This has been a December to remember, oh wait, I better not say that or Lexus and the internet copyright police might momentarily be breaking down my door. Don’t worry though, this isn’t going to be about censorship or anything too ‘serious’ as the small bit of smart brain I have has been directed at our latest issue of …might be good. It’s a good issue if I do say so myself. Bear with my flogging for a moment. Hardest working man in show business Noah Simblist takes on abstraction and politics via Mark Bradford, upstate NY writer and curator Leora Morinis writes a stellar piece on Jackie Goss’s The Observers, photographer extraordinaire Mike Osborne reviews The Anxiety of Photography, and writer and curator Sarah Demeuse visits Barcelona and gives us a piece on 1395 Days Without Red at MACBA. Last but certainly not least, Leslie Moody Castro and Armando Miguelez extend their use of our Twitter account mbgETC into the Project Space with fantastic results. A list-free bit of something for everyone this holiday season.
To say that I’ve enjoyed my editorship at …mbg thus far would be an understatement. I’ve come to realize that publications like …mbg aren’t around just to ‘support the arts’–an overused and poor measure of quality and effort–but they actually contribute to the creation of scholarship and dialogue around artistic practice and ideas. They certainly don’t do this alone, and readers are all active participants in this regardless of whether or not they chose to comment, like, or even read every single article. These factors up the ante in a considerable fashion. Substantive, thoughtful, and rigorous content is an absolute priority–even a responsibility–when the stakes are seen as having real consequences. For me it also highlights the danger in slavish devotion to hits, traffic, followers, and the infamous ’like’ button. This isn’t an either or argument but there is a saying about quality lurking somewhere around the corner.
In an hour or so I’ll be taking a few boxes, into which I’ve packed my studio, and shipping them off to Omaha, NE, where I’ll be a resident at The Bemis Center For Contemporary Arts through the end of March. I can think of no better way to start off the new year. From there I’ll be continuing my work at …might be good while finally getting some much needed time and space in the studio. (Apparently I’ll also be eating copious amounts of steak…any insider Omaha tips would be much appreciated.) In some sense my approach to editing…mbg has come from the way I work and think as an artist, and the form …mbg takes has in turn influenced my practice. You could substitute ‘art’ and ‘practice’ for ‘…mbg’ and ‘editorship’ in the preceding paragraph and I think many of the same issues would ring true. A more ideal situation might not be possible. See you in Nebraska.
yes! see you in Nebraska!