The Brooklyn Rail

Last updated

The Brooklyn Rail
Brooklyn Rail logo.svg
April 2020 Brooklyn Rail Cover.jpg
Cover of the April 2020 issue
Categories Art, politics, culture, literature
FrequencyMonthly
First issue2000
CountryUnited States
Based inBrooklyn
LanguageAmerican English
Website brooklynrail.org
ISSN 2157-2151

The Brooklyn Rail is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The Rail is based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and curators, and reviews of art, music, dance, film, books, and theater.

Contents

The Rail's print publication is published ten times a year and distributed to universities, galleries, museums, bookstores, and other organizations around the world free of charge. [1] The Rail operates a small press called Rail Editions, which publishes literary translations, poetry, and art criticism. In addition to the small press, the Rail has also organized panel discussions, readings, film screenings, music and dance performances, and has curated exhibitions through a program called Rail Curatorial Projects. Notable among these exhibitions is "Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy: Mare Nostrum" co-curated by Francesca Pietropaolo and Phong Bui, an official Collateral Event of the 2019 Venice Biennale, which ran at Chiesa delle Penitenti, Venice from May to November 2019.

Mission

The BrooklynRail is committed to supporting artists in their journey and elevating the important role that the arts and humanities play in shaping our society. [1]

History

Originally distributed as reading material for commuters on the L-train between Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Rail began as a small broadsheet with opinions printed in four columns in 1998. [2] The founding editors included: Joe Maggio, Christian Viveros-Fauné, Theodore Hamm, and Patrick Walsh. The group first began publishing the paper as a weekly double-sided sheet. Smith designed the Rail's logo. [3]

By 2000, the journal had quickly grown into a full-format publication, with Phong Bui and then-editor Theodore Hamm sharing oversight duties. Bui comments that it's largely due to support from the arts community, and funding from art foundations, that has made it possible for the journal to maintain its creative autonomy. Hamm notes that the Rail's non-profit funding, largely provided by private donors, has preserved the magazine's original aspiration to publish "a crucible of slanted opinions, artfully delivered." [4]

Editors have included Williams Cole, Christian Parenti, Heather Rogers, Daniel Baird, Emily DeVoti, Alan Lockwood, Ellen Pearlman, Donald Breckenridge, Monica de la Torre, and many more.

As of 2017, the Rail has interviewed over four hundred artists. A compilation of artist interviews, called Tell Me Something Good: Artist Interviews from The Brooklyn Rail, was published in 2017. Interviews include Richard Serra and Brice Marden to Alex Da Corte and House of Ladosha. The book was coedited by Jarrett Earnest and Lucas Zwirner and published through David Zwirner Books The collection includes an introduction by Phong Bui and a selection of hand-drawn portraits he has made of those he has interviewed over the years. [5]

Notable contributors

Projects

Rail Curatorial Projects

In 2013, the Brooklyn Rail established Rail Curatorial Projects, an initiative to manifest the journal's goals within an exhibition context. That same year, the Brooklyn Rail was invited by the Dedalus Foundation to curate an exhibition which resulted in Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year One (2013, Industry City), [6] a momentous exhibition of hundreds of New York and Brooklyn artists. Come Together was named the #1 exhibition in New York City by Jerry Saltz in New York Magazine [7] and in the New York Times, Roberta Smith wrote, “This egalitarian show makes palpable the greatness of New York’s real art world.” [8] In 2014, the exhibition was commemorated in a hardcover catalogue.

Since then, the Rail Curatorial Projects has curated a number of shows including Ad Reinhardt at 100 at TEMP Art Space; [9] [10] Spaced Out: Migration to the Interior (2014, Red Bull Studios); [11] [12] [13] Bloodflames Revisited (2014, Paul Kasmin Gallery); [14] [15] [16] and 24/7 (2014, Miami Beach Monte Carlo); [17] [18] Intimacy in Discourse: Reasonable and Unreasonable Sized Paintings (2015, SVA Chelsea Gallery and Mana Contemporary) [19] [20] [21] as well as Social Ecologies at Industry City; [22] [23] Patricia Cronin's Shrine for Girls [24] [25] [26] at the Venice Biennale in 2015; Hallway Hijack [27] [28] at 66 Rockwell Place in 2016. In 2017, Rail Curatorial Projects curated Occupy Mana: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy; [29] [30] [31] Hallway Hijack (2016, 66 Rockwell Place); OCCUPY MANA: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 1 (2017, Mana Contemporary).

