Nov 16, 2008
This week, guest host James Yood and Duncan interview Derek
Guthrie, co-founder of the New Art Examiner for an illuminating
history lesson.
New Art Examiner was a Chicago-based art magazine. Founded in
October 1973 by Derek Guthrie and Jane Addams Allen, its final
issue was dated May-June 2002.
At the time of the New Art Examiner 's launch, in October 1973,
Chicago was "an art backwater." Artists who wished to be taken
seriously left Chicago for New York City, and apart from a few
local phenomena, such as the Hairy Who, little attention was given
to Chicago art and artists.
Called in Art in America "a stalwart of the Chicago scene," the New
Art Examiner was conceived to counter this bias and was almost the
only art magazine to give any attention to Chicago and midwestern
artists (Dialogue magazine, which covered midwestern art
exclusively, was founded in Detroit in 1978, but it has also ceased
publication). Editor Jane Allen, an art historian who studied under
Harold Rosenberg at the University of Chicago, was influential in
developing new writers who later became significant on the New York
scene and encouraged a writing style that was lively, personal, and
honestly critical.
Over the next three decades Chicago's art scene flourished, with
new museums, more art dealers, and increased art festivals,
galleries, and alternative spaces. Critics asserted that the New
Art Examiner "ignored, opposed or belittled" Chicago's artistic
developments, that it was overly politicized, overloaded with
jargon, and did not serve the Chicago or midwest arts
communities.
The critics and artists who wrote for the New Art Examiner,
included Fred Camper, Jan Estep, Ann Wiens, Adam Green
(cartoonist), Robert Storr, Carol Diehl, Jerry Saltz, Eleanor
Heartney, Carol Squiers, Janet Koplos and Mark Staff Brandl.