Stacey Streshinsky is a writer and translator from Moscow, Russia. She is an editor at 

Stacey Streshinsky

Laura Doyle

Hunter Braithwaite

John Vincler is the newly appointed Co-Chief Art Critic of 

 magazine (along with Johanna Fateman). He serves as Library Director at Poets House. He is at work on a book-length project about cloth as subject and medium in art.

John Vincler

Eileen Harris Norton

Heather Hubbs

Pamela and David Hornik

Elizabeth Leach

Sade Lythcott

Jordan Schnitzer

Ami Sueki and My Nguyen

Issue 6

For all its complexities, the engine of the art world is surprisingly simple. Its power is derived from two related human conditions: the drive to create and the drive to collect. When you realize this basic truth, every issue of every publication is a collecting issue. Every stop on the art world circuit is a collection junction. And so we could have done this anytime.

Fair week paraded by with Armory, Independent, and the new arrival COLLECTIBLE Design. The galleries are back from break, their summer group shows rehung with works that will set the tone of the season. And then, of course, the auctions. September, exceptional in the density of objects and velocity of wire transfers, exclaims a year-round truth. We like collecting.

Accumulation makes us human. Most people would say their objects (or network of friends or mental slideshow of experiences) define who they are. But collecting, the thought and strategy required to do it right, is key to another echelon. Digital wallets, hoarded closets, climate-controlled galleries—all exist in the collecting continuum.

Here’s a sampling:


Understanding the collecting impulse as a lifelong affliction (“a disease,” Marc Glimcher put it), Jane Drinkard goes scouting for childhood symptoms, interviewing seven collectors we admire 

For Laura Doyle of Doyle Auctions, a gift from her father acquired at auction when he was a boy set the course for generations of the family-run auction house. In a 

 with Hunter Braithwaite, Doyle talks market froth, the power of the underbidder, and the alchemy of auctioning one collection so that one might create another.

A similar metamorphosis occurred deeper in history, discovers John Vincler in his essay 

 when refuse gathered by Nuremberg's scavenging underclass became the material for some of the finest books in history. Rags to riches, indeed.

, Stacey Streshinsky wanders the halls of European museums, piecing together the provenance that connects all great works of art—and all of us.

To Have and to Hold

Alissa Bennett is a writer whose work addresses the squalid underbelly of popular culture. Her work has appeared in 

 and others. She is currently writing a film about the life of American novelist Edith Wharton.

Alissa Bennett

Orit Gat is a writer and art critic living in London whose work on contemporary art, culture, technology, and football has been published in many magazines. She is currently working on her first book 

, a memoir about football, love, and loss.

Orit Gat 

Kim Hew-Low is an Australian writer living in Brooklyn.

Kim Hew-Low

Ben Detrick is a writer who has contributed to outlets such as the 

Andrew Kuo is an artist who exhibits worldwide and a regular contributor to the 

, and the Sunday Section. He is the cohost of 

Ben Detrick and Andrew Kuo

Rachel Roberts is an Account Executive at Cultural Counsel. Rachel received her M.S. in journalism from Columbia University after completing her B.A. at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. While attending the University of Arkansas, she was a contributing writer for publications like 

, where she was also an assistant editor. With the breadth of her editorial scholarship, she delivers an understanding of strategic media partnerships and campaigns, stewarding noteworthy moments across a roster of cultural institutions like Prospect New Orleans, Remuseum, The Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA), and South Arts.

Rachel Roberts

Issue 5

Endurance, determination, perseverance, performance, luck, failure, ardor, technique, practice, repetition, drive, force, ambition: the lexicon rooted in the worlds of art and athletics, one so ubiquitously borrowed from that presently it evokes the nebulous ideals of a VC-backed monoculture, distilled in advertisements for productivity software, electronic appliances of increasingly slender profiles, the backstory of any given startup. Worn thin, in other words. Cliché. And for good reason: its narrative potency is indisputable.

The appeal is in the inherently active, participatory nature of this lexicon; the stock figures it has borne—the jock-artist, the savant-athlete—natural protagonists in the primal wholesomeness of their being, body moving in tandem with intellect. But, of course, none of it would be the subject of fascination if nobody was watching. Perhaps the best way to eschew cliché is to look towards where it emerges, so we turn our eyes to the spectator. 

In thinking about what the relationship might look like turned inside out, our starting point is the performance on the cover of this issue, which we had the fortune to witness last year at the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland, Oregon. Amanda Ross-Ho’s

was presented as part of Converge 45’s 2023 biennial program in conjunction with

, the artist’s solo exhibition with the Portland gallery ILY2.

