e-flux journal editors Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle, and Kaye Cain-Nielsen discuss 10 years of e-flux journal.
Excerpt from the editorial of e-flux journal issue #95—WONDERFLUX:
In November 2008, the editorial for issue #00 said:
Historically, more than any single institution, art publications have been primary sites for discourse surrounding the artistic field. And yet most recently, the discourse has seemingly moved elsewhere—away from the formal vocabulary used to explain art production, away from traditional art capitals, and away from the printed page. At times, new discursive practices even replace traditional forms of art production. Given the current climate of disciplinary reconfiguration and geographic dispersal, it has become apparent that the urgent task has now become to engage the new intellectual territories in a way that can revitalize the critical vocabulary of contemporary art. We see a fresh approach to the function of an art journal to be perhaps the most productive way of doing this.
With this first, inaugural issue of e-flux journal, we begin something of an experiment in developing both a discursive space and a site for actual art production, in which writers, artists, and thinkers are invited to write on topics of their choosing.
Reading this again ten years on makes us feel grateful for all the brilliant contributors and readers who have shaped the journal over the years. e-flux journal #95 marks a full decade into this strange experiment in contemporary art publishing.
For our tenth birthday, a small group of longtime contributors have written short texts, which artists have illustrated and set to graphic format. Since 2008, the authors included here have continued to shape varied concerns and urgencies into certain consistencies and overarching emergent issues.
We hope you’ll enjoy issue #95: WONDERFLUX.
Stay tuned for events we’re organizing in 2019 to mark the start of the next decade of e-flux journal.