There seems to be no more middle ground, and more research is directed towards how to make data bigger, not more qualitative. Algorithms make users believe more in what they subjectively believe, rather than encouraging us to learn from a more objective world.
Any point of view can be right or wrong, and anyone can disappear from the internet... Whether he volunteered or not. When social media has become the most important place for human activities, not to mention moderation, decency, and full discussion, even "making a voice" has become extremely difficult, and communication has reached an impasse.
Subscription: Artist and Niche Magazine, 1970-1995
But a recent exhibition by The Art Institute of Chicago opened a gap in the impasse. The exhibition, "Subscriptions: Artists and Niche Magazines, 1970-1995," attempts to answer: How did artists speak out to the masses and "change the world" in the last century, when there was no social media?
This exhibition, which may not be accessible in person, releases an important revelation: Why can we find the sound that we cannot make today?
The exhibition focuses on niche magazines from the early 1970s to the 1990s, including niche magazines that shined at the end of the last century. In those turbulent times, the voices of marginalized figures began to be heard, and more and more young artists began to participate in self-discovery and social activities.
Their partners in the struggle were niche magazines with a strong visual impact, consisting of huge color blocks and photographs of people, which not only became a refuge and umbrella for marginalized people, but also shook the deep-rooted ideas of traditional magazines.
Unlike "mainstream magazines" like Vogue and Life, which have hierarchical editorial mastheads or overwhelming brand advertising, they appear in a provocative gesture, being circulated by young people to each other, transforming into "microphones" that convey the voices of young artists, marginalized groups, and new new human beings.
i-D Magazine Cover, September 1980 (Issue 1)
i-D 的封面，THE OUT ALREADY ISSUE，
Issue 1, October 1982
From the first 10 issues of i-D magazine published in 1980-1981 to Villa Voicer's short-lived fashion special View/Vue, these niche magazines are not only the "fossils" of underground culture at the end of the last century, but also an important platform for artists to connect with the world.
To this day, the subtle changes brought about by these niche magazines are not only insights about fashion and culture, but also come with a layer of "seeing the world in an alternative way" filter.
Pioneer of the times
One of the niche magazines that can't be ignored in the exhibition is The Face, which was launched in 1980.
It appeared quietly on The latest newsstand on London's Great Marlborough Street on May 1, 1980, and although the cover was vague, the reddish-blue logo on it stood out, unlike the conventions of mainstream magazines at the time, And Face did not use the magazine name to tell readers the areas it covered. But it also seems to echo The Face's content: whether it's music, fashion, movies, or socio-political and global current events, as long as it's related to youth culture, The Face won't refuse.
The Face's coverage of music
Between 1980 and 1985, The Face represented London's emerging Romanticism, working with journalists and photographers of different styles to cover not only subcultural groups and gender mobility on the streets of England, but also the social problems caused by Thatcherism and the rise of neo-Nazi organizations in Europe.
In fact, the record of British culture in the 80s was not The Face's most important achievement, And The Face had a profound impact on the visual culture from broadcast media, fashion, film to graphic design. Its iconic neo-constructivist typography and avant-garde graphics were used by advertising agencies, and Levi's sales of TV commercials using Nick Kamen, the most famous The Face model of the time, increased by 800%!
Levi's TV commercial by Nick Kamen
The Face's avant-garde bold design and cohesive approach spawned other niche magazines, and up-and-coming stars i-D and Blitz were both influenced by it.
Street darling
The i-D, born in 1980, was influenced to some extent by The Face, but it still holds the throne of the top of niche magazines. Founded by Vogue's artistic director Tony Jones, the magazine maintains a youth-centric mindset and pushes "street culture" to the forefront.
At the beginning of its birth, i-D was introduced in the form of hand binding, and the content of the magazine was presented in typewriter fonts, although the binding was simple and the price was low, but the emergence of i-D reversed the annoying "elitist" mentality of fashion magazines in the past, and instead looked forward to making it possible for every young person to read it.
Inside page of i-D magazine in the 80s
i-D treasures the neglected and rejected cultures of mainstream fashion magazines: punk, retro pop, rave, hip-hop... With communication and respect to open the door of underground culture, with a creative mentality to face the era of conservatism and openness.
Rebellion is a smorgasbord
Unlike The Face and i-D, which were launched by industry insiders in the same year, Blitz's founders Carey Labovitch and Simon Tesle were just oxford students at the time.
The magazine was born in the early 80s years after punk and before digital, when the magazine industry was dominated and stunted by men, and Carey Labovitch, who was less than 20 years old, could not find the magazine he really wanted to read.
Group photo of the editorial team in 1984
So, in her bedroom, Blitz was born. It talks not only about music, film, fashion and art, but also politics, true crime, philosophy and everything else "what the editor wants to see." Style Magazine, a category that is common today, was pioneered by Blitz, The Face, and i-D.
