Contextualizing Artforum’s Design 1966 – 1975 By Tiffany Zabludowicz by Tiffany Zabludowicz

Contextualizing Artforumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Design 1966 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1975 By Tiffany Zabludowicz

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in History of Art and Architecture, April 2014

Introduction Between December 1966 and December 1975, there was a shift in ideas about art. In the late sixties, formalism was the governing doctrine in art. In Artforum, the ideas of formalism are mirrored in the purity of the magazine’s design. In the early-to-mid seventies, the authority of formalism declined rapidly with the inception of conceptualism and the dematerialization of art. This shift is reflected in the magazine’s design as the purity of the page is destabilized. The design of Artforum reflects the shifting ideas of this nine-year period. The first part of this thesis summarizes the elements of design of the magazine that I shall be paying particular attention to. The second part relates these elements of design to the prevalent ideas of the day. I have divided this thesis into two periods. The first period begins with Ed Ruscha’s re-design of the magazine and ends with the editorin-chief, Philip Leider’s, exit from Artforum in the summer of 1971. The second period begins with the start of John Coplans’ years at the magazine in 1971 and ends in 1975 when much of the staff of Artforum, including Rosalind Krauss, left the magazine because of internal conflict. These editors leaving marked the end of Artforum’s glory days. Between 1966 and 1975, even though the magazine is a relatively new publication, it is the art bible for readers of the time.1 It contained articles by the leading art critics, as well as contributions from the leading artists of the time. Artforum’s authority in America quickly trumped that of other art publications, such as Art News, which had been the leading magazine of the 1950s. Each monthly issue highlighted the 1

Hilton Kramer, “Muddled Marxism replaces criticism at Artforum”, New York Times (21 September 1975), p.140

new ideas and artists for that month, becoming an extremely reliable source for tracking the changing ideas between December 1966 and December 1975. The design of Artforum during the sixties and seventies reveals shifting ideas from formalism to conceptualism. Design: Philip Leider From its first issue in 1962, Artforum’s design was predicated upon simplicity and clarity. Philip Leider, editor-in-chief of Artforum from 1962 to 1971, reined authority over design decisions in Artforum.2 Ed Ruscha, under the pseudonym ‘Eddie Russia,’ was in charge of Production of Artforum from October 1965 to September 1969. Ruscha and Leider were known to have worked very well together. Leider stated, “and his sense of design was basically the same as mine…that was how we did it, just the simplest, most direct way. Every time.”3 In 1969, Tanya Neufeld replaced Ruscha. As Ruscha had done previously, Neufeld also worked very closely with Philip Leider on the design of the magazine. Since 1967, she heavily assisted Ruscha and had continued Ruscha’s format, until Leider left the magazine in 1971. Artforum’s design during Leider’s years was quite unique to the magazine. This was evidenced by a comparison between Artforum’s design during those years with the designs of two notable art publications, ARTnews4 and Art in America5. A young graphic designer from the Robertson-Montgomery Design Firm, James Robertson, created the original logo and design for Artforum.6 His innovations allowed for flexibility in the design of the magazine. It was of extreme significance that

Amy Newman, Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), 100 Ibid. 4 See ARTnews, Dec, 1966 5 See Art in America, Nov – Dec, 1966 6 Gwen Allen, “From Specific Medium to Mass Media: The Art Magazine in the 1960s and Early 1970s” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2004), 44 3

the design of Artforum during Philip Leider’s years remained pure, while allowing for variation in the principle layout of the magazine. Robertson inserted a grid into the format of Artforum. This grid granted designers freedom over the arrangement of the page, without compromising the sense of clarity and organization that defined the layout of the magazine. The grid divides the pages of the magazine into small, square ‘modules.’ In these ‘modules,’ images and texts can be placed, allowing for both dense and sparse pages within the same magazine.7 Variations and diversity do not compromise the unity of the whole because everything is on the foundation of the grid. In nearly all cases, the simplicity of the grid structure is maintained and items are centered, while surrounded by thin, white margins. Leider said, “Unless there was some good reason not to do it, we centered everything.”8 Even with potential for a free, variable design, the items on the page held the shape of the grid during Leider’s years. James Robertson’s other innovation, Artforum’s 10 ½” by 10 ½” square format, gives the designers a lot of flexibility. This is noteworthy, as in 1962 Artforum was the only art magazine to be a ‘perfect square.’9 This square supported the reproduction of large horizontal images in the magazine that would not fit into the traditionally rectangular format of other art publications, such as ARTnews and Art in America. In ARTnews and Art in America, the rectangular format indicates that only horizontal images can occupy a portion of the page and that their size is limited by the short width

Beth Tondreau , Layout Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Using Grids (Beverly, MA: Rockport, 2008), p.78 8 Amy Newman, Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), 100 9 Ashley Belanger, “Avalanche and File: Alternative Art Magazines in The Field of Cultural Production, 1968-1976” (MA diss., U of British Columnbia, 2009), 23

of the page. This rectangular shape prioritizes vertical images, such as portraiture.10 On the other hand, a square allows for variation of where items can be placed on the page, as the modules in the grid are all square and uniformly sized. Pages generally include either columns of text in accompaniment with columns of images, rows of text in accompaniment with rows of images, full pages of text, full pages of images, or full pages of text adjoining full pages of images. Even though the square format allows for a great deal of variation on the page, Leider does not make use of this advantage in variation. The ‘sans serif’ fonts of Artforum, also introduced by James Robertson, create a sense of simplicity and clarity in the magazine. The logo of Artforum, which was most commonly located in the right-hand corner of the cover of the magazine, is a condensed, bold version of the simple, ‘sans serif’ Berthold Akzidenz font.11 Robertson created the logo using a razorblade with adhesive.12 The ‘new gothic’ font was employed for all other writing in the magazine, and was replaced by another ‘sans serif’ font in 1966. ‘Sans serif’ fonts promote a minimal layout that is simple and easily adaptable. It also fits into the grid because of its functional lines. During Leider’s years, Art in America and ARTnews both employed fonts with ‘serifs’ for most of the writing and their logos in the magazine, with the text printed horizontally. The ‘sans serif’ font allows for flexibility and enhances the designer’s freedom in choosing to use images or text in their layout and how to place the text in the grid.13 In December 1966, the ‘Surrealism’ issue, Ed Ruscha’s re-design changed some 10

Paul Cummings, “Oral history interview with John Coplans”, 4 April 1975 – 4 August, 1977 (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution) 11

Figure 2 Gwen Allen, “From Specific Medium to Mass Media: The Art Magazine in the 1960s and Early 1970s” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2004), 44 13 Figure 1 12

of the original notions of the magazine. The original font was replaced by another equally geometric ‘sans serif’ font, which was far more easily adaptable than the first. Leider has said of this font, “I did change the type-font as quickly as I could. News Gothic didn’t even have italics. In the first edition, in the first issues, every time we used a title it’s in boldface. It drove me insane.”14 Ruscha also removed the brown and blue paper colored inserts from the magazine. Leider was pleased to see them go, as he hated them.15 These inserts were placed mostly before the first and after the last pages of the magazine, as the ‘Contents Page,’ as well as sometimes sporadically inserted into the magazine. Ruscha and Leider purged the magazine of the inserts, as they found them superfluous. The columns of text in Artforum are shaped uniformly. In Artforum, the page has either three columns of text or four thinner columns of text, separated by small, white gaps. When images are inserted inside the columns of text, the text maintains its shape around the images and the width of the images is most commonly the same as the width of the column.16 Occasionally, images will break into the columns of text horizontally and spread across two or more columns. In comparison, in Art in America Magazine, another leading art periodical of the time, the structure of the columns varies much more so. On some pages, there are two thick columns, on others there are two thin columns with images filling a larger column, and on others there are four extremely thin columns. The size of the columns of texts varies accordingly to where the images are placed on the page. This unyielding uniformity in the placement of items in Artforum’s columns starkly and notably differentiates it from other leading art publications of its time.

Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p. 95 Ibid. 16 Image 15

Images in Artforum are either placed above, below, or besides text. If images are above or below text, they are also not beside the text, and if images are besides the text, they are not above or below the text. Contrastingly, in ARTnews, images often frame the text above or below, as well as to one side of the text. When full pages are taken up by images, multiple images are placed on the grid and images are divided evenly and symmetrically on a blank page, or one image is centered on a blank page. Minimal text surrounds these images, usually titles of articles or specifications. In ARTnews, when one image is placed on the page, it is most likely to be not centered horizontally. Artforum also has thin margins surrounding the items on the page. While at times the margins are thicker, during Leider’s years, no images touched the edge of the page. In Art in America, the margins are thicker and images often break through the margins and make contact with the edge of the page. In ARTnews, images often break through the margin, touching the edge of the page and breaking the uniformity of the grid, whereas in Artforum, the simplicity of the layout of images rarely deviates. The containment of images rarely deviates from a rectilinear box. Reproductions of straight-edged paintings are printed straight onto the page, usually in black-and-white. The photograph excludes frames or canvas edges. Sculptures and paintings that do not fit neatly into a square or rectangular box are photographed individually against blank backgrounds and then cropped into straight-edged frames. For example, in ‘Walter de Maria: Word and Thing,’17 de Maria’s stainless steel sculpture Glass for Joseph Cornell, a photograph of the work shows it on an empty, white floor and against a bare, white wall. Contrastingly, in Art in America, images that do not fit into rectilinear boxes are commonly reproduced freestanding on the page. Rectangular installation photographs of 17

Walter de Maria, “Word and Thing,” Artforum, v (January, 1967), p. 28

works are also sporadically included in the magazine. For example, in the article on Walter de Maria, an installation photograph shows a corner of a room with his works hung against the white wall and a small sculpture on the floor.18 An article by Irving Sandler in December 1966 entitled ‘Reinhardt: The Purist Blacklash,’19 is one example of this format of page in this period. The pithy title of the article neatly combines the words ‘black’ and ‘backlash’ and below the title, filling almost the entirety of the page is a mostly black work by Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting, 1957. The dark rectangle is centered by blank, thick columns on both sides and blank, thinner margins above and below. The dark color of the work contrasts against the white of the page and gives a focal point next to the thin, ‘sans serif’ writing that fills the following page of the article. The horizontal and vertical lines of the grid of rectangles in the work compliment the horizontal and vertical edges of the square page, and the rectangle fits neatly into the grid of the page. A two-page spread lays six rectangular works by Ad Reinhardt on the grid, all printed in black-and-white. The first work, Abstract Painting, 1938, is more figurative than others in the piece. After a small gap, Abstract Collage, 1940, collages different photographs into a grid-like arrangement and below Abstract Painting, 1946, involves painted, curved lines arranged into a grid. The fourth corner of this page contains text from the article. Surrounded by the white of the page, centered in a full-page of the magazine, Abstract Painting, 1950, is a mesh of square slabs of paint that fills the entire canvas. The horizontal and vertical lines of the grids in all these works are harmonious with the layout. These two pages show a visual essay of the move from a free form to an increasingly secure grid in Reinhardt’s work. 18

installation photograph of Walter De Maria, 4 drawings, SKY, RIVER, TREES, FIELD, and Step Pyramid, zinc, 1965, Walter de Maria, “Word and Thing,” Artforum, V.V (January, 1967), p. 29 19 Irving Sandler, “Reinhardt: The Purist Backlash”, Artforum, V. V (December 1966), pp. 40-46

The layout on the page encourages a chronological understanding of the change. The black-and-white print allows the viewer to focus solely on the form of the paintings. The visual story is made clear because of the simplicity of the layout. Even when artists contributed to the magazine, the format still remained the same. ‘Four Drawings By Jasper Johns’ occupies two conjoining pages of the magazine in October 1965, the first issue that Ed Ruscha produced.20 On both pages, one large drawing is next to the center of the page, and one small drawing is next to the edge of the page. The black-and-white drawings fit into square or rectangular boxes, with the top edges of the boxes in alignment. The two larger drawings are exactly the same size, with the smaller drawings differing only slightly in size. The result is that when the two pages are opened wide, they are almost symmetrical to one another. The page is devoid of text, with the exception of the small and unobtrusive title of the piece that is spread across the bottom center of both pages to maintain a sense of symmetry. The blank spaces below the images indicate that the drawings fit neatly into the grid. Air France to the latest shows in galleries and museums. The majority of advertisements are black-and-white and text-based. The advertisements vary in size from whole pages to small boxes that occupied 1/8th of the page. On occasion, artists would take out announcements in Artforum and use the space to insert their artworks. In January 1967, Ruscha placed a full-page announcement in the magazine.21 A caption at the bottom of the page read, “Ed Ruscha says goodbye to college joys,” and overlay is a photograph of the artist in bed sleeping with two women by each side of him.22 This image contrasts the grid of four text-based adverts on the adjoining page, with 20

“Four Drawings, Jasper Johns”, Artforum, V. IV, No. 2, pp. 34-35 Artforum, V. V, No. 5, (January, 1967), p. 7 22 Ed Ruscha, “Ed Ruscha Says Goodbye to College Joys,” 1967. gelatin silver print 21

advertisements of art shows in prominent Los Angeles and New York galleries occupying the connecting page. The three embracing figures are centered in the photograph. On the table next to them is a “tawdry replica of a classical figure, placed next to a box of tissues and a telephone. The metal bed frame contains a tacky freeze with images of nymphs playing above the sleeping figures heads.” These figures are undressed and their poses reflect the poses of the nymphs above them. The advertisement contradicts the rigidity of the design of the magazine. As an exception to the rule, this evidences that only in the advertisement section of the magazine can the ‘purity’ in the design of the magazine be broken. As this example and all the examples prove, under Philip Leider the design of the magazine remains pure. Design: John Coplans Under John Coplans, the purity of the design is broken. When John Coplans took over the position of editor-in-chief of the magazine, he became very enmeshed in design decisions. While Coplans had been involved in the magazine from 1962, and started assimilating the role of editor in the summer of 1971, it was not until December of that year did his name officially enter the masthead. When Coplans took over, the head of design was Tanya Neufeld. Coplans played an active role in the design of the magazine. Annette Michelson said, “instead of relying on someone like Tanya Neuefeld, Coplans took a real interest in it [the design of Artforum] himself. And you could watch him and even look on with him putting your stuff into some sort of shape.”23 Coplans refers to Tanya Neufeld as “the part-time paster-upper I had in New York,” indicating the limitation of her role. Tanya Weinberger then replaced Neufeld in January 1975. As described by Richard Flood, Weinberger “arrived as a secretary in 1966 and went on to 23

