lawler, Lawson, Christine N. Lea, Levine, McCollum, McMahon, John Miller, Robert C. Morgan, Susan Morgan, David A. Muller, Mullican, Kathi Norklun, Piper, Richard Prince, Rex Reason, David Robbins, Walter Robinson, John Robert, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Ed Ruscha, Fulton Ryder, Grahame Shane, Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Howard Singerman, Smith and R. Sikoryak, Jana Sterbak, Josef Strau and Stephan Dillemuth, John Stezaker, Valentin Tatransky, Bernard Tschumi, John A. Walker, Wall, Joan Wallace and Geralyn Donohue, Welling, and Robin Winters. [8]
Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captions, stated in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed text. The phrases in her works often include pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they", addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, consumerism, and sexuality. Kruger's artistic mediums include photography, sculpture, graphic design, architecture, as well as video and audio installations.
Craig Owens (1950–1990) was an American post-modernist art critic, gay activist and feminist.
David Robbins is an American artist and writer who was one of the first to investigate the art world's entrance into the culture industry.
Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in New York City. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City the same year. In the late 1970s he became especially well known for his series, Surrogate Paintings.
Lee Mullican was an American painter, curator, and art teacher. He was an influential member of the Dynaton Movement.
Just Another Asshole was a no wave mixed media publication project launched from the Lower East Side of Manhattan from 1978 to 1987. Barbara Ess organized and edited seven issues of Just Another Asshole, which formed thanks to an open, collaborative submission process. Issues 3 and 4 were co-edited by Jane M. Sherry and issues 5 through 7 were co-edited by Glenn Branca. Issue formats include: zine, LP record, large format tabloid, magazine, exhibition catalog, and paperback book.
Mary Boone is an American art dealer and collector. As the owner and director of the Mary Boone Gallery, she played an important role in the New York art market of the 1980s. Her first two artists, Julian Schnabel and David Salle, became internationally known, and in 1982 she had a cover story on New York magazine tagged "The New Queen of the Art Scene". Boone is credited with championing and fostering dozens of contemporary artists including Eric Fischl, Ai Wei Wei, Barbara Kruger, Laurie Simmons, Peter Halley, Ross Bleckner, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Originally based in SoHo, Boone operated two galleries, one on Fifth Avenue, the other in Chelsea. Following her 2019 conviction and sentencing to 30 months in prison for tax evasion, she indicated the intention to close both galleries.
Thomas Lawson is an artist, writer, editor, and from 1991 to 2022 was the Dean of the School of Art & Design at California Institute for the Arts. He emerged as a central figure in ideological debates at the turn of the 1980s about the viability of painting through critical essays, such as "Last Exit: Painting" (1981). He has been described as "an embedded correspondent [and] polemical editorialist" who articulated an oppositional, progressive position for representational painting from within an increasingly reactionary art and media environment. Artforum called his approach to the medium "one of the most cogent and controversial" in the 80s.
The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984 was an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City that ran from April 29 – August 2, 2009. The exhibition took its name from Pictures, a 1977 five person group show organized by art historian and critic Douglas Crimp (1944–2019) at New York City's Artists Space gallery. The artists exhibited from September 24 to October 29, 1977 were Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo and Philip Smith.
Matt Mullican is an American artist and educator. He is the child of artists Lee Mullican and Luchita Hurtado. Mullican lives and works in both Berlin and New York City.
The Richard Kuhlenschmidt Gallery was a contemporary art gallery originally located in Los Angeles, California, USA. It played an important part in setting the stage for Los Angeles' emergence as an international art center in the 1980s. It opened in 1982 and eventually closed in 1993 but it was preceded by Jancar Kuhlenschmidt Gallery that put down most of the ground work for what would follow.
Post-conceptual, postconceptual, post-conceptualism or postconceptualism is an art theory that builds upon the legacy of conceptual art in contemporary art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work takes some precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. The term first came into art school parlance through the influence of John Baldessari at the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1970s. The writer Eldritch Priest, specifically ties John Baldessari's piece Throwing four balls in the air to get a square from 1973 as an early example of post-conceptual art. It is now often connected to generative art and digital art production.
Tricia Collins is an American art critic, art gallerist and curator of contemporary art. She was half of the curatorial team Collins & Milazzo, with Richard Milazzo, who together co-published and co-edited Effects : Magazine for New Art Theory from 1982 to 1984. She later ran the art galleries Grand Salon, Tricia Collins Grand Salon, and Tricia Collins Contemporary Art in New York City until the year 2000.
Amelia "Emi" Fontana is a cultural producer, art curator and writer based in Los Angeles.
Kevin Larmon is an American artist and was assistant monitor of painting at Syracuse University.
Foundation for Art Resources (FAR) is a Los Angeles-based, non-profit arts organization that facilitates the production and presentation of contemporary art projects outside of the gallery structure. It was founded in 1977 by gallerists Morgan Thomas, Connie Lewallen, and Claire Copley, who transferred leadership to the artist and mediator Dorit Cypis in 1979. Since then, FAR has been overseen collaboratively by over 20 different groups of Board Members and 100 artist-Directors. Currently the longest-running extant arts collective in Los Angeles with no exhibition space, FAR partners with different private, public and educational institutions throughout Los Angeles to produce exhibitions, lectures, and performances with a focus on the relational structures between art, producers, and audience.
John Miller is an artist, writer, and musician based in New York and Berlin. He received a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977. He attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in 1978 and received an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts in 1979. Miller worked as a gallery attendant at Dia:Chelsea. He is currently Professor of Professional Practice in Art History at Barnard College
Effects: Magazine for New Art Theory was an American arts magazine. It was co-published and co-edited by Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo from 1983 to 1986 in New York City. All issues were offset-printed staple bound 27.7 x 21.3 cm.
Suzanne Landau is an Israeli art museum curator. She was appointed the Director and Chief Curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in August 2012. She had previously been Curator of Contemporary Art at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem starting 1982 and its Chief Curator of Fine Arts there from 1998. Since her appointment in Tel Aviv, she has organized for the museum the Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Acquisition Committee for Israeli Art.