M/E/A/N/I/N/G
Online
#6 (2013)
We are pleased to announce the digital reissue of all of the original twenty hard copy issues of the journal, M/E/A/N/I/N/G, which were published from 1986-1996, on Jacket2 Reissues, an archival platform for magazines committed to poetry and poetics.
Reissues editor Danny Snelson provides a little background on the journal:
Founded in December of 1986 by editors Susan Bee and Mira Schor, M/E/A/N/I/N/G provided a timely vehicle for an expanded practice of art criticism from its locus in New York City. Reflecting on the origins of the magazine in an introduction to the final issue, the editors write: "we felt the need for an alternative to the market orientation of mainstream art magazines and the frequently exclusionary theoretical orientation of more academic journals, both of which seemed distant from the actual creative lives of a majority of thoughtful and informed working visual artists." In twenty issues published over the course of a decade, M/E/A/N/I/N/G indexes the most compelling questions of its time while offering a wide range of informative and provocative critical perspectives that remain contemporary.
This is a wonderful opportunity to sample the full range of material published in the journal including many writings that were not collected in M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism, published by Duke University Press in 2000. The reissue places writings by Mira Schor, Amelia Jones, Johanna Drucker, Thomas McEvilley, Faith Wilding, Susan Bee, Charles Bernstein, and many others into their original context, historically and critically, including texts that have since been republished in other anthologies and collections as well as significant early texts that have not been reprinted elsewhere. The reissue on Jacket2 also makes available for the first time the many book reviews, which were a regular feature of M/E/A/N/I/N/G. We take note also of writings by artists and art historians who have since died, including Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, and Thomas McEvilley, and we are amazed at the diversity and sheer number of artists, art historians, poets and critics we published in M/E/A/N/I/N/G over the ten years of its hard copy existence, people who were famous, and people who were just emerging artists, people who were part of our extended network of artistic and intellectual communities and who helped create the community of M/E/A/N/I/N/G.
With text, cover, and logo designed by Susan Bee, the magazine measured 8.5" by 11" perfect bound with the exception of the first four side stapled issues. The final "visual forum" double issue featured a single image from most contributors in alphabetical order alongside a thorough index to the full run of the magazine compiled by Anne Tardos. Each cover was a different and distinctive color.
Full issues of M/E/A/N/I/N/G are available for download or browsing. The index to each issue retains the formatting of the contents as printed in the magazine, including original pagination. Each PDF is fully searchable and bookmarked for easy navigation to individual works within the magazine. This reissue was scanned by Amelia Bentley and Ben Filreis and edited by Danny Snelson with the support of Charles Bernstein and the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jacket2 Reissues publishes fully searchable facsimile PDF editions, scanned in high resolution and organized with bookmarked content. Reissues places a stable collection of complete magazines in dialogue with the ongoing publication patterns of the website.
A limited number of complete sets of the original issues of M/E/A/N/I/N/G as well as individual copies of most but not all of the issues are for sale from the editors: for information, please inquire at miraschor@earthlink.net
In addition, the M/E/A/N/I/N/G Anthology is still available as a hard copy or through Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, and Barnes & Nobles Nook.