In May 2019, the Rail was invited to curate an exhibition for the 2019 Venice Biennale. The show was a continuation of 2017's OCCUPY MANA, curated by the Rail's Phong Bui and Italian art historian, critic and curator Francesca Pietropaolo, the show consisted of 73 different artists; with works discussing the social and ecological climate of our reality titled Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy: Mare Nostrum (2019, Venice Biennale). [32] [33] [34] The Rail Curatorial Projects opened OCCUPY COLBY: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 2 (2019, Colby Museum of Art). [35] The show was on the same lengths of OCCUPY MANA [29] as well as Social Environment. [32]

We the Immigrants

July/August 2009 cover Julaug09.jpg
July/August 2009 cover

We the Immigrants is a project that at promotes and elevates immigrants in the many communities across America. It honors the artists and innovators who have immigrated to the U.S. and made an impact across the sciences, arts, and humanities. [36] It is an ongoing online project, featuring links to Wikipedia pages and organizes immigrants along with their name, country of origin and year of birth in a checkered layout inspired by Zoom. [37]

The New Social Environment

In March, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City forced arts organizations and museums around the world to close their doors, the team at the Brooklyn Rail shifted their operations online and started hosting daily conversations with artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, dancers, and musicians around the world. Called The New Social Environments, these daily lunchtime conversations wink at artist Joseph Beuys’s concept of Social Sculpture, where making art is less fleeting and precious and more woven democratically into our lives. [38] There have been over 200 archived conversations as of January 2020 and guests have included Kent Monkman, Kay Gabriel, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Giuseppe Penone, Noam Chomsky, Thelma Golden, Ai Wei Wei, Rosa Barba, Jordan Casteel, Paul D. Miller, Luca Buvoli, Eric Fischl, and Yvonne Rainier.

Rail Editions

Rail Editions is a press imprint of the Brooklyn Rail which publishes books of art, poetry, fiction, artists’ writings, works in translation, and more.

Previous titles include: On Ron Gorchov (2008), edited by Phong Bui; Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Nonfiction 2000–2010 (2010), edited by Theodore Hamm and Williams Cole; Texts on (Texts on) Art (2012), a collection of essays by the art historian Joseph Masheck; The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology 2 (2013), edited by Donald Breckenridge; Oh Sandy! A Remembrance (2015), a collection of poems commissioned in the wake of superstorm Hurricane Sandy; Cephalonia (2016), a narrative poem by Luigi Ballerini; Swept Up By Art (2016), the second memoir of the art historian and critic Irving Sandler; and Our Book: Florbela Espanca Selected Poems (2018), the first translation into English of Portuguese poet Florbela Espanca's poetry. [39] Words Apart and Others [40] (2018) by Jonas Mekas as well as a companion of responses, Message Ahead (2018), were published in 2018. [41] Bending Concepts features a collection of 26 artists, writers, and critics thoughts on visual culture and society during the mid-2010s. Edited by Jonathan T.D., Bending Concepts includes notable works by Claire Bishop, David Levi Strauss, Ariella Azoulay, Sheila Heti, and many more. [42]

Special editions

Reception

Robert Storr has called it "the murmur of the city in print." [1]

Former Nation publisher Victor Navasky considered it "a non-establishment paper that questioned the establishment's assumptions without falling victim to the counterculture's pieties."

For the late Nancy Spero, the paper was "an eminently readable, informative, and intellectually wide-ranging publication, alert to current trends, controversies, and ideas, and filled with necessary information." [1]

Poet John Ashbery has written: "how wonderful to have a new newspaper that cares about literature and the arts and isn't afraid to say so. The Brooklyn Rail is a welcome addition to the New York scene." [1]

American painter Alex Katz has said that the Rail "has the young energy that goes with the young people who come to New York to grow in the arts. It would be a bad city without it. If it wasn't for the Brooklyn Rail, the city would be a desert.” [1]

In 2013 the Rail was awarded the Best Art Reporting by the International Association of Art Critics, United States Section (AICA-USA). [47] [48]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venice Biennale</span> International arts exhibition in Italy

The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy, by the Biennale Foundation. It focuses on contemporary art, and includes events for art, contemporary dance, architecture, cinema, and theatre. Two main components of the festival are known as the Art Biennale and the Architecture Biennale, which are held in alternating years. The others – Biennale Musica, Biennale Teatro, Venice Film Festival, and Venice Dance Biennale – are held annually. The main exhibition held in Castello alternates between art and architecture, and there are around 30 permanent pavilions built by different countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art in General</span> Art space in New York City

Art in General was a non-profit contemporary art exhibition space known for its vibrant and ground-breaking projects as a formidable and longstanding New York City alternative space, focused on giving meaningful resources and opportunities to artists early on in their careers. Founded in 1981 by artists Martin Weinstein and Teresa Liszka and originally located in the General Hardware building in New York City — hence the organization's name, Art in General — the institution produced and presented distinctive programs and exhibitions featuring new work by local and international artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Ryman</span> American painter (1930–2019)

Robert Ryman was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Bove</span> American artist based in New York City

Carol Bove is an American artist based in New York City. She lives and works in Brooklyn.

