There are few forms of writing I find funnier than wordy, defensive, nervous missives from corporations and institutions desperate to cling onto their (weakly) constructed façade of having the “right,” usually progressive politics and ethics. Flop sweat drips from these announcements, letters, emails, and press releases, filled with wet meaningless non-speak. Of course, many of these communications in the past four years have taken on the form of groveling apologies, promises of accountability, and vague references to “work to be done” and “doing better.” But, let’s be honest, those are getting stale. And anyway, apologies are increasingly out of fashion as all those DEI roles, created amidst these sorries, get slashed and corporations no longer want to pay lip service to timely political concerns when those concerns now have to do with the US’s continued funding of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

That doesn’t mean there is no longer cackling enjoyment to be found in reading institutional bullshit! While the majority lately are explanations from “freedom of expression”-supporting universities about why they allowed cops to bash antiwar student protestors’ heads in, I find that less amusing than new Artforum Editor-in-Chief Tina Rivers Ryan’s first editor’s letter introducing the Summer 2024 issue, the first in months with an actual person at the helm. Titled “Horizon Lines,” Ryan’s letter comes off primarily as a woefully generic, over 2,000-word explanation for why she took this prominent but, until now, untouchable gig in the first place. Hey! ALL institutions have constraints! What’s your problem?! It’s fine!

Understanding the many twists and turns of rationalization in “Horizon Lines” requires a trip down controversy memory lane, which, as usual for the art world, is littered with open letters. Artforum has had a rough sevenish months, starting with the publishing of an open letter on October 19, “An Open Letter from the Art Community to Cultural Organizations.” Signed by big deals like Nan Goldin and then Artforum Editor-in-Chief David Velasco (which will become relevant), this open letter denounced Israel’s leveling of Gaza and called for “an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity in our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.” If you’re wondering why Bibi might give a fuck about the insistence of Barbara Kruger, the letter also demanded that “arts organizations…show solidarity with cultural workers and call on our governments to demand an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter unhindered.” The only hitch: the letter didn’t mention Hamas or their attack on Israel on October 7^th. That “all civilians” phrase was lifting a pretty heavy load. Whoopsie! A bigger whoopsie relates to how it was contextualized. With no authors listed, just signatories that, at the time, were separated by a velvet-rope space delineating the art world big-wigs from the nobody slobs who just signed on later, it looked as if the letter came from Artforum itself. At least that’s how I interpreted it.

Unsurprisingly, people were MAD. According to The Intercept, some collectors like Bed Bath & Beyond scion Michael Eisenberg were so furious that they instantly started pressuring artists to remove their names. Some did (pussies). The next day, Artforum published another letter by gallerists Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, and Amalia Dayan who expressed their “dismay” about the first letter. Then, on October 23, the first open letter was given an update reminding readers they “share revulsion at the horrific massacres of 1400 people in Israel conducted by Hamas on October 7^th.” Three days later, Velasco got the boot from Jay Penske, the trucking heir who owns Penske Media Corporation, which also owns fellow art mags ArtNews and Art in America, along with Variety, Rolling Stone, and other publications. I should note that Velasco came into the role after another shitstorm when then Editor-in-Chief Michelle Kuo stepped down amidst the whole walnut-feeding sex pest scandal surrounding the magazine’s publisher, co-owner, and monochromatic creep Knight Landesman. Velasco’s firing was coupled with—you guessed it!—another letter from the magazine’s publishers deeply regretting that the original letter “was misinterpreted as being reflective of the magazine’s position” and “put members of our team in the untenable position of being represented by a statement that was not uniformly theirs.”

Velasco’s shitcanning poured gasoline on the fire as it appeared as if Penske Media Corp censored Velasco for the contents of the letter, even though contributor Barry Schwabsky suggested in The Nation that anonymous sources told him it was “for declining to take responsibility for circumventing the magazine’s established editorial process…” Which to me sounds like basically the same thing, especially since going against the editorial chain of command in any other case would result in a stern talking-to rather than a shove out the door. Regardless, Velasco’s departure drove several staff members to resign and contributors like our very own preeminent filth elder John Waters to yank their articles in the forthcoming issue. This came alongside the penning of yet ANOTHER open letter—this time from arts writers and critics boycotting Artforum and the rest of Penske Media’s holdings. That letter, obviously the only one not published in Artforum itself, consisted of an enormous glut of working arts and cultural writers, including many Artforum contributors, leaving the magazine with a skeleton crew.

Did you think this would be the end of the letters?! WRONG! On November 8, after the controversy seemed to die down, some of the remaining staff took it upon themselves to remind everyone why Artforum was on the shit list and released another statement rather than just putting their heads down and working. They asserted their continued commitment to the magazine and to “defending political expression, debate, editorial freedom, and independence.” The icing on the cake? One of my favorite institutional lines: “We have much work to do.” Well, since they were operating with a handful of people willing to cross that boycott line, they sure did.