Amy Newman, Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p.331

handle production. Tanya's home was upstate. She would arrive on the premises monthly via Greyhound bus, unroll the sleeping bag she kept in a closet, and live in the office for the ten days or so of paste-up.”24 The shift in design when Coplans took over is ever so subtle. The grid still remained in place, with pages having three columns of text, and images displayed in grids still occupied much of the magazine. The general format remained the same, with the simplicity and legibility of the early issues of Artforum maintained. However, there were distinct changes that gradually weaved their way into modifications of the early format. Although the structured grid remained in place, there is more exploration of what could be done inside the rigid design confines, with more images being included in the magazine. In the early years, most images were photographs of artworks. There is an inclusion of more prints of artworks under Coplans, including an increase in photography and film stills. The printing became increasingly colorful and moved gradually away from the limitations of black-and-white. More freestanding works were included onto the white pages rather than just works in boxed frames. The separation between word and image became less distinct as word and image began to flow together more freely. Words were included in images and images were incorporated into the text. Artists’ commissions became increasingly regular. Under Coplans, artists’ commissions stood out from the rest of the articles in the magazine, as they were able to manipulate the grid more easily. There is also a surge in advertising pages. Artforum’s pages for advertisements increased from six pages in its first issue in 1962 to approximately 43

Richard Flood, “Waldo Rising”, Art International, The Free Library, 1 September 1993, 25 April 2014 (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Waldo rising.-a014580145)

pages per issue in 1970.25 This made for even more room for artists to put their artworks in the advertising section. Under Coplans, the strict rigidity of the grid structure is destabilized in subtle, understated, and significant ways. The size of images regularly fluctuated, ranging from images that fill full-pages to tiny images, rammed into small spaces on the page. In an article by Max Kozloff, “Pygmalion Reversed,” in November 1975, the layout of the text remained simple, uncluttered in three-columns. However, there were some subtle interventions into the way the images had been used. Below a nearly full page of text, lying horizontal across the whole page is a flat, thin photograph, of Alan Sonfist’s Last Piece, proposed 1973. The artist declares, “My final work of art will be to donate my body to the Museum of Modern Art. I see all my art as having no beginning or end. I feel that the decay and growth of body will present the continuance of my art.” The artist lies naked on the floor of a whitewashed space. His naked body looks up, facing the text above him. It is as though the text has forced his body into the thin box of this image. The rigidness of the grid is broken up by the thinness of the image. Images are no longer spaced evenly. For example, an article in December 1973, “Michael Snow’s ‘La Region Centrale’” by John W. Locke, is formatted differently. A film still of about ½ a second of footage from La Region Centrale runs vertically down the first page of the article with a small margin dividing it from the edge of the page. The title is centered on the page, and on both sides of the title are small film stills from La Region Centrale. In the same article, a double-paged spread involves text surrounded by film stills from La Regione Central. The text is centered by the square film stills that occupy the edges of the page, with no spaces between the film stills. The film stills show 25

Gwen Allen, Artist’s Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011), p.318

a blurred landscape that is spinning around. In the film stills that occupy the bottom of the page, the landscape is turned upside down. Only in one film still, centered on the top of the page, does the landscape appear to be right side-up. Four images in the article ‘Cosmologies’ in the October 1972 issue of Artforum are laid out in a grid without gaps between the photographs. As there is no clear-cut separation, an installation shot of Herman Nitsch’s Action Photos, 1960-1972 is barely differentiated from Vito Acconci’s Traces of A Performance, 1972. These images fill the entire page and there is no margin surrounding them. With images no longer spaced evenly, there is sometimes overlap. In ‘Pygmalion Reversed,’ a small photograph of the police giving the artist Chris Burden a ticket overlaps a larger photograph of Burden’s Deadman, 1972. It is evidenced from the overlapping that the police chastised Burden for this work. In ‘Altman in Music City,’26 text is surrounded by overlapping images of film stills from the movie Nashville, by the director Robert Altman. The overlapping horizontal and vertical rectangular images form the letter ‘L’ shape, which partially frames the text. On the first page, a vertical image is positioned above the text and a horizontal image is positioned to the right of the text, boxing the writing into two stump columns on the bottom left corner of the page. On the adjoining page, the images are both below and to the right of the text, framing the words in the top left corner of the page. The next two pages continue in the exact same manner. On the next page, a horizontal photograph of Geraldine Chaplin overlaps the edge of a vertical photograph of Lily Tomlins. In this case, only the top of Chaplin’s round hat covers the image above. The overlapping of images destabilizes the rigidity of the grid structure. 26

Stephen Farber, “Altman in music city,” Artforum v. 14 (November 1975) p. 66-7

Before 1971, the majority of images were photographs of works of art, but 1971 onwards, this became more varied. In addition to photographs of sculptures and paintings, the images contained are also reproductions or prints of photographs and film stills. A photograph by Diane Arbus, Girl in a shiny dress,27 appears almost life-size on the page.28 This is not a photograph of the work, but a mere print of the work. The photograph is framed by only the edge of the page. Film stills are printed onto the page. There is an article about Eisenstein’s film stills,29 stating that they line the edges of the page. The stills are laid in chronological order of where they appear from the particular film they are taken from. Each still in individual format, yet in sequence form part of the whole. In an article on Stan Brakhage,30 parts of the reels of film have been printed on the page by placing the stills on the reel in context. Between 1971 and 1975, photographs of artworks in Artforum not only consist of individual artworks facing the camera directly. Installation photographs are more commonly seen in later issues, having existed only in the Review section under Leider. Photographs of Lawrence Weiner’s work on the wall gives a sense of what the works look like in real space.31 Captured in these photographs, a small sliver of the floor is visible and his text is flat across the whitewashed wall. Photographs are not only photographed individually and laid in a grid; multiple works can occupy one photograph. An installation photograph of works by Myron Stout makes it possible to compare the

Diane Arbus, Girl in a shiny dress, New York City, 1967 Hollis Frampton, “Incisions in History / Segments of Eternity”, Artforum, V. 13, No. 2 (October 1974), p.49 29 Roland Barthes, “The Third Meaning: Notes on Some of Eisenstein”s Stills, translated by Richard Howard”, Artforum, V. __ (January 1973), p. 30 “Stan Brakhage: Four Films”, Jan 1974, by Paul S. Arthur 31 Installation View of Castelli Gallery, “Lawrence Weiner: Given the Context”, March 1975 28

works as they are hung on a wall.32 There are instances where photographs only capture details of the artworks. On one page, in an article on works by Louise Bourgeois,33 there are three different photographs capturing two different angles of her sculpture Lair.34 The photographs reveal nothing of what the piece looks like as a whole, but only of the different crevices that exist within. Images are no longer solely rectilinear; their shapes are variable. The silhouettes of artworks that do not fit into rectangular boxes are, in some instances, outlined on the page. The front page of an article, “Talking at Pomona,” Michelangelo’s Pietà, 1498-99, inhabits the top right corner of the page. It is large and freestanding against the white background of the page. The figure of Mary holding Christ in her lap is free standing against the blank background. Only the pedestal that Mary stands on gives some indication of how this sculpture may be installed. On the same page, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1515, by Matthias Grunewald takes home in the opposite corner. The painting is nearly a perfect rectangle, with the exception of the middle third of the painting where a small rectangle containing the top of Christ’s cross juts out above the canvas. This small protrusion is cut around and pasted onto the white background. In an article about John Storrs,35 works by the sculptor line the top of the page in chronological order from right to left, from 1918 until 1923. The visual essay shows his progression from figuration, architectural forms, and formless sculpture. The silhouettes of the five sculptures plus one drawing are unambiguous against the white page. The works in all these examples exist

