Artforum

Artforum
Cauleen Smith · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Title	Artforum
Category	Contemporary art
Frequency	Monthly
Firstdate	1962
Country	United States
Based	New York City
Language	English

Artforum Artforum is a monthly international magazine focused on contemporary art criticism, visual art, and related cultural discourse. Founded in 1962, the publication has engaged debates involving artists, curators, museums, galleries, collectors, and critics from centers such as New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Berlin. Over decades it has intersected with movements like Minimalism, Pop art, Conceptual art, Performance art, and Feminist art, while covering exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

History

Founded in 1962 by a group in San Francisco associated with galleries such as Dwan Gallery and figures around Donald Judd and Robert Rauschenberg, the magazine quickly relocated to New York City during the rise of Abstract Expressionism's legacy and the emergence of Pop art and Minimalism. In the 1960s and 1970s contributors documented exhibitions at venues like Carl Andre-linked spaces, chronicled debates around Green Gallery, and featured writing on artists including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, and Richard Serra. Through the 1980s and 1990s the magazine covered the institutional expansion of museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the internationalization of biennials including the Venice Biennale, Documenta, and Biennale di Venezia.

Editorial Direction and Contributors

Editorial leadership has included figures tied to directories and institutions such as editors who previously worked with The New York Times, New Yorker, and galleries like Gagosian Gallery. Regular contributors and critics have included writers associated with academic centers such as Columbia University, New York University, University of California, Los Angeles, and Goldsmiths, University of London. Prominent columnists and essayists have engaged with artists such as Cindy Sherman, Marina Abramović, Gerhard Richter, Yayoi Kusama, and Ai Weiwei, and curators from MoMA PS1, Serpentine Galleries, Haus der Kunst, and Fondation Cartier. The magazine’s roster has encompassed critics who also published in Art in America, Frieze, Artnews, and Flash Art.

Content and Features

The magazine features long-form criticism, reviews of exhibitions at institutions like Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, interviews with practitioners such as Lucy Lippard and Hans Haacke, and photo essays documenting shows at galleries like David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth. Regular sections have covered market developments involving auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, surveys of biennials including São Paulo Art Biennial and Sharjah Biennial, and thematic dossiers on movements including Dada, Surrealism, and Fluxus. Features often analyze retrospectives of major artists—Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Paul Cézanne—and profile institutional leaders such as directors of Tate Modern or Louvre-affiliated curatorial teams.

Design and Publication

Known for its square format and distinctive typography, the magazine’s design history intersects with contributors from graphic studios akin to Pentagram and designers influenced by Swiss Style and Bauhaus pedagogy. Photography and reproduction standards have showcased work by photographers linked to exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art and independent picture agencies that archive prints of artists like Man Ray and Diane Arbus. Its distribution networks connect with bookstores and academic libraries at Pratt Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, and Yale University School of Art, and subscriptions circulate among collectors, curators, and university departments such as Art History programs at Harvard University and University of Oxford.

Reception and Influence

The magazine has been cited in scholarship appearing in journals tied to institutions like Getty Research Institute and referenced in monographs published by presses such as Phaidon Press and Tate Publishing. Its criticism has shaped careers of artists represented by galleries including Hauser & Wirth, Gagosian Gallery, White Cube, and Luhring Augustine, and its reviews have affected programming at institutions like Brooklyn Museum and New Museum. Scholars from Smithsonian Institution and curators participating in conferences at International Council of Museums have referenced its essays when discussing curatorial practice, canon formation, and exhibition histories at events like Symposium on Contemporary Art.

Controversies and Criticism

Over time the magazine has been at the center of debates concerning representation, editorial bias, and labor issues involving staff associated with unions such as NewsGuild and contract negotiations similar to disputes at publications like The New Yorker. Critics have scrutinized its coverage for perceived regionalism favoring centers like New York City and London, and for choices of reviewers connected to galleries such as Gagosian Gallery and collectors influential at fairs including Art Basel and Frieze Art Fair. Coverage decisions have sparked public debates involving figures associated with #MeToo-era reckonings in the arts, institutional responses from museums including Tate Modern and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and legal disputes in cases akin to libel suits in cultural journalism.

Category:Art magazines