Art-Rite

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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. Looking at this device, which applies the principles of Rockburne’s work in folded paper to turning the issue into a mass-produced multiple, you may not realize at first that it also rephrases the notion of a cover: To make it function, the magazine’s first spread—the inside cover on the left and the facing page on the right—must be blank, since the folded-over outer cover lays them bare, including them in the work. But since the magazine deAk and Robinson published and edited, and wrote and designed and typeset and distributed, out of their downtown-Manhattan lofts between 1973 and 1978 was so open, democratic, and fresh-faced, they may think the parallel fine, or at least poetic justice: They and a third editor, Joshua Cohn, staged an exhilarating deconstruction (if an exhilarating deconstruction isn’t a contradiction in terms) not only of art but of art writing, so they must take what they get. Art-Rite apparently began with a gesture at economic contingency: Issues 2 and 3 say “35 cents” on the cover. A lot of readers, I would guess, may snort, “Oh, sure”—but the remark rings true to my sense of Edit’s character.

dated summer 1974, Dorothea Rockburne had the staff (deAk, Robinson, and Cohn, that is) fold the bottom right-hand corner of every cover upward on a diagonal to divide a large, delicately outlined, but otherwise blank square into a pair of triangles. The role gave him familiarity with typesetting, layout and getting a publication to press, as well as unsupervised use of equipment and borrowed type. As a project, Art-Rite felt collectively summoned and populist, privileging the work and perspectives of artists themselves, and bringing an insider’s view to an emergent downtown arts culture of the mid-70s. We felt none of us knew anything alone, but maybe the three of us together had a better chance of knowing something.

have just released Art-Rite, a facsimile edition featuring all 20 issues of the trailblazing magazine that operated from 1973–1978. Within this space, the possibility exists for the next generation to produce a revolutionary new publication to examine the art world, which has had its own radical transformation worth examining in detail. Hoffberg, Douglas Huebler, Allan Kaprow, Richard Kostelanetz, Sharon Kulik, Robert Leverant, Sol LeWitt, Lucy Lippard, Christof Kohlhofer, Jane Logemann, Paul McMahon, Robert Morgan, Maurizio Nannucci, Rochard Nonas, Adrian Piper, Lucio Pozzi, Marcia Resnick, The Roseprint Detective Club, Carolee Schneemann, John Shaw, Bob Smith, Pat Steir, Ellen Sragow, Ted Stamm, Peter Stansbury, Richard Tuttle, Fred Truck, Lawrence Weiner, Robin Winters, Rachel Youdelman, John Howell, David Salle, Al More, Rosalle Goldberg, Lawrence Alloway, Peggy Gale, A.

DeAk, Robinson, and Cohn met in 1972 in an art criticism class taught by Brian O'Doherty at Barnard College in New York.As for the intellectual process, “I would go meet [Robinson and Cohn] in these informal sessions that might be an evening or might be two days, day and night. In this and the next two issues that year, these lists included Vito Acconci, Lawrence Alloway, Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, Richard Armstrong, Rudolf Baranik, Gregory Battcock, David Bourdon, AA Bronson, Trisha Brown, Scott Burton, Lucinda Childs, Colette, Diego Cortez, Jeffrey Deitch, Richard Foreman, Hans Haacke, Alanna Heiss, Rebecca Horn, Neil Jenney, Bill Jensen, Jill Johnston, Joan Jonas, Lucy Lippard, Mabou Mines, Brice Marden, Annette Michelson, Elizabeth Murray, Steve Paxton, Robert Pincus-Witten, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Judy Rifka, Susan Rothenberg, Irving Sandler, Julian Schnabel (in 1975 Schnabel was twenty-four, and probably still working as a burger cook), Carolee Schneemann, Joan Simon, Jack Smith, Patti Smith, Holly Solomon, Nancy Spero, Alan Suicide, John Torreano, Hannah Wilke, Robert Wilson, Robin Winters, and many others both less and equally well known.