LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK: A visual-art zine with no pictures should come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed art criticism, which in its more perverse forms has become ever more long-winded and ideological, to the point where any discussion of the nominal topic’s artworks is buried beneath incomprehensible presentations of the critic’s sociopolitical beliefs (which may have absolutely nothing to do with the artist’s beliefs, if the artist has any).
Thankfully, ‘tho, no such theorizin’s to be found in the tightly-written pages of RedHeaded StepChild (email link here), whose first issue came out three weeks ago.
Instead, you get some to-the-point statements about current “alternative space” exhibitions, and an obit for the closed-due-to-gentrification Project 416 (formerly Wonderful World of Art) studio/gallery. It’s all tight, lively, and concerned with art as a creative endeavor, not as room decor or investment.
(The second issue will be free at alterna-spaces around town starting July 1; subscriptions are promised “to follow.”)
ELSEWHERE IN PRINT-LAND: What’s it with all these corporate magazines with first-name titles? First there was Marie Claire, then George, Jane, Milton, and at least two or three different Frank magazines.
Now there’s Joe, the new Starbucks Coffee in-store mag published under contract by Time Warner in NYC. As you might expect from a Starbucks-branded product, it’s handsome in an overstatedly “understated” way. And as you might expect, it’s “tasteful” to the point of upscale-suburban blandness, even when discussing such topics as the Unabomber and the bereavement of AIDS victims’ loved ones.
The mag’s apparent concept, besides to define Starbucks customers as a demographically ideal target for Cadillac and Eddie Bauer ads, is to establish an image for Starbucks stores as what a current sociological buzzword calls “third places,” neither-work-nor-home sites where folks can gather and discuss issues of the day in a “civil society” way. I doubt many lingering chats will form around the contents of Joe, which looks less like a food-for-thought stimulant and more like a more marketing-savvy version of the late-’80s mag Wigwag or one of the duller installments of Utne Reader.
Tomorrow: Some important lengths and times for the pop-culture scholar.
