MUSEO Say So
April 5th, 2009My stacks of Artforum back issues are as tall as I am. And though I have a complete collection, as continuous as my seamless run of The Punisher, I tend to read it sporadically. Sometimes, I’m dazzled by the ads and lose my place in media read. Other times, the slick cover makes my hand all sweaty, so I have to take a break. But I always read the New York reviews, the Top Ten, and the sex advice – er, that’s another magazine. (But don’t you wish? Hosted each month by a different “sexual” artist? Marina Abramovic, Jeff Koons, Andrea Fraser, Paul McCarthy, Marlene McCarty, Louise Bourgeois, and the Tom of Finland Estate…)
W, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Boxes (stacked, get it?), 1964
Of course, reading Artforum online relieves me of that problem, while saving me precious storage space for the grad school paintings that I just can’t throw out. I can see videos and bonus “500 Words.” And when I encounter a word, theory, or name I don’t recognize – which is often – then I can google it immediately. Incidentally, Jerry Saltz wrote in a recent Facebook discussion that “Scene and Herd” gets the most readers.
Cory Arcangel, I Shot Andy Warhol, 2002
My favorite online art publication is MUSEO, a quarterly contemporary art magazine. The newest issue, #11, was published just last week and features interviews with Dan Graham, Cory Arcangel, Paola Pivi, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and Jonah Freeman. We hear Freeman comment on “alchemy through consumption,” and Arcangel on “consuming as producing.”
Jonah Freeman, Justin Lowe, Alexandre Singh; Hello Meth Lab in the Sun, 2008
One year ago, the inaugural issue of MUSEO Magazine featured exclusive interviews with Taryn Simon, Tanyth Berkeley, Fawn Krieger, Tom Eccles, and SVA alum Phoebe Washburn (in video form). If you wonder how a quarterly could reach 11 issues in one year, it’s because MUSEO was rekindled by Editor-in-Chief David Shapiro after a stretch of hibernation. In its B.C. period, from 1997-2001, the magazine was an journal rounding up intercollegiate content from Columbia University (Go Lions!), Duke, and SVA. David took over the Editor position in 1999 and steered the journal toward contemporary art in New York. In 2000, he launched the online edition, which quickly surpassed the print version in readership. That inaugural online edition included an excellent interview with Jeff Wall, later to be republished by MoMA and in The Education of a Photographer, edited by SVA’s Charles Traub. Other notable interviews from that period included modern marvels Elizabeth Peyton and the Christos, and rising stars like Kevin Zucker, who found the Sublime in a summer blockbuster film.
Graduating from Columbia ended David’s reign at MUSEO. The journal continued in his wake, but only annually. Meanwhile, David began his art history grad program, started to exhibit his paintings, and later took on a hefty teaching schedule. After a messenger angel visited him one night, David cleared out his studio and began to plan to rekindle the magazine. In 2007, he resurrected it as a paperless quarterly with a makeover by Rare Gallery’s Jasper Pope. Anno domini: MUSEO has awakened, looking refreshed, cool, and timely.
I would write more, but we’re consumed by the MUSEO crossword puzzle. We’ll all have to wait for the MUSEO sex column.