In volume six, critic and artist Ronald Jones, who had published his first article on Southeastern media artist Chris Robinson the previous year, contributed notes on recent European painting that, along with interviews with Marcia Tucker, Chuck Close (see photo), and Allen Ginsberg, made it clearer than ever that the magazine was interested in more than the Atlanta scene. On the other hand, a story on the importance of DB Records within alternative music also made it clear that nationally significant institutions in the magazineâs home town would not be ignored. Tom Pattersonâs essay on Nexus (now the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center) inaugurated a six-part survey of Southeastern artistâs spaces, and a story on Alternate ROOTS (Regional Organization of Theatres South) reaffirmed regional connections. Features on ãDance in Atlantaä and an obituary of folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe reflected a continuing determination to cover all the art forms of the local scene. Anthony DeCurtis, who was already writing for Rolling Stone, reported on the first local fallout of the culture wars, the resignation of the Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs director in the wake of the ãArt for the Peopleâs Sakeä film and performance festival.

An ongoing interest in architecture was reflected in volume seven by articles on new museums in the Southeast, including Richard Meierâs freshly completed building for Atlantaâs High Museum of Art and projected new homes for the Georgia Museum of Art and North Carolina Museum of Art, as well as by an interview with Michael Graves-who was then designing Emory Universityâs new museum of art and archaeology, todayâs Michael C. Carlos Museum-on the topic of regional universals. While an interview with John Baldessari reflected the magazineâs interest in conceptually oriented art, a range of other styles and media were covered, including a major section on crafts in the Southeast and a survey of Lucinda Bunnenâs gift of a major photography collection to the High Museum. A special issue funded by LINE Inc. allowed five curators to produce an experimental mixture of essays and artistsâ pages, including Michael Siedeâs cover (see photo). A story on music legend Bruce Hampton rounded out the yearâs eclectic mix.

Editor Laura Lieberman bade farewell to the magazine with an issue featuring an ironic study by Douglas DeLoach of the art of sports artist Leroy Neiman, alongside more characteristic contributions from activist critic Lucy Lippard, Fluxus legend Dick Higgins, and newly arrived Nexus curator Alan Sondheim. New Editor Xenia Zed arrived with an interview with video artist Dara Birnbaum, and coverage of the First Atlanta Biennale at Nexus, a project of Alan Sondheim which his successors have continued to the present day. A special issue with the Architecture Society of Atlanta included an extract of a work on Berlin by Alan Balfour, who would become a longstanding supporter of the magazine, and a review essay on ãKandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Yearsä by Atlanta writer and scholar Jerry Cullum, who soon thereafter became a member of the magazineâs editorial staff. Volume eight concluded with a prominent cover story on the visual and conceptual accomplishment of Bob Burdenâs Flaming Carrot comic books (see photo), a move which was reportedly held against the publication in a National Endowment for the Arts panel meeting a few months later.

After an NEA-funded criticsâ symposium in October 1984 brought together regional and national critics to evaluate the condition of art in the Southeast, edited transcripts published in the January/February issue (see photo) of volume nine brought readers the passionately argued views of Christopher Knight, Roberta Smith, Thomas Lawson, Martha Rosler, and Donald Kuspit, together with an equally impassioned panel of regional writers. The New Media issue that followed was devoted to topics in art and science, a theme that would recur in subsequent years. That year also brought the first feature-length piece, on writer Kathy Acker, by a new contributor, Glenn Harper, who would become Editor of the magazine less than a year and a half later. ãA/The Black Aesthetic,ä the theme of the JANUARY/FEBRUARY issue, was an innovative exploration of a topic that would later be revisited from various perspectives. Contributors to that issue included Benny Andrews, AFRICOBRA member Wadsworth Jarrell, Lowery Stokes Sims, and an as yet little-known younger scholar named Henry Louis Gates.

Volume 10 kicked off with a compendium on a prevailing topic in the mid-Î80s artworld, ãThe Crisis in Knowledge: Poststructuralism, Postmodernism, Postmodernity,ä including essays by Jean-Francois Lyotard, Lucy Lippard, and then-emerging African-American scholar, Cornel West. The most sought after philosopher of the moment, Jacques Derrida, was interviewed by Robert Cheatham and Jerry Cullum. The postmodern theme recurred at yearâs end with ãArt and the Sacred in the Postmodern Era,ä a title that was inspired by another magazineâs erroneous transcription of one of Lyotardâs book titles-which should have been ãArt and the Secret in the Postmodern Era.ä This collection of essays by Suzi Gablik and others included the only extract ever published of the fragmentary final volume of Mircea Eliadeâs History of Religious Ideas. By happy accident, the correct topic of ãthe secretä got its due in the title of ãArchitecture in the Land of the Secret Formula,ä a special issue with the Architecture Society of Atlanta that was contained in a glassine envelope and printed as a sheaf of differently-sized leaflets and objects. ãLove and Death in the Old Southä (see photo) was the first of a sequence of issues devoted to artistsâ pages. Another issue featured a survey of the rise of ironic neo-modernism.

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