Art at the End of the Century

Introducing the current Art Papers logo, volume 23 focused on a variety of subjects at the crossroads of art and culture. An issue on “Art and Science” explored this prescient topic at length, while “The New Language of Music,” the last all-theme issue, took the magazine into territory previously unexplored in such depth. Beginning with the May/June issue-containing the first hard-stock cover since earlier that decade, and the first interior color since well before-the publication began the current practice of running a major article along with features on other topics and an expanding array of columns such as Departures and Surviving, the latter an evolved and more anecdotal Artists’ Survival Guide. Cover stories such as “Painting at the End of the Century,” “Photography at the End of the Century,” and “Apocalyptic Cinema” were thus balanced by articles on topics such as performance art, art and activism, conceptually-oriented ceramics, the paintings and drawings of Hermann Hesse, and Chinese painter Chen Ping. Interviews included artists David Reed and Liza Lou, as well as Whitney Museum Director Maxwell Anderson and noted Surrealism authority Mary Ann Caws. While the magazine continued its expansion of the review section to encompass much of the U.S., individual reviews now categorized by region rather than the previous alphabetical listing, the In column focused abroad on some of the hotbeds of art today, including Berlin, Venice, Bilbao, Paris, Belfast and Havana.