The Conservation Center is deeply committed to the Chicago artist community. Arts organizations need our support now more than ever. This month, we're using our platform to share a message from our friends at NewCity, a local magazine committed to arts and culture.
Dear Fellow Art Lover,
I'm writing in hopes you might consider subscribing to the print edition of Newcity magazine and strengthen your connection to Chicago's visual art world. Just click here to do so.
We're a monthly magazine, printed on fine paper stock designed to display the art we feature in as vibrant a manner as possible. And feature it we do, in each and every month through major stories and interviews, a dedicated visual art section, and regular reviews of new exhibitions.
Our publication's roots are firmly planted in visual art, dating back to the Kandinsky watercolor show I wandered into back in college at the Smart Museum where I found myself smitten and through our co-founder Jan's first job at the International Center of Photography an early and now lifelong passion we share. When we decided to start a publication shortly after college, art was a foremost topic.
In fact, we covered visual art in the first issue of Newcity in 1986, back when it was a neighborhood newspaper, and we never stopped as we grew and evolved into the Midwest's leading art magazine. Over the years we've covered many great artists and art exhibitions, including the only Chicago interview with David Wojnarowicz on the occasion of his first retrospective and his only show in the state of Illinois while he was alive, back in 1990, along with an interview with Robert Rauschenberg the same year. Over the years we were an early champion of such Chicago artists as Kerry James Marshall, Carlos Rolon (Dzine), Theaster Gates and many many more.
In addition, many important artists have been contributors to Newcity, including most famously Chris Ware, whose entire Jimmy Corrigan masterpiece was first published a week at a time in Newcity. In addition to Chris, just about every artist in the canon of contemporary graphic novelists has been published in Newcity over the years. The artist Tony Fitzpatrick wrote a weekly column that ran for many years and was collected in a book; he and many others have created covers, including Hebru Brantley.
Several times a year we publish entire special issues dedicated to art, including the Breakout Artists issue each spring that features "emerging" Chicago artists (if you'd been reading this issue since its inception, you'd have been onto Rashid Johnson long before he became a superstar, to name just one artist included therein). In addition, we publish the Art 50 in the fall, in which we document Chicago's art world, from artists to curators, from institutional leaders to gallerists and collectors. Our Design 50 does the same for the "applied" art forms like architecture, graphic design and fashion and our Design issue in December takes a deep dive into the contemporary state of the field led by guest editor Rick Valicenti.
Each year we collaborate closely with EXPO CHICAGO to create their magazine and also work on THE SEEN with them.
We treat Chicago art as the center of our universe, casting an expanding circle of coverage through the Midwest, with regular stories coming from Milwaukee and other regional cities.
For all of this, we ask only $5 a month with no long-term obligation. If you prefer to pay once a year, that's also an option, as are gifts and bulk subscriptions for institutions like regional art galleries and museums.
If you're ready to give us a try, please subscribe here.
Signed,
Brian Hieggelke
Editor/Publisher
Newcity