Hrag Vartanian is an Armenian-American arts writer, art critic, and art curator. He is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the arts online magazine Hyperallergic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Storr (art academic)</span>

Robert Storr is an American curator, critic, painter, and writer.

Phong H. Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, and Co-Founder and Artistic Director of The Brooklyn Rail, a free monthly arts, culture, and politics journal. Bui was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture" by Brooklyn Magazine in 2014. In 2015, The New York Observer called him a "ringmaster" of the "Kings County art world." Bui was the recipient of the 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Brice Guariglia</span> American photographer and artist

Justin Brice Guariglia, also known as Justin Brice, is an American conceptual artist and a former photojournalist, whose work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world. Brice frequently partners with scientists, poets and philosophers in his research based art practice that addresses climate change and the ecological crisis. Notably, this includes a series of seven missions he's flown with NASA scientists beginning in 2015 to document Greenland's rapidly changing ice, images which he's used as source material in his work.

Cordy Ryman, an artist based in New York City. Ryman earned his BFA with Honors in Fine Arts and Art Education from The School of Visual Arts in New York in 1997. He is the son of artist Robert Ryman (1930-2019). Cordy Ryman is represented by Freight and Volume Gallery, New York, NY.

David Reed is a contemporary American conceptual and visual artist.

Naomi Beckwith is the deputy director and chief curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She joined the museum in June 2021. Previously she had been the senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Beckwith joined the curatorial staff there in May 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Cronin</span> American painter

Patricia Cronin is a New York-based feminist cross-disciplinary artist. Since the early-1990s, Cronin has garnered international attention for her photographs, paintings and sculptures that address contemporary human rights issues. Cronin's conceptual artistic practice transits across many aesthetic platforms addressing social justice issues of gender, sexuality and class, including: lesbian visibility, feminist art history, marriage equality and international rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. She subverts traditional art images and forms in a wide range of two and three-dimensional time-honored artists' materials and breathes new life into these images and forms by injecting her specific political content. Her critically acclaimed statue, "Memorial To A Marriage", is the first and only Marriage Equality monument in the world. A 3-ton Carrara marble mortuary sculpture of her life partner and herself was made before gay marriage was legal in the U.S., and has been exhibited widely across the country and abroad. Cronin began her career working for the Anne Frank Stichting (Foundation)Archived 2015-10-25 at the Wayback Machine in Amsterdam installing the traveling exhibition "Anne Frank in the World" in Europe and the U.S. Giving presence to female absence is a consistent thread that runs through and connects each body of work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Antonakos</span> American sculptor (1926–2013)

Stephen Antonakos was a Greek-American sculptor most well known for his abstract sculptures often incorporating neon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine de Zegher</span> Belgian curator, art critic, and art historian

Catherine de Zegher is a Belgian curator and a modern and contemporary art historian. She has a degree in art history and archaeology from the University of Ghent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Levin</span> American art critic and writer

Kim Levin is an American art critic and writer. Levin was a regular contributor to The Village Voice from 1982 to 2006. Since 2007 she has been contributing regularly to ARTnews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Kleeblatt</span>

Norman L. Kleeblatt is a curator, critic, and consultant based in New York City. A long-term curator at the Jewish Museum in New York, he served as the Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator from 2005 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugenio Viola</span> Italian art critic and curator (born 1975)

Eugenio Viola is an Italian art critic and curator based in Bogotá.

The 57th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between May and November 2017. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Christine Macel, the chief curator at the Centre Pompidou, curated its central exhibition, "Viva Arte Viva", as a series of interconnected pavilions designed to reflect art's capacity for expanding humanism. The curator also organized a project, "Unpacking My Library", based on a Walter Benjamin essay, to list artists' favorite books. Macel was the first French director since 1995 and the fourth woman to direct the Biennale. A trend of presenting overlooked, rediscovered, or "emerging dead artists" was a theme of the 57th Biennale.

Mohammad Salemy is a Canadian artist, art critic, curator, writer . curator, writer He is sometimes referred to as "Mo Salemy".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National pavilions at the Venice Biennale</span> National representation at the Venice Biennale