*deep breath* Now, I’m not interested in relitigating the initial open letter, Velasco’s firing, or, you know, ethnic cleansing. I think we’ve all seen enough starving Palestinian children without limbs or with their skulls cracked open or humanitarian aid workers killed in clearly marked vehicles that any reasonable person could conclude that Israel’s actions in Gaza are a bit MUCH. What interested me about this whole Artforum debacle was it seemed all sides had an abrupt wake-up call: the art world’s implied and unspoken agreement—that artists, writers, and curators could pretend to be activists just as long as they willfully ignored exactly where money was coming from and the views those with big pocketbooks might hold and that collectors and donors could ignore all the radical LARPing as long as they could still art-launder money—just might be a load of shit. And, almost inconceivably, it didn’t seem as if any of them had realized it until now.

This brings me to Tina Rivers Ryan’s letter, which I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since first reading it after I spotted and laughed at Hyperallergic News Editor Valentina Di Liscia’s tweeted screenshot. It’s here I should admit I applied to an open Online Senior Editor position with the magazine immediately after the mess, primarily as a goof. Had I made it to an interview stage, I wanted to argue that, like many who have been through controversies and cancelations, the magazine had only one option: lean hard right. Hey, it’s an untapped audience base! Think Newsmax for art. What is Milo doing these days other than following Kanye around like a lost ex-gay puppy? Imagine the hilarity of Ben Shapiro’s high-pitched whines about erotic art similar to his “WAP” pearl-clutching. And I rarely read Artforum reviews, but I certainly would if it had a George Santos byline. Consider the possibilities! Shockingly, I never received a response, not even a form rejection letter.

The magazine went in the opposite direction, attempting the impossible by maintaining a white knuckle, fingernail-chipping grip on believing that they’re still on the right side of history. That is visible on the cover with the choice to feature Palestinian American artist Saj Issa, a decision that had the un(?)intended consequence of bringing all that outrage back again months later. I understand why the magazine chose Issa’s Plein Air Performance, a photo depicting the artist’s “aborted painting session” outside of Beitin in the West Bank. The image contends with artists’ tenuous place, not to mention threatened physical safety, within occupation and their ability to reimagine their own freed homeland. Yet, in the context of the open letter flurry, Velasco’s firing, and the boycott, there is just no way that the cover, as well as the concurrent highlighting of fellow Palestinian American artist Jordan Nassar, doesn’t come off as cynical, a method of institutional self-bestowed absolution that uses artists as props to shield themselves from continued critique. This is a method art institutions just love, by the way. Wouldn’t it be nice if artists could get these opportunities without having to wash someone else’s reputation? A pipe dream! For Artforum, the new issue is as if they’re shouting to all those disgruntled writers: Look! We’re good now! We’ve atoned for our sins! Please come back!

That plea continues within Ryan’s “Horizon Lines,” which takes several paragraphs before her confidence starts to fray and unravel. She begins with an analysis of Issa’s photograph, using it to question the role of art and, likewise, criticism in a time of geopolitical emergency, specifically “Hamas’s brutal attacks on October 7 and Netanyahu’s subsequent genocidal retaliation.” A notably correctly phrased observation that I don’t think any readers will miss. Things, however, begin to take a turn when Artforum, a glossy art mag largely consisting of fancy blue-chip art ads, suddenly transforms into the arbiter of sociopolitical ideas:

“As a leading publication in the arts, Artforum enjoys the privilege and bears the responsibility of helping to define the ‘Overton Window’ for our community—the spectrum of sociopolitical ideas that members of a given population might consider reasonable.”

Is that what Artforum does? I thought they published art reviews that could be clipped for gallery sales. My bad! Ryan does provide an example, but it requires time-traveling all the way back to 1970 and the Vietnam War when “then editor in chief Philip Leider published the answers to the question ‘What is your position regarding the kinds of political action that should be taken by artists?'” And what about the fifty years in between?

While the idea that Artforum helps define the Overton window for “our community”—whoever the hell that is—is a laughably delusional exaggeration of the magazine’s reach and influence, the editor’s letter, at this point, remains fairly standard of the genre, introducing the essays and themes that are contained within the issue and pretty precisely dancing around Velasco’s firing and the subsequent loss of faith in the magazine. In fact, it would be effective if Ryan had concluded with her assertion: “I began my tenure here by having conversations with artists and writers about Artforum’s value to them, and also our obligations; I hope that this issue evidences that we are listening.” Period. Done.

