ART NOTES : Vernacular Speaks for L.A. Scene

The first issue of Vernacular, a Los Angeles-based art mag azine with international aspirations, has hit the news stands. Co-founders and editors Lita Barrie and Brett Horner describe their creation as a publication about visual culture that blurs boundaries between disciplines and targets a broad audience.

“We’re committed to not following old models of magazines,” Barrie says. Conceived neither as a modernist publication nor a post-modernist product, Vernacular is “a sort of ‘90s hybrid,” she says.

The first issue devotes most of its 44 pages to Los Angeles. An interview with conceptual artist John Baldessari serves as the centerpiece. There’s also an essay on Kim Dingle’s paintings, plus columns on painting, radio and new media. Contributions from artists include projects by Ilene Segalove, Stuart Bender and Angelo Funicelli, a page of art and verse by Nancy Buchanan and Terryl Hunter, and comix by Roy Dains. The international flavor appears in gallery-scene reports from Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Brisbane and Prague.

Designed by Joe Molloy of Mondo Type Inc. in Santa Monica, the magazine is meant to be a collectible artwork as well as a readable publication. As for editorial content, “it’s more about dialogue than discourse,” Barrie says. “There’s a lot of emphasis on the spoken word.”

Readers looking for a key to Barrie’s and Horner’s editorial vision can check out a stream-of-consciousness typographical spread on page six: “Good art is where you find it. Start small and build. Art magazines lose money and die young. From polemics to poetics. Intelligence talks, pedantry walks. Straight from the art. Picture a word, read a picture. Individualism is tired, collaboration is wired. Quality matters; the medium less so. Nobody reads anymore. Fragmented, nomadic, transient. ‘Life-like art,’ not ‘art-like art.’ From semiotics to the street. Subtle, sexy, stylish, cinematic. Art theory can be a good read.”

The introductory issue of Vernacular is a relatively small prototype of what the editors hope to produce in the future. They plan to publish Vernacular three times during the first year, then increase the frequency. Individual issues cost $4. A year’s subscription can be ordered for $12 from Vernacular Magazine, P.O. Box 736, Tustin, CA 92681.

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PHOTO FAIR: The Assn. of International Photography Art Dealers Inc., known in the trade as AIPAD, will hold its annual photography fair Friday through next Sunday at the New York Hilton Hotel. Seventy-five dealers from around the world--including G. Ray Hawkins and Peter Fetterman of Los Angeles--will exhibit their wares, according to Kathleen Ewing, the association’s executive director. “We’ll have a full range of fine art photography, from rare vintage work to cutting-edge material,” she said.

Billed as “the world’s largest art fair devoted to photography,” the event typically attracts a large following of curators, collectors and photographers as well as dealers. This year’s production will offer a special theme exhibition, “New York, New York!,” featuring a historical survey of photographs of New York City by Berenice Abbott, Andre Kertesz, Lewis Hine and Helen Levitt, among many other artists. Curator and author Jane Livingston will deliver the fair’s keynote address on Saturday.

In conjunction with the show, AIPAD has published a 256-page, illustrated catalogue listing more than 100 member galleries and the artists they represent. The book is available for $25 from the association’s office: 1609 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009. Information: (202) 986-0105.

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ART-LAW HOT LINE: The Washington law firm Kaufman & Silverberg has established a 24-hour hot line to answer questions on art law. Callers who dial (900) 555-ARTS are connected to a voice-mail system of recorded messages on topics such as copyright, artist-gallery relations, sales commissions, taxes, moral rights, trusts and estates. The cost of the service is $1.95 a minute, charged to the caller’s phone bill. Recorded topics average 2-5 minutes in length.

“We are getting a favorable response, but we are making adjustments to make the system more efficient so that callers spend less time with menus and more time getting information,” says attorney Jamie Silverberg, who developed the service with Joshua J. Kaufman. About 55 topics are available now and 20 others will be added, Silverberg says.