With this issue, the Art Lantern marks its first year back following a thirteen-year break. Our return, which began at Expo Chicago last September, has not been easy. We have managed to publish six forty-plus page issues with minimal advertising or subscription income. We have survived on pure faith and art-fed fumes. We owe a great deal to the dedication of past contributors and a new crop of young, idealistic contributors. However, a brighter future, news of which we intend to announce shortly, lies ahead.
Since our last appearance, the publishing landscape for arts journalism has turned bleak, nationally and here at home. The Internet and social media revolutions have decimated the publishing industry. Both Chicago papers have fired their art critics and what passes for arts journalism online is a Babel-like cacophony lacking critical authority. Many posts are little more than silly listicles that only seek eyeball clicks and ad traffic.
Our editorial team and writers believe that the need for an informed art voice now is greater than ever. We intend to restart a more intelligent conversation with new and past readers and the local art community. We call on Chicago’s community of dealers, collectors and art lovers to also play a central role in this vision through their advertising support, reader subscriptions and donations respectively.
A long-lasting, unfortunately true, local legend holds that, while Chicago hosts many rich collections (witness the recent donation of the Stefan Edlis-Gail Neeson collection to the Art Institute), its collectors have overlooked emerging artists in favor of brand-name figures. Many younger artists thus flee to the more hospitable art scenes of Los Angeles and New York. The current issue of New City, notes that artist Michelle Grabner, who co-curated the prestigious Whitney Biennial in 2014, and her husband relocated their Oak Park exhibition space, the Suburban, to Milwaukee.
Join us on our mission to report on Chicago’s vibrant art scene in its museums, galleries and alternative spaces. We invite your attention, writing contributions and financial support.
Tom Mullaney Chicago Editor (retr’d)
Volume 30 number 6, July / August 2016 p 6