But, she didn’t. Oh…she didn’t. Instead, the two paragraphs that follow are so hilariously self-justifying that they’re worth quoting at length, beginning with a section contextualizing Artforum as an institution among all the other institutions like…government offices. What government offices are we talking about here? The CIA?! Homeland Security? Department of the Interior?!:

“Ultimately, these conversations have clarified for me Artforum’s role within the larger arts ecosystem. Like any institution, it necessarily operates under a series of constraints, whether financial, legal, political, or cultural. On the one hand, the staff remains dedicated to preserving the integrity of the magazine by ensuring that these do not unduly influence the work that we publish. On the other, however, Artforum is part of a larger ecology of institutions—including other publications, galleries, auction houses, museums, nonprofit groups, governmental offices, and schools and universities—all of which operate under various constraints, including some that do not apply to Artforum.”

Uh-huh…

Specifically what constraints are you operating under? Rather than discuss exactly what the hell she means by Artforum’s “constraints” and how that might affect the editorial decisions at the magazine, a curious point to raise that naturally sparks questions, Ryan, instead, points fingers at the United States for being such drooling, anti-art, Nazi morons:

“In the current climate in which we find ourselves here in the United States—one that is deeply anti-intellectual, hostile to progressive values, and skeptical of the arts—I support any institutions that advocate for art, artists, and marginalized people, now more than ever.”

What does this have to do with Artforum or its currently tenuous place in the arts community? Beats me! First off, as evidenced by the word on the cover, Artforum brands itself as an “international” art magazine and features reviews from all over the globe. So why is the United States the sole punching bag for this sudden deflection? And though it sounds good for those who love to endlessly whine about the United States (and there is no shortage of things to whine about), I don’t know that it’s accurate—or at least, it’s way too nonspecific to land. Is the United States in a current climate of anti-intellectualism? At least anymore than normal? The United States is not exactly a country that has ever been supportive of intellectuals. Of makers, of creators, of grifters, of zealots, of wackjobs, of cults, of chain restaurants, of malls, of rest stops, of shady financial deals, of badly thought-out, weapons manufacturing-enriching, bloody and disastrous foreign policies, sure, but intellectuals? Not exactly. Hostile to progressive values? Wait, far-right loonies just won a bunch of seats in the European Parliament and WE’RE the only problem? What about the sudden surge of big brand corporate progressivism post-George Floyd’s murder? Sure, that was largely feckless window dressing, but so is this editor’s letter. And finally, skeptical of the arts? Maybe it’s that art as defined by Artforum has fuck-all to say to the majority of Americans who are just trying to get by in a country of oligarchs who are likely the same people paging through Artforum. Or own Penske Media, for that matter! But it’s so much easier to point the finger outward than inward, huh.

And another turn: “That said, I do understand why many are skeptical of institutions.” Yeah…maybe because some of them like to tell us about the “moral compromises” they had to make to be there:

“Regardless of our individual principles—and sometimes because of them—we all must make moral compromises with the systems in which we find ourselves embedded (even as some of us fight to make new ones, or to improve the ones we have).”

Disregarding that I’m not even sure what “Regardless of our individual principles—and sometimes because of them” means, who is this “we”? I’m not working at Penske Media, which was given a hefty 200 million dollar investment by MBS-linked Saudi Research and Media Group in 2018, the same year the Saudis were also bone-sawing up journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. And Penske, unlike Endeavor, ignored calls to give back the money when confronted about it.

That is a bit of a moral compromise, particularly for those in journalism, but, hey:

“The challenge is to find the line between betraying those principles and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. When do the ends not justify the means? I respect the decisions that others make, as I do not believe that the line is the same for everyone: We each must figure out how to make our own way through the world, determining our own priorities and strategies according to our own abilities and liabilities, even as we endeavor to work with others in common cause.”

Wouldn’t this have been better as a diary entry? Or told to a therapist? Or a priest? Even in a journal or a confessional, though, I may have skipped the quote that concludes that paragraph, which makes me immediately think of both dirty money and Lady Macbeth:

“As the poet June Jordan noted, ‘It’s hard to keep a clean shirt clean.’ I appreciate everyone willing to do the messy work with us, and I promise to continue dedicating our platforms and resources to working with artists, writers, and art workers—especially the most vulnerable ones—in good faith.”

Why not just “Out damned spot”?

I should be clear, I don’t mean to pick on Ryan personally and I don’t blame her for taking the job. Nor do I blame those who work for Artforum or freelance for the magazine. I wish them well. Everyone needs to be paid and there are ever-dwindling opportunities for art publishing nowadays. What baffles (and tickles) me, though, is why those like Ryan (or like the staff’s earlier letter) embedded within institutions feel so compelled to dole out these ultimately unconvincing explanations about it. The goal seems to be to justify their decision-making to the public. But really, it’s for themselves, as there is a split between the leftie politically minded person they see themselves as and the person who took the gig. Let’s face it, Artforum is a conservative publication, not in terms of Republican conservative, but it’s a stodgy old stalwart of a magazine. These justifications never truly work anyway, so instead, maybe it’s better to own it.

So you sold out—so what?