The 25th Anniversary
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This year’s anniversary volume addressed the magazine’s ongoing history through guest editorials from the former Editors, while contributions from past and recent authors explored current topics in art. These included Alan Sondheim’s account of 25 years as a web theorist and artist, Eric Bookhardt’s essay for the recent Readings column on portrait books of crowds, Sue Canning’s recounting of the careers of Martha Rosler and Barbara Kruger, and George Gessert’s study on art, nature and genetics. Gean Moreno and Carl Heyward made big statements through an issue on “Art, Sex and the Body,” while others such as Brandon LaBelle and William Kaizen broke new ground with articles on German sound artist Achim Wollscheid and the New York art-rock collective, Sonic Youth. Other articles covered the pragmatic philosophy of artist/architect and 1996 Olympic Cauldron designer Siah Armajani, globalism in conceptual art, and artists and contemporary domesticity. This year introduced a new column, “Performance Notes,” and also contained an interview with painter Jonathan Lasker. Volume 25 also saw the magazine’s first investigation in many years on the topic of regionalism through a major cover story on the growth of “Art in the Sunbelt,” which provided in-depth articles on the art scenes in Georgia, South Florida and Texas along with sidebars on 10 spots, from Charleston to San Diego, across the southern tier of the U.S.-a fitting tribute to the growth of the magazine and subsequent expansion of its original editorial mission.