Ross-Ho performed the Circle Eight–a basic building block of skating training—over and over again, turning what is typically confined to practice in intense repetition and void of entertainment value into a spectator event, making the private process public and inverting the unspectacular into spectacle. She traced this infinity symbol with her skates until she performed a version of it she deemed competent until it felt like her muscle’s memory of it was recovered. This was her first time on the ice in thirty years, and she did not practice before the performance.

“I was very shaky at first and very slowly accessed and remembered my body’s programming. I felt that whatever this process looked like was the performance,” says Amanda Ross-Ho,  reflecting on the piece. The artist wore an illusion skeleton suit—which also appeared in a scaled-up version as a textile sculpture at the gallery exhibition across town—and had her hair and makeup done specifically referencing Harding’s styling  at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, where a broken skate lace caused her to interrupt and dramatically postpone her performance. “The idea was to sculpt the three psychic traces of aging bodies, histories, and malls and create a perpetual image of mortality.

“Being intensely trained in a sport comes with the empowerment of specialized knowledge and a full understanding of how to cultivate long-term, sustained processes,” Ross-Ho responds to the question of what she carried into her artistic career from the one she had in the sport. “It is the process of learning how to build something. The experience of being an athlete taught me about having a ‘practice’ as an idea generally, which is a committed relationship based in a tradition but also about personal self-realization and an intense understanding of your body.”

Throughout the issue, our contributors contemplate spectacle, spectatorship, performance, and practice in their many manifestations.

writes about what happens when a sport contrives artistry to benefit the viewer.

On the pitch of the Premier League, as mediated by a screen in a pub, 

 the objective gaze of the Video Assistant Referee and what it takes away from the game.

a new book of photographs by Nick Karp documenting Game Changer Wrestling’s 2023 death match in Tokyo’s storied Korakuen Hall—and the lurid attraction of performed violence.

Finally, Cultural Counsel account executive and newly diehard basketball devotee 

about fandom, performance and aesthetics, and the infiniteness of Basketball.


Game Time

Eliza Barry Callahan is a writer, filmmaker, and musician from New York, NY. Her first novel, The Hearing Test, was published by Catapult in March 2024. She is a New York Foundation of The Arts Fellow, and she teaches at Columbia University.

Eliza Barry Callahan

Theodora Allen

Sebastian Gladstone

Glenn Kaino

Patrick Martinez

BJ Panda Bear

Tif Sigfrids

Mike Pollard, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nina, has a diverse background in tech and the DIY music world. He was also a freelance full stack developer. Beyond his tech prowess, Mike founded and managed an independent record label, Arbor, for eight years, overseeing the release of over 140 albums with the contributions of more than 80 artists. He pursued his academic interests in Philosophy at New York University.

Mike Pollard

Eric Farber, Founder and Chief Operations Officer of Nina, brings a wealth of experience to Nina. With over a decade of experience in the music industry, he’s played in bands, produced and released music. He once steered e-commerce development at Buffy, a direct-to-consumer homegoods company. Prior to that, Eric was the lead developer at Bismuth Studio, a full-service design and branding agency, where he collaborated with high-profile clients such as Noah Nyc, WeWork, and What Do You Meme?

Eric Farber

Ezra Marcus is a writer from the Bay Area who studied literature at Sarah Lawrence College. He has worked as a music writer and editor at VICE and Interview Magazine.

Ezra Marcus

Adam Abdalla has been actively collaborating with and advising globally recognized museums, foundations, art galleries, publications, neighborhoods, hotels, and luxury brands for nearly two decades, with a strong focus on communications, strategic marketing, and program ideation and execution.

He currently serves as a Board Member of the New Art Dealers Alliance and Independent Curators International. Offering strategic advising to principals in both art and business, he has developed strong relationships with some of the best creative talent in the world, ranging from fine artists and curators to creative directors and branding agencies.


He has launched successful global PR campaigns for Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Prada Foundation, LUMA Foundation, Creative Time, Thom Browne, Museo Jumex, United States Artists, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the New Art Dealers Alliance, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, and countless others.

Adam Abdalla

Eric Kohn runs strategy and development at EDGLRD. He previously worked as the vice president of editorial strategy at IndieWire, where he worked for two decades, and serves as an adjunct professor of cinema studies at NYU.

Eric Kohn

Issue 4

Of all the places to introduce an issue exploring the shifting lines between art and entertainment, we found the best: cabana-side at the Hollywood Roosevelt, overlooking a pool painted by David Hockney. As vacationers ply its heated waters and dealers wrap another successful Felix LA fair, we pan north, across the Walk of Stars to the Dolby Theatre—the home of the Academy Awards.