Blitz inherited the rebellious spirit of punk, writing the "Bible of Life" for young people, and became a spiritual utopia for those who "don't fit in, weird people, and club players." Blitz, who has almost no funding, naturally forms a reciprocal relationship with nameless young creators, allowing them to exert their fists and feet, and eventually become a resounding name in the industry.
Among the most epoch-making initiatives, "22 Jacket" was a pivotal figure – fashion editor Iain R. Webb distributed Levi's basic denim jacket to 22 world-class designers for a makeover.
Participating designers include Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano
and Katherine Hamnett
Blitz at No l Coward Theatre in London
Held 22 Jacket presentations
Not only did you get a wonderful magazine feature, a legendary night in fashion history, but you also demonstrated to the world an effective creative idea - the first step to being subversive is to become yourself.
Alternative fashion
In 1985, the well-known American news and culture newspaper The Village Voice created a fashion supplement to attract advertisements: Vue.
The non-public Vue Issue 0 is named View
For various reasons, Vue has only been released for 6 issues. But because it was short-lived, it abandoned the traditional fashion magazine rules of doing things, and seemed classic and precious – even Visual Creative Director Yolanda Cuomo admitted: "I don't care much about fashion, Vue is a theater for me about imagination." 」 ”
First, Vue focuses on photography. But don't hire dedicated fashion photographers, but boldly test the waters for those who are used to taking pictures of exhibitions and art books.
Photographers Vue has asked include Nan Goldin, Larry Fink,
William Wegman, Gilles Peress, Philip-Lorca diCorcia 等
It was an adventure, but Vue succeeded. When the sharpness, sensitivity and avant-garde of art photography chemically react with fashion, these "fashion films" that are neither gorgeous nor elegant rewrite the rules of fashion photography.
In addition, Vue's deliberately off-the-beaten-path mix of designs and sharp cultural critical writing not only gave the short-lived fashion magazine a reputation that transcended its life cycle, but also inspired many "younger generations" to emulate it as "beautiful and modern, amorous and funny".
Provocation and change
OUT/LOOK, published in 1988, is a bit more "sub". It was the first publication on LGBTQ culture since the mid-1970s. OUT/LOOK not only discusses gender issues with an inclusive mindset, but also places a strong emphasis on visual harmony and creative writing, so we can see these bold covers and quirky but unusually harmonious queer visions.
OUT/LOOK uses its influence among minorities to continue to speak out for minorities. Beginning in the 1990s, the magazine launched a series of conferences called OUT Write, bringing together more than 1,200 LGBT writers from across the United States, including Judy Grane, Alan Ginsburg, and others, that helped build social impact and the confidence to change the world among minorities.
Works published on OUT/LOOK
Even though OUT/LOOK ceased publication in 1992, in the 30 years since, perceptions of queer culture and minorities have continued to change.
Black and queer
With OUT/LOOK as a pioneer, in September 1989, seven ACT UP activists broke into the New York stock exchange and tied themselves to the VIP room; even though enthusiasm for ending the AIDS campaign was so high, the black queer community was still invisible in the media.
*ACT UP, the AIDS Unleashing Power Alliance, was established in 1987 to support and advocate for the legitimate rights of AIDS patients.
Two months later, THING was born in Chicago. It has three key words: black culture, queer groups, and house music.
Between 1989 and 1993, 10 issues of THING were issued
On the cover in the lower left corner is Lawrence Warren, one of the founders
Despite being born for black queers, THING's screenwriting team is very diverse
Most of the time, THING's broad vision of itself finally gives the world of black queer groups a place to show: whether it's nightclub gossip, Voguing, hair tips, protest violence, poetry or independent films.
The list of "House Top 100" produced in 1991 remains an important source for countless music critics when "archaeology" house music.
Music producer Daniel Wang struggled to find it
THING's "House Top 100" list
The "predecessor" of THING is a black-and-white magazine called Think Ink. Although the content focuses slightly differently, the two also focus on the real life of the black community in a turbulent society, helping them find their own "lifeline" through creativity and culture.
They also invisibly changed the way minorities interacted with society at the time: if they weren't taken seriously, they created their own "Things"; even if the world lacked goodwill, don't stop loving yourself.
Of course, the niche magazines that changed the world were more than that, but After Dark, Ben is Dead, BOMB, Culture Hero, Deluxe, Details, East Village Other, IT, Newspaper, Rags, Ink and Vibe — all of whom belonged to the youth of a certain era and were heroes of an artist.
