1. Completely true. And I'd add it should not accept advertising fromart galleries so as not to impact editorial content. AJ'er John Perreault had more on this here: http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/archives20040301.shtml#72206

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Tyler Green

2. Aperture Magazine is on the list and the last time I checked, most people now consider photography to be an accepted fine art form. I'm more of a Blind Spot guy though, which would be my pick for the top 50.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Erik Schneider

3. "...should not accept advertising fromart galleries..."
- thus preventing them from making any money - thus no art magazine at all - there's a great recipe.
I LIKE seeing galleries and yes - individual artists advertize themselves amongst the articles. It should all be up for grabs. Artists and gallery owners should be allowed to make money!

Personally I like ArtNews as I think it is closer to the criteria of being "...well written so that non-art world people can enjoy..." than other magazines I could mention. It could do with a bit of a redesign though.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Martin Archer

4. Erik, um yes photography is considered an art form (that's for reminding us) but I'm talking about art magazines not concetrated/focused medium magazines. I mean "art" in the all encompassing sense of the word...photography, paintings, sculpture, video installation, performance.

Martin - I too like the advertising, at least aesthetically, in art magazines. It's a voyeuristic way to see what galleries are up to. I don't think that magazines shouldn't take ads. What I think needs to happen is editors and writers just need to have the balls to write was is accurate, good or bad. In the end, I feel that people tend to value honesty but, then again, there are a lot of egotiscal bastards in the art world.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Caryn Coleman

5. Sounds like you're asking for something akin to Entertainment Weekly, but focused on high art rather than pop art. The ability to produce such a magazine is only constrained by the size of its intended audience. How many people in the US (I'm assuming only the US has a large enough population with the disposable income for such a product) have an interest in such a magazine, do you think?

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Todd W.

6. Instead of the "Entertainment Weekly of Art", why not something with a bit more spirit and a bit less celebrity worship, like the "Wired of Art", or The New Yorker of Art". Perhaps even "The Weekly World News of Art".

Personally I think that far and away the best art magazine now and ever is FMR, profiled here by the excellent DesignBoom site:
http://www.designboom.com/world/fmr/index.html

A paper edition of DesignBoom would be very nice too.

[Changing the medium to tv:
I was a big fan of Egg - the art show - on tv: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/egg/
and it would be so nice if there were more, and better shows like this.]

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Martin Archer

7. I'd love there to be a magazine like you have described - I would hazard that Art in America's best moments (usually Raphael Rubenstein articles) are the closest thing we have.
Gallery ads are vital for those of us unable to fly to NY and LA weekly for openings - even if one only gets to see a single piece, you get an idea of an artist's current output, sometimes what certain pieces go for, and an idea of what different galleries show. This info is really important for we 'emerging' (read: safe to ignore until 'discovered') artists.
re: Wired...I'd avoid their influence at all costs. Wired's deisgn is a bland and boring distillation of current trends instead of any real innovation (for innovative magazine design see Tokion). Also, Wired are rampant socio-technical positivists, enthousiastically championing anything they come accross uncritically and completely without social responsibility. Feel free to harass me for clarification if I'm not being clear.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by joey lindsey

8. I don't need innovation in a printed magazine myself, thanks. And frankly I think in order for this hypothetical art magazine to appeal to a "mainstream" audience - one that includes me - I think the last thing you want is an innovative design. Rather, you'd want to follow a lot of the tried and trusted formulas that work: a bold, preferably single subject front page, not littered with tons of mini headlines of the contents inside; a clean but versatile structure, with sections broken up into the usual categories: news, profiles, features etc. etc.; a respect for white space, but by the same token a respect for the power of full page spreads of images.
I have not seen Tokion, but the flash website version looks just like any other mish mash art magazine design. Of course - I will look for it on the magazine racks now. I don't agree with your assessment of Wired. If it's a distillation of trends it probably started those trends itself, being a bit of a groundbreaking magazine from the time it started publication. One flaw (amongst others) in Wired is the annoying "continued on p.168" method of splitting features up and dumping much of the text towards the back pages in order to fill the front and middle up with the "sexy" front ends.
What about a mag that is a cross between something as dry and supposedly boring as Cook's Illustrated, and something as big bold and brash as say, Hello! magazine? :)

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Martin Archer

9. I'm not really looking for something like Entertainment Weekly...just an inclusive magazine that looks good, interesting to read, new topics, and well designed. I don't really care what dress Rachel Feinstein in wearing (oh, unless it's Marc Jacobs).