Our work has taken us from biennials to curatorial summits to wrestling rings, so an issue of 

 dedicated to art and entertainment was inevitable. And what better establishing shot for such an issue than Los Angeles?

Ground zero for pop culture, the city has long been home to the avant-garde, from Frankfurt School émigrés to Darby Crash to Semiotext(e). Everywhere, the boundaries between art and entertainment, culture and content, shift constantly. In LA especially the ground is always moving, tectonic tendencies notwithstanding.

And so, as LA Art Week fades into the Oscars, we present 

Join us as we careen around town with novelist Eliza Barry Callahan (whose novel 

 is out this week to critical acclaim). Along the way, we ask some of our favorite Angelenos, whether born, raised, or transplanted, about the work of art they feel captures something special about the city.

And knowing that what happens in LA certainly does not stay there, we present two conversations on cultural dissemination. Cultural Counsel founder Adam Abdalla and Eric Kohn, Head of Film Strategy and Development at 

, chat transmedia, worldbuilding, and distribution (cinematic and otherwise).

Back in New York, far from the shadow of the Capitol Records Tower, Eric Farber and Mike Pollard of 

 discuss their new music platform that empowers both artists and listeners.

That's Entertainment!

Nina Johnson is the founder and director of her namesake gallery in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Over the past fifteen years she has brought over one hundred and twenty exhibitions by artists both new and emerging to Miami and forged partnerships around the world where she is recognized as a champion of artists.

Legendary artists such as Judy Chicago, Betty Woodman, Beatrice Wood, Rochelle Feinstein, Terry Allen, Peter Shire, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Nicola L., Martine Barrat and the Florida Highwaymen have exhibited at Johnson’s Little Haiti gallery. Many of the artists whom Johnson has championed have a dual focus in craft and collectible design, including Katie Stout, Anders Ruhwald, Dee Clements, Minjae Kim, and Bari Ziperstien. Various exhibitions and events organized by the gallery have been featured 

 and numerous other publications.

Johnson continues to work alongside the most important contemporary artists and historic estates to produce ambitious projects both within the confines of the gallery space and beyond. She has served on various committees for non-for-profit organizations including the Perez Art Museum Miami, The Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and the 

Nina Johnson

Annie Armstrong

Nate Freeman

Patton Hindle

Sarah Levine

Azikiwe Mohammed

Thomas E. Moore III

Esther Park

Chana Sheldon

András Szántó

Christian Viveros-Fauné

Marcella Zimmermann

Franklin Sirmans has been the Director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) since 2015. Prior to joining PAMM, he was the Department Head and Curator of Contemporary art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 2010 until 2015. At LACMA Sirmans organized 

Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Painting,

 From 2006 to 2010, he was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Menil Collection in Houston where he organized several exhibitions including 

Maurizio Cattelan: Is There Life Before Death?

Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966.

  In 2009 Sirmans was awarded the Gold Rush Award by the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, he was the winner of the 2007 David C. Driskell Prize, and artistic director of Prospect.3 New Orleans from 2012-2014.

Franklin Sirmans

Pete is founder and CEO of Orange Barrel Media, where he has led the company since its establishment in 2004. Recognizing that the future of this country was in its cities, OBM’s pioneering work in urban media has defined the company since its founding, and today the company is one of the largest out-of-home media companies in the US. Beyond his work at OBM, Pete is also an active investor in technology, service and real estate businesses through family office Twofold Ventures.

Pete chairs the Board of Trustee’s at the Columbus Museum of Art, and serves on the Board of Trustee’s at MOCA (Los Angeles), the Wexner Center for the Arts, and is actively involved in other activities and causes related to the arts and community development. Pete has a B.A. from Elon University.

Pete Scantland

Megan Hullander is a writer and editor living and working in New York. Her words have been published in 

Megan Hullander

Issue 3 

Miami in December is a pretty good place to be. The other day, our senior team was adding up their collective years of art weeks. The figure tipped into middle-aged territory. Just what is it that makes this city, at this time of year, so special? Why do people keep coming back, knowing the frustrations—the exhaustion, the traffic—that ground the moments of beauty and excitement? Commerce, of course. But what else?

In putting together this issue, we wanted to crowdsource advice and recommendations from repeat offenders; we wanted the perspectives of those who have come up with the art scene; and we wanted to look at the unpredictable yet remarkably durable relationship between the city’s fluctuations of dollars and people, and its arts institutions.

