Art-Rite

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Meanwhile, artist-focused issues gave over the entire space to the work of individuals or collectives such as Demi, Image Bank, Kim MacConnel, Rosemary Mayer, Judy Rifka, Alan Vega (of the band Suicide), and the Vancouver-based group Western Front.

While SoHo and TriBeCa had previously served as a hub for the activity by Fluxus artists who staged performances and events in lofts and galleries, beginning in the early 70s a new wave of artists began to see the possibilities of the affordable, vacant properties which offered enough room for live/work studio spaces.Vito Acconci, Kathy Acker, Bas Jan Ader, Laurie Anderson, John Baldessari, Gregory Battcock, Lynda Benglis, Mel Bochner, Marcel Broodthaers, Trisha Brown, Chris Burden, Scott Burton, Ulises Carri? The cover artists were usually from an older generation than the editors or already had at least some reputation. A good deal of thought went into images, so that the issue is virtually a compendium of decisions on how to represent a book visually—whether to show the cover, or individual pages, or individual images cropped from their pages, or perhaps the book as an object, held open by somebody’s hands, which in deAk’s case might also hold a cigarette. I never quite saw them as students because they were pretty well grown up—the personalities were very rich.

With a sharp editorial vision, fanzine ethos, and proto-punk aesthetic, the magazine presented up-close coverage of the art world that was at once critical, humorous, and deeply knowledgeable, avoiding the formal tone and self-seriousness that characterized other art publications of the time. Edited by Walter Robinson , Edit DeAk , and Joshua Cohn , Art-Rite was published in New York City between 1973 and 1978.DeAk and Robinson commissioned Ruscha, she remembers, when they were vacationing in France; they doubted he had ever heard of them, but she felt that if they drove all night to Saint-Tropez, bought a tourist postcard there, and sent it to him with a Saint-Tropez postmark—“Hi Ed! Perfectly positioned between the underground and the establishment, the magazine featured artists who became defining voices of the era, including Laurie Anderson, Chris Burden, Genesis P-Orridge, Patti Smith, and Gordon Matta-Clark. Edited and published by Joshua Cohn, Edit DeAk, and Walter Robinson between 1973 and 1978 (Cohn would leave after issue 7), Art-Rite moved easily through the expansive community of post-conceptual, post-minimalist, performance, and video artists that made up New York’s vibrant downtown arts scene.

The magazine was famous for its covers, which were always by artists, William Wegman contributing an oh-so-smart and funny drawing for no. A. Bronson, Naomi Spector, Eve Sonneman, Irena von Zahn, Peter Frank,Kickboy Face, Robert Morgan, Jack Smith, John McCracken, Dick Miller, Peter Plagens, Randall Warnier, Richard Armstrong, Laurie Anderson, Clare Spark, and others. Through hundreds of interviews, reviews, statements, and projects for the page—as well as artist-focused and thematic issues on video, painting, performance, and artists’ books—Art-Rite’s sharp editorial vision and commitment to spotlighting the work of artists stands as a meaningful and lasting contribution to the art history of New York City and beyond. DeAk has had various health- and life-related problems and by her own account has been “out of the picture for years. Throughout the strikingly laid-out pages are hallmarks of Vega’s personal aesthetics, including images of horse racing, Iggy Pop, Elvis, and Ghost Rider, filtered through a lens of sexuality, Americana, and Catholicism.

dated spring 1975, Art-Rite had begun a phase of opening its issues with a list headed “By, with, and about,” or “By, for, about, and thanks to,” reflecting the braided relationship between the editors and their audience. While the streets gave birth to graffiti, punk, and hip hop, the art world soon found itself in the throes of revolution. Among Art-Rite’s most ambitious projects were four thematic issues that offered roving investigations into ascendant art practices of the mid-1970s. The design featured black line drawings of three roses, hand-stamped with ink in yellow, red and blue. But no matter what subject a young publisher may choose to cover, there is nothing quite so pure and romantic as one’s first foray into the creative world with its wonderful mélange of innocence, idealism, inexperience, and pluck.

Walter joked about the time-intensive experience, “You know, you didn’t really have anything [else] to do anyway.The magazine falls into three sections: an “Idea Poll” in which forty-five artists and other interested parties, from Kathy Acker to Sol LeWitt, Adrian Piper to Richard Tuttle, answer the same general question on the subject; a “Thematic Anthology” in which artists’ books are sorted into genres, for example “British Pastoral,” “Not Photography (photography),” “Luscious Color”; and then a “Features and Reviews” section of signed articles on the medium. Inside, it featured an “Idea Poll” that asked the same topical question to 45 contemporary artists ranging from Kathy Acker to Adrian Piper; a “Thematic Anthology” spotlighting artists’ books; “Features and Reviews,” delving into the issue’s theme; and interviews with art critics including feminist Lucy Lippard and art historian Leo Steinberg. The magazine had a different purpose, sociable, sharp, in touch; its strengths were collective and magpie, not the magisterial grand récit but the agglomerative ground-level view.