“Myron Stout,” Sanford Schwartz, March, 1975 Lucy R. Lippard, “Louise Bourgeois: From the inside out”, Artforum, V. XIII, March 1975, pp.26-33 34 Louise Bourgeois, Lair, latex, 1963 35 Abraham A. Davidsion, “John Storrs, Early Sculptor of the Machine Age”, Artforum, V. XIII (November 1974), pp.41-45 33

solely on the white page of the magazine. No sense of context, or of where or how these pieces are installed in real space, exists on these pages. There is an increase in advertisements in the magazine. These became less textbased and more image-based. A 1974 advertisement of Lynda Benglis nude and brandishing a dildo is a strong, feminist statement. She stands on half of the page, her body against a white background. The other half of the page and the adjoining page are black, drawing attention to her image. The page contains no text. She wears a pair of white sunglasses and tan marks cross her body. Her hair is short and trim and she looks directly at the camera. Context: Philip Leider In the sixties, Greenbergian formalism was the primary mode of criticism in the magazine, even though ironically, the art historian and critic, Clement Greenberg, only contributed to Artforum three times.36 Greenberg was the authority on Modernism and thus became both a rallying point, as well as a target, of opposition for critics in Artforum. Greenbergian formalism is most succinctly summarized in Greenberg’s influential essay, Modernist Painting, first published in 1961. 37 In this text, Greenberg heralds Modernist painting’s tendency towards self-criticism, citing Immanuel Kant’s use of logic to define the limits of logic, as the first example of formalism.38 According to Greenberg, a medium has to be true to its materials. Painting has to be true to its limitations—the rectangular shape and flat surface of the canvas, as well as the properties of the pigment. Painting cannot be three-dimensional, as this is the purview of sculpture, 36

Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p. 13 Paul Wood and Charles Harrison, “Modernity and Modernism reconsidered”, Modernism in dispute, in “Art Since the Forties”, p.170 38 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, translated with Analytical Indexes by James Creed Meridith (Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 67 37

nor can it be representational, as this is the role of literature. Painting cannot not be theatrical and create dramatic effects that go beyond its material, as this is the function of theater. 39 Thus, for Greenberg, Modernist painting was a progressive orientation to flatness that began with Manet and ended with contemporary artists, Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis, as flatness alone is “unique and exclusive to pictorial art.”40 Greenberg argued that Modernism is a rejection of the pictorial illusionism of the Renaissance. The artist’s chief task is to create good, quality art; ‘art for art’s sake,’ while the critic’s role is to identify it.41 Criticism also should be self-referential; thereby, art criticism should only refer to what can be seen. For Greenberg, ‘kitsch’ or low quality art, ‘popular commercial art,’ with its range from movie posters, illustrations, comics, and tap dancing, is the adversary of Modernism.42 When kitsch is ‘elevated’ to display the accouterments of high art without confronting received ideas or taste, it is the worst form of kitsch.43 Thus, high art has to withdraw from popular culture. Greenberg condemned Pop Artists, such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as kitsch. In addition, Greenberg never supported the use of photography as art. In Artforum, Greenberg’s influence is polarizing. Writers such as Sidney Tillim, Rosalind Krauss, and Michael Fried were completely indebted to Greenberg. Looking back, Michael Fried wrote, “Greenberg was the only art critic we

Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting” in Sally Everett Ed, Art Theory And Criticism (Jefferson, NC: Macfarland, 1991), p.110 40 Ibid. 41 Irving Sandler, Art of the Postmodern Era: From The Late 1960s to The Early 1990s (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), p.2 42 Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”, in Sally Everett Ed, Art Theory And Criticism (Jefferson, NC: Macfarland, 1991), p.30 43 Ibid.

valued and wanted to read.”44 Philip Leider strongly inclined towards formalism, as evidenced by his support of Michael Fried. In March 1969, Leider devoted the entire issue to Fried’s doctoral essay on Manet. Writers, such as Harold Rosenberg and Leo Steinberg, were given less space in the magazine because they were strongly adverse to Greenberg’s dogmatism and his total rejection of art that was not formalist. In alignment to this thinking, Leider prioritized formalist artists. An unbalanced amount of covers between 1966 and 1970 were devoted to formalist artists. Between 1966 and 1970, three Artforum covers were devoted to Frank Stella. Covers also in these years were devoted to other formalist artists, such as Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Anthony Caro, and Morris Louis.45 Leider said of the covers of Artforum, “I would want to direct the reader’s attention to the most important thing in the magazine. As often as I could I would tie it to an article by Michael [Fried].”46 The influence of Greenbergian formalism is reflected by the purity of Artforum’s design in Leider’s years on the magazine, as well as the purity of the 1960s gallery space, as described by Brian O’Doherty in ‘Inside the White Cube.’ 47 An installation shot of Kenneth Noland’s work, displayed at Andre Emmerich Gallery,48 1967, included in ‘Inside the White Cube,’ shows his striped works on blank white walls, lit evenly by simple lights contained in a box with wooden floors and no windows. The space is therefore cut off from the outside world. O’Doherty describes the gallery space as “subtracting from the artwork all cues that interfere with 44

Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood, Essays and Reviews”, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), page 3 45 Gwen Allen, “From Specific Medium to Mass Media: The Art Magazine in the 1960s and Early 1970s” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2004), 44 46 Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p. 227 47 Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, (Los Angeles, CA: U of California Press, 1999) 48 Figure 3

the fact that it is art. Noland’s work is isolated by white walls from everything that would detract from its own evaluation of itself.”49 O’Doherty established the gallery space as an extremely controlled zone, purged of ornamentation, so that the art independently communicates meaning. The gallery space is uncluttered by superfluous detail, because within the gallery space each additional piece of ornamentation, whether it is as practical as a desk or a plug, changes the meaning of the artwork. In the installation shot of Andre Emmerich Gallery, the small rectangular air vents lining the top of the wall distract only slightly from Noland’s striped canvases. Noland’s works are displayed in the ‘middlezone’ of the wall, as this is where the spectator’s eye travel first, giving the canvases supreme authority in the white space. They are evenly spaced, separate, and self-reliant. Each work’s “effect is over before its neighbor’s picks up.”50 The context of each is not affected by the other paintings. Without context, the works exist outside of reality, outside of the world, and therefore outside of time. They are infinite and thereby timeless. The design of Artforum reflects the pureness of the gallery space in its pages, as the background of the pages in Artforum is always plain white, mimicking the walls of the gallery space. Images and texts are placed in the modules of the grid, with white space between them. The white page, like the white walls of a gallery, is devoid of meaning and connotation. The centralization of the text and images on the page highlights their value and importance. Just as works in a gallery space, each item on the page has individual meaning and can thereby be perceived as part of the whole. The light font, in its organized columns, spaced evenly in the modules of the grid, does not usurp 49

Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, (Los Angeles, CA: U of California Press, 1999), p.14 50 Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, (Los Angeles, CA: U of California Press, 1999), p.34

attention from the images. The images are often black-and-white, and do not appropriate meaning from the text. Emptiness falls between the images and texts on the page allow each enough room to have an effect before ‘the reader’s eye’ moves to the next item on the page. The design obviates unessential detail so that the criticism and images alone denote meaning. The bold title is generally freestanding, surrounded by blank space, reminiscent of the simplicity of the wall text in the 1960’s gallery. Each page is white and free of any detail that would divert attention from the images or text. Alone, the images and texts on a blank page, and just as done with gallery space, the purity of the design of the pages of Artforum creates a sense of timelessness. The design of the magazine evades context, thereby skirting the politics of the time. This is reflective of the self-containment and self-reliance of the gallery space, as well as of formalism. In the late sixties, politics in America were tumultuous. By December 1968, 30,500 Americans had died in the Vietnam War.51 College campuses were in an uproar. It was the final push of the Civil Rights Movement. Poverty was rife. In 1967, eight people had died in riots that took place in one over hundred cities.52 In 1968, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated. The members of Artforum’s staff were deeply entrenched in the national anxiety that pervaded this period. Amy Newman argues that formalism was a reaction to this anxiety, as it allowed them to rationalize their place in the world.53 Rosenblum states that formalism was ‘a laser beam of truth into the future and it had to be taken with the utmost sanctity.’ 54 Formalism was a method that critics felt they could trust. This accounts for the passion that formalism 51

Issues and debates: the late 1960s as a representative moment, from Modernism in Dispute, Art Since the Forties, p.93 52 Ibid. 53 Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p.9 54 Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p.172

was embarked upon. Rosenblum continues, “there was a sense that there was something evil or irrelevant as opposed to something that was good, beautiful and true…the flavor of a lot sixties writing is almost religious in character.”55 Philip Leider felt that the writing in the magazine was “ethical, even moralistic.”56 Formalism placed the writers of Artforum on a moral quest in search of truth and rationalization in a world that was filled with chaos. The rational simplicity of the layout of the magazine and its self-containment was yet another means of delivering this truth. The gallery space is designed to maintain “the integrity of the picture plane,” a term that was originally coined by Greenberg in reference to the flatness of the surface of the painting.57 O’Doherty in ‘Inside the White Cube’ emphasized that Late Modernist works, being easel works, cannot be fully transferable to the wall, and thereby the flatness of the picture plane is not fully achieved. They are hung without frames, which aids in the flatness, but the integrity of the picture plane is interrupted by “edges, surface the grain and bite of the canvas, the separation from the wall.” 58 The viewer is also starkly aware of the hanging of the paintings and thereby their transferability. Therefore, one of the problems of the gallery space is that Renaissance illusionism is not completely averted in late modernist paintings because of the separation between the canvas and the wall. In Artforum, images are reproduced directly onto the page, as to maintain the integrity of the picture plane. Photographs of straight-edged paintings are reproduced 55

Ibid. Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p.10 57 Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting” in Sally Everett Ed, Art Theory And Criticism (Jefferson, NC: Macfarland, 1991), p.116 58 Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, (Los Angeles, CA: U of California Press, 1999), p.25 56

most effectively, with only the surface of the painting being reproduced. The distance from the wall that exists in the gallery space is rendered obsolete, as the images do not include a frame or the edge of the canvas, yet the surface is printed directly onto the page. The reproductions maintain the relative dimensions of the original paintings, although to benefit the size of the page, they are reproduced much smaller. Often, they are printed in black-and-white, so that the details of the surface of the painting are much more noticeable and color, which Greenberg argues is theatrical, and does not detract from the embellishment of the surface of the canvas. Works that do not fit into a rectilinear box are generally photographed against plain backgrounds and then re-emerge in rectilinear boxes on the page. This obviates context from the works and allows them to exist almost directly on the page. The plane backgrounds, most commonly in white, blend into the white space of the page, and serve as an extended wall. In both cases, the image is permanently printed in place and cannot be separated from the blank space of the page. Thus, the flatness of the page supports the flatness of the work’s surface and removes the last shred of illusionism in a way that the sixties gallery space could not. The use of a grid in Artforum’s design mirrors its role to Modernism. In the sixties, a plethora of artists assimilated the grid into their artworks, including Agnes Martin, Ad Reinhardt, Jasper Johns, Robert Ryman, and Sol Le Witt. In Grids, Rosalind Krauss argues the grid is an invention of the modern era, with its intrinsic nature marked by Modernist ambition.59 She traces the origins of the Modern grid back to cubism, de Stijl and Mondrian, and Malevich. Krauss argues that the Modernist grid differs from the perspectival grid of the 15th and 16th centuries, as the Modernist grid is anti-natural, with 59

Rosalind Krauss, “Grids”, in Rosalind Krauss, in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), p. 8

its regularity as the product of an aesthetic diktat, as opposed to imitation of the real world. She emphasizes that the grid, when placed onto a canvas, highlights the materiality of the object on which the grid is placed. The grid is, therefore, a primarily formalist intervention, making the medium of the canvas refer to itself. Although the lines of the grid are not visible in Artforum, its presence underlines the design of the publication and is evidenced through the format of the page. The grid is a recurring symbol of Modernism, and thus the grid in Artforum gives the magazine a ‘Modern feel.’ As a monthly publication, Artforum’s aim was to deliver an account of issues in art that were prominent for that particular month. Articles in Artforum had to be up-to-date and current. Even when writing about art of the past, there had to be a sense of relevancy. For example, the October 1971 issue of Artforum was dedicated to Pablo Picasso in celebration of the artist’s 90th birthday. Just as a grid in an artwork makes the artwork refer to its medium, the grid in the pages of Artforum draws attention to the layout of its pages in the magazine. The reader can easily recognize that items on the page are placed on a grid. The clarity of the layout of the page connotes formalist ideology. Fried, in Art and Objecthood, refers to the imperative ‘legibility’ of modern art.60 This word is significant, as it insists upon immediate accessibility, subjugating the need for context. The articles in Artforum offer a full account of the work being described. The information needed to understand art of the 1960’s is presented in a clear and legible manner inside the pages of the magazine. In Artforum, images are located close to the text, yet kept distinctly separate from the text. By including reproductions of the artists’ work into 60

Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood”, in Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews (Chicago: U of Chicago, 1998), p.148

formalist arguments, all the evidence is provided in the page, as formalism is only concerned with de-contextualized visual evidence drawn upon what can be seen in the artwork. Readers are encouraged to read the essays, and then validate their truths, by looking at the reproductions of the artworks in the magazine. Krauss states that Greenberg’s approach was refreshing because the article “was limited to what was on the page so that any reader who was at all competent could check what you were saying about the work.” 61 In November 1966, ‘Shape and Form: Frank Stella’s Irregular Polygon,’62 Michael Fried heralds ‘opticality’ above all else in the painting. The writing focuses entirely on the visible. As Frank Stella famously said of his work, “what you see is what you see.”63 Michael Fried argued that the shape of Stella’s canvases delineates the shape of his canvas. For example, describing Stella’s aluminum stripe paintings of the sixties, Fried states, “2½-inch wide stripes begin at the framing edge and reiterate the shape of that edge until the entire picture is filled.” By looking at the high quality reproduction of Union Pacific, 1960,64 placed in conjunction with this text, readers can immediately see the actuality of this statement. The preciseness of Fried’s argument encourages this act of looking back and forth between the work and the accompanying words of the essay.65 His use of the present tense creates a sense of immediacy that also promotes this form of ‘looking back and forth.’ The simplicity of Artforum’s design aids the simplicity of this act.

Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p.77 “Frank Stella’s New Paintings”, Artforum, V. V (November 1966), pp.18-27 63 Bruce Glaser, “Questions to Stella and Judd”, in Minimalist Art, ed. Gregory Battcock (New York, NY: Dutton, 1968), p.158 64 Frank Stella, Union Pacific, 1960, aluminium paint on canvas, 77x154 inches. 65 Gwen Allen, “From Specific Medium to Mass Media: The Art Magazine in the 1960s and Early 1970s” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2004), p.55 62

The format of Artforum is based on the minimal ‘International Typographic Style,’ which allows for legibility on the pages. James Roberson appropriated the use of the grid and a ‘sans serif’ font from the International Typographic Style. This style, also known as the Swiss Style, developed in Switzerland during in the 1960’s. The grid allows for the simplicity and tabulation, laying out the items of the page, and leaving room for blank spaces in between them. The ‘sans serif’ font is also devoid of extraneous ‘serifs,’ allowing only the necessary in the text. As a prime authority on art, legibility in Artforum was also a moral objective, as it allowed readers the chance to comprehend arguments and form their own opinions. Fried concludes Art and Objecthood with the phrase, “Presentness is grace.” The religious connation in this phrase associates formalism with a moral imperative for ‘legibility.’ Leider said, “In many ways I accepted [the] position that to some degree if the culture went sour, it was going to be our fault…if you didn’t hold this line, then you were going to be in some part responsible for the collapse of the culture.” Rosenberg wrote in 1965, “Art education of the public through the mass media offers the Establishment a virtually unlimited field for colonization.”66 Because of this formalist approach by reading Artforum, the public could gain a comprehensive, critical understanding of art at the time. Leider was reluctant though, to only publish formalist criticism and art, including other strains of argument, as he wanted to give readers an understanding of all arguments and thereby, allowing them to formulate their own opinions.

Barbara Rose, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times, NY, 03 January 1993, p.1

In 1967, there was a radical break with Greenberg, which left many of the editors of the magazine sour. 67 This, too, marked the beginning to the decline of Greenberg’s legacy.68 This was most evidenced in the Summer 1967, Special Sculpture Issue, which pays close attention to those commonly ignored movements, ‘Land Art’ and ‘Conceptual Art,’ and includes the seminal essay Art and Objecthood. Smithson’s Towards the development of an air terminal site reiterates the ideas of Land Art. LeWitt argues in favor of conceptual art, arguing that, “the idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product.”69 Leider later admitted that while he detested LeWitt’s work, he nonetheless included it in this issue anyhow because, “there was a part of the New York art world that admired this guy…The magazine was called ‘forum’ for a very good reason.”70 Even when other movements are written about in the early years of Artforum, the format of the page does not vary. Sol LeWitt’s Paragraphs on Conceptual Art71 is included in the same issue as Art and Objecthood. Theoretically, conceptualism is an antithesis to formalism. While conceptualism focuses on ‘Art as Idea,’ formalism focuses on ‘Art for Art’s Sake.’ Hence, it is of great surprise that the format should remain the same. This could be because anti-formalism in the magazine served only the purpose of acting as a counterpoint to formalism. Due to a moral objective for legibility, all arguments are included in the magazine, though formalism is prioritized, as evidenced

John Coplans, “Interview with John Coplans”, Interview by Paul Cummings, Oral Histories, 4 April 1975 68 need some sort of reference, might have to be newman 69 Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum, V.V, no. 10 (Summer, 1967), pp.79-83 70 Amy Newman. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974 (New York, NY: Soho, 2000), p.157 71 Artforum, V.V, no. 10 (Summer, 1967)

from the magazine’s design. Although other concepts are included in the magazine, the purity of formalism is maintained through the purity of the design. Although advertisements were, for the most part promotional, on occasion artists used advertisements during Leider’s years to mock the ideas presented in the magazine. For example, in ‘Ed Ruscha says Goodbye to College Joys,’ 72 Ruscha depicts himself as a Hollywood youth, poking fun at the seriousness of Artforum and the art world at large. The advertisement was made only one week before he married Danna Knogo and it parodies sexploitation advertisements, such as those of Russ Meyer movies, which commonly hinted at the ‘ménage à trois.’73 The caption associates Ruscha with college youth, presumed to be at the forefront of the sexual revolution. While Ruscha maintains a pure aesthetic in the design of the magazine as Head of Production, he was primarily a conceptual artist and thus, this 1967 advertisement defies many formalist ideas. With its image, the work deliberately differs from other Artforum advertisements that were generally text-based and promotional. The tawdry ornamentation, namely the embellished lamps and the replica classical sculpture and freeze, contrast with the purity of the design of the magazine. Their ugliness mocks existing ideas of ‘good taste.’ The use of photography defies formalist ideology, as it was considered mass media and not a legitimate form of art-making. Used as a medium for art, Ruscha’s use of the magazine as further exhibits his affiliation with conceptual art, as does his usage of text in the work. The difference between the ideal gallery space and the magazine is that in the former, there is no criticism of the walls, it can be assumed that spectators had in their minds the theories surrounding the works, while in the latter, criticism and text are 72

Ed Ruscha, “Ed Ruscha Says Goodbye to College Joys,” 1967. gelatin silver print Cécile Whiting, Pop L.A.: Art and the City in the 1960s (Berkeley, CA: U of California Press, 2006), p.67 73

arranged alongside images. In 1975, when writing about Modernist painting, Tom Wolfe stated, “these days, without a theory to go with it, I can't see a painting.”74 Wolfe continues on, “Modern Art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.”75 Irony is laced in this statement, emphasizing the extensive authority that criticism had on the gallery-goer of the sixties. W.J.T. Mitchell argues in Ut Pictora Theoria: Abstract Art and Language that abstract art’s absence of signage, symbolism, and literature in the painting, all encourage critics to compensate for this absence.76 The difference is not that the sixties gallery space is free of criticism, but rather that the close bond between criticism and Modern art is hidden in the gallery space, and thus, explicitly revealed in the art magazine. Context: John Coplans John Baldessari’s This is Not to Be Seen, 1974, highlights two of the main themes that occurred in the early 1970’s in Artforum. The work appropriates the November 1966 cover of Artforum into an artwork. The 1966 cover of Artforum containing Union III by Stella placed at the center of the canvas. Union III spreads out across the blank page. Its simple, geometric form, as well as color scheme, strongly indicates the magazine’s preference for formalism. Below the image of the cover are the words, “This is not to be seen.” The text in Baldessari’s work has double connotation. By 1974, the magazine was heavily image-based. Baldessari highlighted this fact of the magazine existing for the viewing of images, rather than the reading of words. This is a conceptual work by a conceptual artist, and thus, the work exudes a double connotation of arguing that 74