The voice of these magazines, placed in front of the social media that is now hundreds of millions of readers, can be described as a well-deserved "niche". Looking at the big picture, the voices they emit are also on the edge, vulnerable to the "mainstream story" and will not be written into textbooks many years later. However, it became a refuge for young people and artists during that time—in the corners of the city, when the unknown youth flipped through these brightly colored, boldly formatted papers, they found themselves not alone, someone who cared about the same thing as them, someone with the same dreams as them.
In order to become such a "shelter", what did the niche magazines of that year do?
Artist-centric
Perhaps for us now, the niche magazines of the late last century are an important sample of the zeitgeist and counterculture, which capture clues from the development of House music and the punk movement, but above all the niche magazines are artist-centric, providing them with a pure environment that is not affected by social capital.
Young people in the House Music Club
During the turbulent decades, young artists were no longer controlled by mainstream art galleries and capital, while niche magazines gave artists the platform and medium to present themselves and create art.
The artist's connection to niche magazines is much tighter than we think. It's not just Andy Warhol's Editor-in-Chief's Review, but in the early Details and Newpapers, bill Cunningham and Peter Hujar's work has rebelled against the mainstream fashion world and become an important platform for showcasing the artist's self.
In turn, the artist's work influenced the visual picture of niche magazines, with photographs of the black and Latino community taken by New York artist Jamel Shabazz and LGBTQ-themed works by Nicola Tyson influencing the types of photography published in The Source and Blitz.
Works by Peter Hujar
Works by Bill Cunningham
Through close connections and collaborations with artists, niche magazines have become one of the most innovative and groundbreaking spaces for discussing art, culture and politics, earning artists the right to "change the world".
Built on an alternative culture
At the end of the last century, the era of social movements, 5 or 6 different social voices could be heard even on the street, and although this voice from minorities would be found in mainstream magazines, it was still not as good as niche magazines built on alternative cultures. And while mainstream publications steal curves and colors from their fashion themes, artists and niche magazines are determined to tell the story of their communities.
Historian and magazine collector Vince Aletti shared: "Their voices have aroused not only enthusiasm, but also anger from society. "And that enthusiasm and anger completely changed the magazine publishing industry."
Because the cost of distributing magazines on thin, large newsprints was relatively low, the spirit of freedom and expansion encouraged magazine editors and artists. They attract young people with bold graphics, cartoon-style collages and powerful titles. Of course, it's not just formal innovations, but also boldness in content that makes mainstream magazines jealous: from drag festival Wigstock to Joan Black's coverage of his presidential campaign in '92, niche magazines are eclectic and complex.
In the 1990s, wigstock drag festival
Define yourself with photography and design
Niche magazines have changed one way of defining themselves: not just literature and poetry, but also a magazine.
Graphic designers are often the "hidden presence" behind magazines, but in the design and production of niche magazines, they are pushed to the forefront. For Yolanda Cuomo, vue's graphic designer, photographers, writers and artists don't separate themselves from each other during the design process of niche magazines, and teams work together to discuss, make, break and transform. What unites these artists is an impactful visual design.
Pregnant athletes photographed by Nan Goldin in Vue,
Caused a huge controversy
During Yolanda Cuomo's short 6-issue career at Vue, he discovered the American photographer Nan Goldin and gave her all her creative freedom. Nan Goldin also lived up to Yolanda Cuomo's expectations, capturing the life of marginalized groups like LGBTQ in the '80s, bringing fashion content to young people at the time that was different from mainstream magazines.
The enthusiasm and anger that niche magazines bring has created new ways of "appealing to themselves", whether it is triggering a fashion boom or being evaluated as "not worth mentioning", they have defined themselves in a new way, not only changing their own world, but also changing the way the fashion industry views black culture and queer sports.
80 年代，Nan Goldin，The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Niche magazines, relying on low cost, easy to carry and eclectic creative methods, have become an important platform for artists to express themselves and create "new art", and have also become a weapon for them to speak for themselves and shout for others.
In the last three decades of the 20th century, these niche magazines and the artists they represented together created unimaginable legends. Although niche magazines are always "short-lived" or derided as "only formalities", the respect and understanding of minorities in niche magazines is a memory that we cannot forget.
To present the history of niche magazines and distill their spiritual core is not to prove that it is still a highly admired medium today, but to present a methodology that has ever occurred – the free expression of creators, especially artists, has equipped their audiences with the ability and impulse to understand the world.
It can't be said that niche magazines have bred an open, free, and equal generation, at least for a long time, thanks to the continued attention to underground music, rough handmade earrings and drag queens shown in niche magazines, people have been able to grow together inspired by artistic creation. It is because of such enduring and shining wealth that niche magazines have truly changed our world.
Written by: HaN, Horse Shark, Vilja
Edit: Lili
It's a pleasure to meet you, the following are all my favorites
If you're also interested, try to keep an eye on the dark clouds