An Editor Departs, and Various Others Take Over

2012 began with echoes of earlier themes, as Larissa Sansour reframed old issues with the fantasy of “The Possibility of a Palestinian Space Program,” Andrew Bucksbarg explored sociality through audience use of an iPod, and David Zink Yi brought his own ethnic and cultural hybridity to the hybrid religious and musical practices of Cuba. Beta Tank explored the world of networks in which art now found itself taxed when objects travel, and Jill Magid looked at the aftermath of a victimless shooting into the sky in Austin, Texas. Gender, power, and public relations made repeat appearances in the cultural production surrounding the Occupy movement, the Bloomberg administration’s support of museum displays highlighting its social initiatives, and a film project by Milford Thomas deeply embedded in the history of Atlanta subcultures. And then Cinqué Hicks’ two-issue stint as interim Editor carried forward these dominant concerns in a slightly modified register. A survey of collectives in a financially challenged Athens, Greece complemented Sven Augustinjen’s video exploring the troubled colonial legacy of the Democratic Republic of Congo. An interview with Performa 11 curator Mark Beasley and an essay on the gender politics of Rita Ackermann’s paintings carried forward now-familiar interests. Under the new leadership of Executive Director Saskia Benjamin, the magazine began an eight-issue guest-edited series starting with Sarah Workneh’s issue on Art in the African Diaspora. The year ended with an extraordinary look at topics including the grotesque as female artists’ strategy in Afrofuturism, Paul Miller’s multimedia evocation of an environmentally threatened Antarctica, transnational practice in Caribbean art, The Association for the Advancement of Creative Cinematic Maladjustment, and the legacy of Nina Simone.