one more letter to one more editor

I know, I know, Modernism has come and gone, but I’ve always thought that “form follows function” was a good principle to follow.  I’m having a tough time negotiating the form of your latest issue with its function.  If I’m supposed to hold and open it in order to read it, or even to look at its ads, you have finally found the magic formula that thwarts such action: a 10”x10” magazine format with 550 pages.

There is a certain beauty in the symmetry of those numbers, but their combination yields an issue that is finally so heavy, and so squirmy that it is impossible to hold, much less behold.  I keep trying to read it; but every time I pick it up, I find myself putting it down.  The only way to get into it is to put it on some kind of podium as if it were an unabridged dictionary in a library.

If the intention for your 50^th anniversary issue was to help readers correct their posture by forcing them to read it on a flat surface, then maybe form still follows function.  However, I like to slouch on the couch while reading about art criticism in a “glossy”.  Next time you want to investigate your own history, please put it out in a format that facilitates reading, such as a hardback book that holds itself rigidly together, or maybe two skinnier magazine issues…. Of course this implies that legibility be one of ArtForum’s functions.

Sincerely

addendum weeks later:

I wrote a few weeks ago to complain about the size and weight of your 50^th anniversary issue whose mass only equals that of your 2007 summer at the height of the housing boom.  I am now sheepishly writing to tell you how much I enjoyed its written content after getting over my comfort issues with its form.   

Sincerely

...weird how this blogspot graphic interface works

Ponto Final (end of the line)

My family hails from Egypt.  My father loved his birth country, and I grew up listening to stories of what sounded like a magical kingdom.  ...And kingdom it was.  I spent countless hours listening to stories of his fascinating Egyptian life, of his great friendships, of his home and family I never met, of his horse rides along the pyramids with his dog Faris, and of him crossing the desert on a jeep with only a wet handkerchief on his head which he kept wet by dipping in a bucket of water he had on the seat next to him.  Stories illustrated by beautiful black and white photographs my mom has in deteriorating photo albums in Switzerland.

It was a different Egypt then; an Egypt where Jews were welcomed and thrived.  So much so, that when my father, who was in the equestrian team that was slated to go to the Olympics before the Second World War, was denied a visa because he was Jewish, the team leader decided that if Raymond, my father, could not participate, then the team would not be going to the Olympics.  And they didn’t. 

After the war and the creation of Israel, all that changed.  Nasser took over the kingdom and made life miserable for Egyptian Jews by persecuting them and expropriating their wealth.  My father always thought of himself as Egyptian first and Jewish second; but he eventually was forced by circumstances to leave the country he loved.  He ended up emigrating to Brazil, a country my parents knew nothing about and whose language they did not speak, in order to create a new free life.  A country he did not die in, but where I was born, and where I learned to be rootless.

Today Mohamed Morsi announced that he was shutting down the last working Synagogue in Egypt for so-called “security reasons”.  To the world at large, it’s just one small blip on the news ticker.  To me, it should not matter. I am not Egyptian, not religious, and, hey, where there were once 80,000 Jews living in harmony with Christians and Muslims, there are now only 100, or so, who for some unknowable and insane reason remain in a country that has long ceased to welcome them.  What does it matter if they can no longer get together and celebrate their beliefs, right?  No, it should not matter to me, yet the news weighs on me because of the stories I grew up with, learned by rote, and understand now, many years later, how they form who I am. 

If this Arab Spring goes on for much longer, god help us when the summer comes.