The design model for Wired in its simplicity is one that more magazines should take after. I'm all for innovative design but I'm not sure if it belongs placed with text articles. Anyone remember Raygun? Fabulous cutting-edge design at the same but damnit if you couldn't ever read any of the articles...paragraphs ending off the page and type font so small you need spectacles to read it. I think that the focus of magazines, of any kind, should be content, not a flashy exterior. The design should complement, not compete.

As for Wired, I think that they best thing that they do is have a current web-component to their magazine - Wired News. First of all, they slowly load contents of the current issue online throughout the month so that by the time the new issue is out, the old one is completely online. But also they release articles online regarding things happening NOW that either didn't make it into the mag or are so new they need to be addressed now. It broadens what they are trying to do and I think that art magazines should follow in their footsteps. No reason why not except for lack of vision.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Caryn Coleman

10. As Managing Editor for Bridge Magazine, i'd like to put forth our publication for consideration as meeting the criteria laid out by Ms. Coleman. Given that we're a Chicago based publication we might need to work a little harder to get on the tribune's radar, but overall we're working really hard to give our arts community it's own clarion call. If you're unfamiliar with bridge check out our site http://www.bridgemagazine.org If you liek what you see then help support our not-for-profit mission and subscribe!!!

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by tom burtonwood

11. It's a great magazine covering the L.A. art scene w/ great design and interesting articles with a cultural theory bend. I think that the magazines that deal with art on a regional basis are more interesting and are inevitably more prone to seeking out smaller trends. The New Art Examiner was great when it was still afloat, but that magazine was an example of the difficulties that emerge when trying to reach a larger audience that exist outside of the region being covered. To bring it back to Artus, I think that magazines that tend to talk about the larger culture on the whole are far more interesting than those that just merely preview and review shows. Frieze is (or used to be) really great for this kind of thing. I remember reading articles on everything from rollercoasters to Ludwig Wittgenstein's architecture in that magazine. ArtUs is, to me, the perfect embodiment of the Los Angeles scene and I really wish there were more magazines like it out there. Although, I did actually like the magazine more in its earlier days as Artext...

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jeffrey Mathews

12. I agrre with jeffrey, artus is a detailed publication, although i find it's design a little too choppy sometimes, i had wondered where it came from and where artext had gone, that makes sense now.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by tom burtonwood

13. Tom - I'm so glad to see you've found another venue for plugging your magazine. Though Bridge has a strong online component to the print version, it is WAY focused on Chicago art. That's a good thing but we're talking about a nationally cohesive magazine.

As for ArtUS, they definitely are trying something and are the best thing Los Angeles has in terms of strict art mags. Unfortunately the design is horrible and the writing is dense, dense, dense. It's not offering many new things, doesn't have strong national readership, though definitely is trying to review cities in-between LA and NY. It's just not "fresh" enough, in my opinion.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Caryn Coleman

14. Try "Border Crossings". I read their latest issue and found it informative, intelligent, and comprehensive. It's Canadian and focuses on contemporary art. I'm sure that it will meet most, if not all, of the criteria listed above.

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Nolan Ritcey

15. 50 Best Magazines Don't Include Art - Chicago Tribune lists its pick for 50 Best Magazines and not one of them is an art magazine. Sure they mention Dwell and Wired (who's No. 1) but nothing else even comes close. And while they do list Real Simple (that magazine drives me nuts and is not really all that simple) they didn't include my favs Lucky, Athem, and Ready-Made. Anyway, point being that art magazines (which they are no shortage of) aren't even in these editors radar which means that some publication needs to

Evah Fan - Last week I picked up two little paintings by Evah Fan that I had purchased from an April show at GR2. I was quite excited about seeing her work in person and got there as soon as my gallery closed to make sure I got the pieces I wanted. After looking for only a few minutes (honestly, that's all it takes for me to decide which piece is the piece for me) I raced to buy the two works you see here because I sensed there was a guy following me and coveting the same pieces I was; and I was

ArtDaily.com RIP - Artdaily.com , a news source for the art world and touted as The First Art Newspaper on the Net, has left the web-waves. The inevitable became a reality: that beautiful dream became a nightmare. The agony of not being able to pay the minimum costs of this project: the paychecks for three collaborators, servers and a few other things. Because we were four people that worked most of the time in ArtDaily!

Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Derika