Tom Wolfe, “The Painted Word” (Toronto, ON: McGraw Hill Ryerson Ltd), p.7 Tom Wolfe, “The Painted Word” (Toronto, ON: McGraw Hill Ryerson Ltd), p.1 76 W. J. T. Mitchell, “Ut Pictora Theoria”, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: U of Chicago, 1994), pp.209-239 75

artworks are not just to be seen, as the formalist doctrine contends, but rather that the idea is more important than what is visual. In 1967, Lucy Lippard and John Chandler coined the term the ‘dematerialization’ of art.77 Conceptual art broke away from the formalist insistence on ‘art as art,’ moving towards the concept of ‘art as idea.’ This shift meant that, art no longer had to be visual, and as such, art no longer had to exist exclusively on the canvas. This rendered the art object obsolete. Lippard states, “Conceptual art for me means work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious and/or ‘dematerialized.’” 78 Lippard and Chandler emphasized that the obsession with the physical process of the artist making the object was in a decline and that the artist’s studio was becoming nothing more than a study, as work is designed in the studio, yet executed elsewhere. Art works became radically different to the works of the formalists. The ‘dematerialization’ of art meant that works no longer had to be created with the gallery space in mind. Thus, the authority of the gallery space began to wane. In October 1972, Robert Smithson’s ‘Cultural Confinement’ described some of the issues of the gallery space. He argued that the gallery confines artists, as they can only produce works that fit into the gallery space, as well of the curator’s will. He refers to galleries as “cells,” like those in asylums and prisons, and art in those cells as “neutralized, ineffective, abstracted, safe, and politically lobotomized…All is reduced to visual fodder

Lucy Lippard and John Chandler, “The Dematerialization of Art”, Art International (February 1968), pp.30-36 78 Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (New York, NY: Praeger, 1973), p.x

and transportable merchandize.”79 He criticizes the ‘curator-wardens,’ passing judgment on works only after they have been neutralized. He argues that the artists’ processes lack freedom in the confines of the gallery space and it would therefore be better “to disclose the confinement rather than make illusions of the freedom.”80 Smithson shows frustration with the rigidity of the rules of the white-cube gallery space. Under Coplans, the organization of the pages of Artforum became less rigid, and thus compromising the purity of the pages. The pages became less obsessively symmetrical, as images were reproduced in a variety of sizes, and in some cases overlapped each other. Images were no longer spaced evenly, as they sometimes overlapped. Images were no longer solely contained in boxes, and were thus free to sprawl across the page. Text and images were less distinctly separate, as images interrupted the columns of text, and text entered into images. The decline of symmetry compromised the rigidity of the grid structure that had been maintained since the 1960s in Artforum. In its early years, Artforum was based upon a gallery’s space. Its inflexible layout echoed the strict formatting rules confined within a gallery space. Though, the design of the magazine became less strict with the waning authority of the 1960’s gallery. Works became increasingly anti-institutional and artists began to use with greater frequency cheap, temporal mediums that could be easily distributed to wide audiences. Artists sought out everyday media, relying heavily on documents, such as photographs.81 This is evidenced in the artist’s book, which became regular at around the same time. Ed Ruscha’s artworks during the 1960’s and 1970’s are strong examples of this type of work. In 1965, when speaking upon his books, Ruscha 79

Robert Smithson, “Cultural Confinement,” Artforum, V. XI, No. 2 (October, 1972), p.32 Robert Smithson, “Cultural Confinement,” Artforum, V. XI, No. 2 (October, 1972), p.32 81 Gwen Allen, Artist’s Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011), p.1 80

says, “my pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of 'facts', my book is more like a collection of ready-mades.”82 His books include Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations, in which Ruscha reproduced 26 photographs of gas stations next to text that refer to their location, as well as their brand. The book lifts the gas stations to the status of an art object for observation and visual recording. An invention that appears in these books is the visual essay. Ruscha notes that he has eliminated text from his books,83 leaving the images to denote meaning. Artist’s books were distributed by artist-run bookstores, such as Printed Matter in New York. Hence, the printed page became a substitute exhibition space for conceptual art. With the inception of this type of media, such as the artist’s book and visual essays, the role of artworks in the magazine shifted. The magazine became increasingly recognized, not only as a place for the reproduction of artworks in print, but also as an acceptable place where artworks could exclusively reside and exist. In The Artist’s Magazine: An Alternative Space for Art, Gwen Allen emphasizes the role of the magazine as an alternative space for the exhibition of dematerialized artworks.84 During the Summer 1970, Studio International Magazine devoted an entire issue to an exhibition. The curator, Seth Siegelaub, selected six critics and offered them each eight pages of the magazine to give to artists. Critics were then asked to use the magazine as a gallery space.85 Artists began to use the magazine as a medium and created works for the mass-produced pages. Joseph Kossuth, a conceptual artist, joked, “People can wrap

Interview, Artforum, 1965 Interview, Artforum, February, 1965 84 Gwen Allen, Artist’s Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011), p.1 85 Jo Melvin, “Late at Tate: Jo Melvin”, Lecture (Tate Modern Museum, London), 10 July 2008 83

dishes in my work,” 86 emphasizing the lack of perceived monetary value of such artworks, while noting the ability for its mass dissemination. Artists used the magazine to circumvent dealers, thereby reaching mass audiences with their work, and at a low cost. Such works as Lynda Benglis’ 1974 advertisement in Artforum showed the increasingly use of pages in the magazine for artist’s projects. While Ruscha used the advertisement space to poke fun at the art institutions, Lynda Benglis uses the advertisement space to promote feminism. Benglis’ advert was made in response to an image of a macho man in chains created as an advertisement for a show of Robert Morris’ work at Castelli-Sonnabend Gallery. During Leider’s years at Artforum politics had been briskly brushed away by formalism. During Coplans’ years politics were paramount in the magazine, and this included women’s rights. Between 1971 and 1975, articles included, ‘Feminism in the Arts: An Interim Bibliography’, ‘Women Choose Women’ and ‘The First Festival of Women’s Films’. For this work, Benglis utilized the magazine to produce an artwork. 87 It is significant to note that the works of a photograph, as photographs are a printed medium, when printed in the magazine, enter the dual position of original and reproduction. For example, Diane Arbus’ Girl in A Shiny Dress was not printed as an art object until years after it appeared in the magazine.88 Thus, in a sense, the photograph in Artforum is the original. With the frustration of the gallery space came the birth of ‘land art.’ A work of art that is site-specific vastly undermines the transportability of the traditional easel piece. Land art works cannot be neither be moved, nor placed in galleries, and thus resist the 86