The national pavilions host each participant nation's official representation during the Venice Biennale, an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Some countries own pavilion buildings in the Giardini della Biennale while others rent buildings throughout the city, but each country controls its own selection process and production costs.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "About". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved May 8, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Corrections: November 4, 2015". The New York Times. November 4, 2015.
  3. ↑ "note". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
  4. ↑ "The Brooklyn Rail". brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 11, 2015.
  5. ↑ "David Zwirner Books · Tell Me Something Good: Artist Interviews from The Brooklyn Rail". David Zwirner Books. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  6. ↑ Smith, Roberta, "Art, A Balm After the Storm" New York Times, December 12, 2013
  7. ↑ "The 10 Best Art Shows of the Year". NYMag.com. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  8. ↑ Smith, Roberta (December 6, 2013). "'Come Together: Surviving Sandy' Samples 300 Artists". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Ad Reinhardt At 100 | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  10. ↑ Cembalest, Robin (November 13, 2013). "The Semi-Secret History of Modernism's Best Comic Artist". ARTnews. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Spaced Out | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Artist and Curator Phong Bui On What Brooklyn Culture Means in 2014" . Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Total Work of Art: "Spaced Out" at Red Bull Studios – artcritical". artcritical. October 21, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Bloodflames Revisited | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  15. ↑ Johnson, Ken (August 7, 2014). "Phong Bui Curates 'Bloodflames Revisited'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  16. ↑ Akel, Joseph (September 16, 2014). "Bloodflames Revisited". Frieze (166). Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  17. ↑ "In and Around AMBM". Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  18. ↑ "24/7 | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  19. ↑ Kedmey, Karen (November 29, 2015). "Smaller is Better in Exhibition of Paintings at Mana Contemporary and SVA Chelsea Gallery". Artsy. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Intimacy in Discourse: Unreasonable Sized Paintings". School of Visual Arts | SVA | New York City. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  21. ↑ "Intimacy in Discourse: and Unreasonable Sized Paintings". Mana Contemporary. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  22. ↑ ""Social Ecologies" – Art in America". December 17, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Social Ecologies | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  24. ↑ "Shrine For Girls | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  25. ↑ Frank, Priscilla (April 14, 2015). "Heartbreaking 'Shrine For Girls' Pays Tribute To Young Female Martyrs Around The World". Huffington Post. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  26. ↑ "Aesthetica Magazine – Patricia Cronin, Shrine for Girls, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice". Aesthetica Magazine. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  27. ↑ "Hallway Hijack | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  28. ↑ "19 Artists Hijacked the Hallways of a Brooklyn High-rise". June 22, 2016.
  29. 1 2 "Occupy Mana | Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects". curatorialprojects.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  30. ↑ "Tomas Vu and Rirkrit Tiravanija in "Occupy Mana: Artists Need to Create at the Same Scale as Society has the Capacity to Destroy," 2017". www.artforum.com. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  31. ↑ "Editors' Picks: 18 Things to See in New York This Week | artnet News". artnet News. October 10, 2017. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  32. 1 2 "The Rail at the 2019 Venice Biennale". Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  33. ↑ "Science and Magic: Environmental Impact at the Biennale". Cultured Magazine. May 10, 2019. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  34. ↑ "There's a Flood of Climate Change-Related Art at the Venice Biennale. Can It Make a Difference—Or Is It Adding to the Problem?". artnet News. May 6, 2019. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  35. ↑ "Occupy Colby: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 2". Colby College Museum of Art. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  36. ↑ "We The Immigrants". brooklynrail.org. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  37. ↑ "'We The Immigrants' photo exhibit on Payne Avenue latest in project to elevate immigrant voices". Twin Cities. November 25, 2020. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
  38. ↑ Prosek, James (October 23, 2020). "Artists in Isolation Make a New Window on the World". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  39. ↑ "Brooklyn Rail : Store : Rail Editions". store.brooklynrail.org.
  40. ↑ "Brooklyn Rail : Store : Rail Editions : Words Apart and Others by Jonas Mekas". store.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  41. ↑ "Brooklyn Rail : Store : Rail Editions : Message Ahead". store.brooklynrail.org. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  42. ↑ "Bending Concepts: The Held Essays on Visual Art". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  43. ↑ "The Brooklyn Rail – An Independent Forum for Visual Arts, Culture, and Politics – RIVER RAIL". brooklynrail.org.
  44. ↑ "The Brooklyn Rail – An Independent Forum for Visual Arts, Culture, and Politics – I LOVE JOHN GIORNO". brooklynrail.org.
  45. ↑ "The Brooklyn Rail – An Independent Forum for Visual Arts, Culture, and Politics – ART CRIT EUROPE". www.brooklynrail.org.
  46. ↑ "The Brooklyn Rail – An Independent Forum for Visual Arts, Culture, and Politics – AD REINHARDT". www.brooklynrail.org.
  47. ↑ Boucher, Brian (April 9, 2014). "AICA Announces Best Show Awards for 2013". Art in America. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2015.
  48. ↑ "AICA-USA Arts Awards Honor Excellence in Art Criticism and Curatorial Achievement". AICA USA. April 8, 2014. Archived from the original on June 7, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2015.

[1]

[2]

  1. ↑ Farago, Jason (September 30, 2020). "The Philip Guston Show Should Be Reinstated" . The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  2. ↑ Somaiya, Ravi (November 2, 2015). "The Hustle of Publishing Art News in the Postprint Era" . The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 17, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.