I recently found out about your newsletter while exploring substack for art related stuff, as I'm an artist and cultural producer on the side.
I've been thinking about starting a Contemporary Art Social Club where people gather online (or in person) for an hour and talk about art and sip on wine, but maybe starting an art magazine can be just as fulfilling for me. Furthermore, I have a good background for this, so let's talk! I mean it!
Hi Filipa! It's annoying that you can't DM on Substack (or I haven't figured out how to, anyway). Email me at my Substack address and we can chat that way. Glad you randomly discovered Spigot--nice to know it's out there in the world!
Great write up. Art Forum has been a clusterfuck behind the scenes for a while now.
I’m all here for Spigot Mag — I wish the usual writing-about-art had this quality and entertainment value. The art world is missing critics that have something to say, or want to say something, and not just bang out retarded run-of-the-mill takes to fill the space in-between ads. Patrick McGraw’s Heavy Traffic is somewhat proof that it is possible to have an independent magazine release, but I’m sure it’s a lot of work with very little in return.
Glad you liked the piece! I do try to find a balance between substance and entertainment (the new form vx. content?), though sometimes it ain't easy. Do you like the writing in Heavy Traffic? I do admire the work that's gone into the project, and the production value (curious to know what that business model is exactly). I like some of the writing, I'm sure I'd accept an invitation to publish in it, and it's my general ballpark for sure,, but I also feel like there's a lot of, "Oh, this sex is so ~boring~" or "I'm driving a car high on pills!" I love Jesus' Son as much as anybody, but c'mon.
Of course writing fiction is extremely hard, so. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for the comment! I bought all three Heavy Traffic magazine and read most of the stories. I think it’s all very young and most of it is purposely style over content - which is not particularly what I’m into but it’s hard not to get swept away but the fact that people are reading and writing in 2023 and how crazy that is. I tried reading stories from Forever Mag (some cross-authoring w/ HT) and got lost completely. It reminds me that all this happened before, when the first meme pages were popping up, there were alt-lit poets that wrote silly stories about drinking cough syrup in mid-west malls. But this resurgence in alt-lit is different from what is happening to writing-about-art. My mentioning of heavy traffic is just in the spirit of how incredibly labor intensive it would be to get an art crit magazine up and running. Art criticism has been in qualitative decline for years now. I’m sure you’ve read the piece by what’s-his-name manhattan art review? I didn’t agree with most of it but it was still a heartfelt appeal to what is being lost. I want to jokingly blame Peter Thiel, for buying of some of our most beloved critics and jamming them into places where they don’t belong. But if any agent of Peter Thiel is reading this, I’m open to getting paid!! Sorry for the ramble. Thanks for Spigot!
Honestly I should spend more time with Heavy Traffic. And if I could pass the background check, I am open to being an agent of the deep state. Maybe we're the last ones who aren't!
I have not read the piece by whats-his-name. I know his schtick, so I haven't felt like it would be illuminating. Maybe I should? He and I have very different ideas of what it means to be a critic, I think. "I'm the only man bold enough to say what the elites don't want you to hear": OK Joe Rogan. I do think he has good instincts, and I understand what some people find appealing about him.
The funny thing about the crit-in-decline position is that, one, I've been doing this for twenty years now, and people have been saying that the ENTIRE time; and two, it posits that there was some golden age when criticism was brilliant and objective and untainted by personal or commercial interests. I'm not sure what halcyon era we're supposed to look back to as a model. Honestly I think people confuse PR with criticism; they've lost the ability to distinguish, or maybe the zone is just flooded with bullshit, and so they feel like critics are blandly acquiescent when it's actually the PR arms of galleries.
I recently found out about your newsletter while exploring substack for art related stuff, as I'm an artist and cultural producer on the side.
I've been thinking about starting a Contemporary Art Social Club where people gather online (or in person) for an hour and talk about art and sip on wine, but maybe starting an art magazine can be just as fulfilling for me. Furthermore, I have a good background for this, so let's talk! I mean it!
Hi Filipa! It's annoying that you can't DM on Substack (or I haven't figured out how to, anyway). Email me at my Substack address and we can chat that way. Glad you randomly discovered Spigot--nice to know it's out there in the world!
Great write up. Art Forum has been a clusterfuck behind the scenes for a while now.
I’m all here for Spigot Mag — I wish the usual writing-about-art had this quality and entertainment value. The art world is missing critics that have something to say, or want to say something, and not just bang out retarded run-of-the-mill takes to fill the space in-between ads. Patrick McGraw’s Heavy Traffic is somewhat proof that it is possible to have an independent magazine release, but I’m sure it’s a lot of work with very little in return.
Here’s to Spigot Magazine!
Glad you liked the piece! I do try to find a balance between substance and entertainment (the new form vx. content?), though sometimes it ain't easy. Do you like the writing in Heavy Traffic? I do admire the work that's gone into the project, and the production value (curious to know what that business model is exactly). I like some of the writing, I'm sure I'd accept an invitation to publish in it, and it's my general ballpark for sure,, but I also feel like there's a lot of, "Oh, this sex is so ~boring~" or "I'm driving a car high on pills!" I love Jesus' Son as much as anybody, but c'mon.
Of course writing fiction is extremely hard, so. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for the comment! I bought all three Heavy Traffic magazine and read most of the stories. I think it’s all very young and most of it is purposely style over content - which is not particularly what I’m into but it’s hard not to get swept away but the fact that people are reading and writing in 2023 and how crazy that is. I tried reading stories from Forever Mag (some cross-authoring w/ HT) and got lost completely. It reminds me that all this happened before, when the first meme pages were popping up, there were alt-lit poets that wrote silly stories about drinking cough syrup in mid-west malls. But this resurgence in alt-lit is different from what is happening to writing-about-art. My mentioning of heavy traffic is just in the spirit of how incredibly labor intensive it would be to get an art crit magazine up and running. Art criticism has been in qualitative decline for years now. I’m sure you’ve read the piece by what’s-his-name manhattan art review? I didn’t agree with most of it but it was still a heartfelt appeal to what is being lost. I want to jokingly blame Peter Thiel, for buying of some of our most beloved critics and jamming them into places where they don’t belong. But if any agent of Peter Thiel is reading this, I’m open to getting paid!! Sorry for the ramble. Thanks for Spigot!
Honestly I should spend more time with Heavy Traffic. And if I could pass the background check, I am open to being an agent of the deep state. Maybe we're the last ones who aren't!
I have not read the piece by whats-his-name. I know his schtick, so I haven't felt like it would be illuminating. Maybe I should? He and I have very different ideas of what it means to be a critic, I think. "I'm the only man bold enough to say what the elites don't want you to hear": OK Joe Rogan. I do think he has good instincts, and I understand what some people find appealing about him.
The funny thing about the crit-in-decline position is that, one, I've been doing this for twenty years now, and people have been saying that the ENTIRE time; and two, it posits that there was some golden age when criticism was brilliant and objective and untainted by personal or commercial interests. I'm not sure what halcyon era we're supposed to look back to as a model. Honestly I think people confuse PR with criticism; they've lost the ability to distinguish, or maybe the zone is just flooded with bullshit, and so they feel like critics are blandly acquiescent when it's actually the PR arms of galleries.