Joseph Kosuth, “Second Investigation”, 1968 Lynda Benglis. Advertisement, November 1974, Artforum, V. VIII, No. 3 88 Hollis Frampton, “Incisions in History / Segments of Eternity”, Artforum, V. 13, No. 2 (October 1974), p.49 87

‘cultural confinement’ that Robert Smithson so criticizes. 89 Though artists, such as Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, have created land art in remote locations, it was not always possible for the public to see these works of art. Fortunately, for the public, it was in the pages of magazines, such as Artforum, that the public was made aware of such works. For example, Philip Leider’s ‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation,’90 describes indepth and detail Heizer’s ‘Double Negative’ and Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty’. Both works take place in Utah, in locations virtually inaccessible to the public, but could be ‘bought’ to a wider audience through the pages of the magazine. It is therefore, not surprising, that photographs of land art works are commonly given the privilege of color in the magazine. Formalism averted context and maintained purity in its design. The page was selfreliant and self-contained. With conceptual art, and its escape from the ‘cultural confinement’ that Robert Smithson described, 91 artists included context into their artworks, also infusing the politics of the time. Lippard argues that ‘ultra conceptual’ art emerged from two directions, “art as idea and art as action.”92 1971’s ‘Art and Politics Symposium,’93 marked the beginning of the entry of politics into the magazine. In this article, artists were asked if they thought politics should enter into art, which yielded mixed responses. Some artists were passionately enthusiastic to see the entry of politics into art, while others were much more critical and adverse to it. The cover of the February 1975 issue of Artforum is strongly symbolic of this emerging linkage between art and politics. In this issue, the contents of the magazine are printed in text on the cover 89

Robert Smithson, “Cultural Confinement,” Artforum, V. XI, No. 2 (October, 1972), p.32 Philip Leider, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation, or Art and Politics in Nevada, Berkeley, San Francisco and Utah.”Artforum 9, no. 1 (September 1970), p. 40–9. 91 Robert Smithson, “Cultural Confinement,” Artforum, V. XI, No. 2 (October, 1972), p.32 92 Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (New York, NY: Praeger, 1973), p.x 93 “The Artist and Politics: A Symposium”, Artforum IX, no. 1 (September, 1971), p.39 90

of the issue. The contents includes an article on “Pasadena’s Collapse and the Simon Takeover” by John Coplans, where Coplans holds trustees liable for the fate of museums, and “Three Museums and Unionization” by Lawrence Alloway. By placing these issues on the cover, their political importance is highlighted. The reproduction of the contents page on the front of the magazine also undermines the rigidity of the magazine structure. This emerging inclusion of politics into art heavily influenced the undermining power structures in the art world of the museums and the galleries, as artists aimed to move away from, not towards, these power structures. Thus, politics in art led to a distancing from the white-cubed gallery space, with artists finding new ways to display their art. Thereby, the pages of Artforum resulted in an undermining of the stringent format of the magazine, as is evidenced by the 1975 cover. In Towards Postmodernism, Rosalind Krauss argues that seventies art “is diversified, split, factionalized. Unlike art of the last several decades, its energy does not seem to flow through a single channel for which a synthetic term, like AbstractExpressionism or Minimalism may be found.” Krauss’ argument highlights that art is no longer predicated upon criticism. Lippard states, “For me conceptual art offered a bridge between the verbal and the visual.”94 Art became less focused on aesthetics and more on the idea, and with that came the introduction of language into the art object. Language in art is, both, verbal and non-verbal. The ideas of the ‘Linguistic Turn’ began to take hold, and artists started to understand visual images as a different sort of linguistic sign. Art was no longer separate from its theories and ideas; the ideas were manifested in the art object. In Artforum, this change resulted in the flowing together of word and image. 94

Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (New York, NY: Praeger, 1973), p.x

In the seventies, there was pluralism in art, which brought with it expansion in the mediums of art. In Towards Postmodernism, Krauss highlights that art grew to include “video; performance; body art; conceptual art; photo-realism in painting and an associated hyper-realism in sculpture; story art; monumental abstract works (earthworks); and abstract painting.” Krauss attributes this pluralism to freedom in the absence of a collective style.95 The list of options for artists emphasized the artist’s freedom from ‘cultural confinement.’96 Because all art objects can be understood as linguistic signs, as Krauss demonstrates in this essay, all mediums purvey meaning in different ways, each one being valid. The layout of Artforum was forced to change in order to house new media. Documentation of artists’ performances was included in the magazine. Film had to be accounted for. Photography had become increasingly common in the magazine. There was diversification in the types of paintings included in the magazine. Thus, the format of Artforum had to diversify in order to accommodate images of all the new media to fit in its pages. Thus, the rectilinear frame became less substantial, thus allowing for media that did not fit neatly into a box, such as film reels. The rigidity of the page was changed by the influx of new, varying types of media. Conclusion Between 1966 and 1976, the design of Artforum reflected the design of the gallery space and the change in relation to the gallery space that occurs during those years. With the intense devotion to the formalism of the sixties, this gallery space was predicated on purity, legibility, orderliness, self-reliance, and self-containment. The design of the 95

Rosalind Krauss, “Towards Postmodernism, Notes on the Index, Part 1”, in Rosalind Krauss, in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), p.196-197 96 Robert Smithson, “Cultural Confinement,” Artforum, V. XI, No. 2 (October, 1972), p.32

magazine reflected the layout of the gallery space, and the ideas of the magazine were predicated upon artists’ relationship to the gallery space. With the advent of conceptualism, artists began to work against the confines of the gallery space and created work that undermined the white-cubed gallery space’s function, and subsequently that of authority. Artists no longer needed the gallery space to exhibit their work, thus freeing themselves of the ‘cultural confines’ of the gallery’s walls. The design of Artforum reflects this change in the destabilization of the purity and strictness in the format. Thus, the changing relationship of the gallery space, which is indicative of an ideological shift from formalism, is echoed by the design of the magazine.

Figure 1: Samples of text: after redesign from 1967*

* Misalignment due to reproduction

Figure 2: Artforum Logo:

Figure 3 Installation photograph, Kenneth Noland at Andre Emmerich Gallery, 1967

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York: Praeger, 1973. Print. Kramer, Hilton. "Muddled Marxism Replaces Criticism at Artforum." New York Times [New York] 21 Sept. 1975: 41. Print. Krauss, Rosalind E. The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1985. Print. Melvin, Jo. "Late At Tate: Jo Melvin." Late At Tate: Jo Melvin. Tate Modern, London. 10 July 2008. Lecture. Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1994. Print. Newman, Amy. Challenging Art: Artforum, 1962-1974. New York, NY: Soho, 2000. Print. O'Doherty, Brian. Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space. Berkeley: U of California, 1999. Print. Ratcliff, Carter. Out of the Box: The Reinvention of Art, 1965-1975. New York: Allworth, 2000. Print. Tondreau, Beth. Layout Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Using Grids. Beverly, MA: Rockport, 2009. Print. Whiteley, Nigel. Art and Pluralism: Lawrence Alloway's Cultural Criticism. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2012. Print. Whiting, CĂŠcile. Pop L.A.: Art and the City in the 1960s. Berkeley: U of California, 2006. Print. Wood, Paul, ed. Modernism in Dispute: Art since the Forties. New Haven: Yale UP, in Association with the Open U, London, 1993. Print.