ECHOES Episode 2
ECHOES is a monthly series where we spotlight our community of contributors—writers and artists who’ve been central to Art Papers creative and rigorous coverage over the years. New episodes release the last Saturday of each month and are available on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
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This month, we have Benjamin Critton and Sarah Higgins talking about the 2018 redesign of ART PAPERS magazine, translating an idea into design, and Marta, Critton’s Los Angeles-based, globally-engaged art gallery.
This conversation originally took place on Instagram Live as a ‘Contributor Conversation’, a series where we invite writers from the most recent issue to discuss their texts.
Linked below are several of the issues mentioned by Benjamin and Sarah as they discuss how the redesign took shape.
Benjamin Critton is a graphic designer, type designer, art director, and artist based in Los Angeles. Critton received a BA from Hamilton College in 2006 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2011, after which he established Benjamin Critton Art Department, an art and design practice whose client-based collaborations and commissions are supplemented by initiatives in publishing, writing, editing, curation, and pedagogy. Critton’s multifaceted practice, steeped in typographic education and influence, contributes and calls attention to the quotidian, at times unconscious, allure of that which is well-designed. The stratification of commercial design and fine art—and in particular the disparity in how labor is measured and valued in each—are inherent inquiries in Critton’s aesthetically taut approach to idea- and object-making. Aside from and conjunct to his independent work, Critton has also long been a consummate collaborator in a wide range of collective projects; currently, Critton co-runs Norma, a studio that creates objects, furniture, multiples, and interior spaces.
Sarah Higgins is the Editor + Artistic Director of Art Papers. She has curated over 40 exhibitions featuring a diverse range of emerging, established, and international artists for institutions such as the Hessel Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and Atlantic Center for the Arts. Previously, she was curator at the Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University from 2015-2018. There, she produced catalogs and exhibitions including Gut Feelings, Tomashi Jackson: Interstate Love Song, and A View Beyond the Trees.