In short, we wanted to present both a guide and a deep dive into this most special of places. Imagine skimming across the bay on a jet ski, diving off and swimming down, past the coral and into the porous bedrock, where the forces of art and culture, politics, and ecology slosh like a tray of martinis being rushed to your table. That’s what we’re going for.

It would be hard to find a better Virgil to guide us through Miami than Nina Johnson, whose eponymous gallery has showcased many of the city’s artists alongside a mix of those from across the world for over fifteen years. In an essay that roams through relationships with artists and culture-makers, much like rivers do Miami, Nina explains why she has chosen this protean, unpredictable city to set down gallery roots. And as the city morphs with the tides, its arts institutions continue to dominate the horizon. Reporting on the museum beat, Megan Hullander explores the architectural topography of the city’s museums, highlighting, as she does so, the exhibitions on view this season. Start at MOCA North Miami, then head south.

You’ll arrive at PAMM, the canopied marvel screwed into the shore of Biscayne Bay. If you’re approaching by car—which we bet you are—you’ll likely catch a glimpse of some fresh signage. Take note, and then read this conversation between PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans and Pete Scantland, the CEO of Orange Barrel Media, as they talk art, advertising, and how museums everywhere could be making a lot more money.

Speaking of money—turns out there’s a lot of it in Miami. Especially at this time of year. But what do you do with it? Well, we reached out to a handful of our closest confidants and demanded their intel as to where to see art, maybe even buy it, and where to get a bite or a drink. Our first port of call is the Deuce because 

, but it’s only going to get weirder, and wilder. 

And it’s hard to be as weird and wild as “Pull Your Coat,” a TV pilot from 1986 created by artist Ed Bereal, the intro of which adorns this issue’s cover. To see the whole episode, swing by Elizabeth Leach’s booth in the Survey section of the main fair.

Welcome back to Miami. It’s been too long.

Welcome to the Miami Issue

Amelia (she/they) is a writer, editor, and critic with an MFA in Art Criticism & Writing from School of Visual Arts in New York, NY, and a BFA in Photography from California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA. They are the founder and Editor in Chief of 

, an online magazine about West Coast art. Amelia's writing has been published in 

Originally from the Bay, Amelia now lives in Portland, OR, on the unceded territories of the Clackamas and Cowlitz nations.

Amelia Rina

Brandon Zech

Brandon Sheats

Ashley Cook 

Jameson Johnson

Lindsay Preston Zappas

Gabriella Angeleti is a freelance writer and editor based in Brooklyn. Born in Rio de Janeiro and raised in the Southwest US, she studied in London before landing in New York. She is a former editor at The Art Newspaper, where she worked on staff for nearly a decade in several editorial roles, while also writing for other publications.

Gabriella Angeleti

Suzette “Susie” Surkamer began as the South Arts chief executive in 2012. Previously, she had been the Executive Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission until she retired in 2009. Her past service includes president of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), treasurer of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, member of the Coca-Cola Scholarship National Selection Committee, member of the National Arts Education Partnership Steering Committee, member of the Winthrop University Board of Visitors, member of Clemson University’s President’s Advisory Committee, and on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and other organizations. Winthrop University awarded her its Medal of Honor in the Arts (2006), and NASAA recognized her with the Gary Young Award (2008). Susie earned a MEd in dance education from George Washington University and a BA in dance from the University of Maryland.

Susie Surkamer

Issue 2 

When this issue hits your inbox, we’ll have just returned from Lake City, South Carolina for the opening of 

, a town-wide exhibition of works by southern artists. It’s a fitting occasion to launch an issue devoted to regionalism—whatever that means these days—and how art functions outside of the art world’s capital cities.

Far from being a diffuse shadow of the dominant ecosystems in places like New York, the lifecycle of contemporary art, from its funding to its production and presentation to its critical and public reception, only intensifies as it plays out in communities across the country. And though the challenges are tougher, the rewards are greater.

There’s a larger conversation at play here, one that considers the role of arts and culture within the American project. But that will have to wait for a future issue. For now, we’re thrilled to present the perspectives of funders, exhibition-makers, and arts publishers as they survey the national arts landscape.

 follows the money. As the President and CEO of South Arts, one of the seven Regional Arts Organizations (RAOs) set up by the NEA in the 1970s, Surkamer devises strategies and programs of support for artists and arts organizations across nine states in the southeastern US. How does one go about successfully funding in that region? 

considers the contested notion of the regional museum. Not just places “where the front desk staff feels bad asking you for admission,” as she was jokingly told while researching the piece, these institutions are often the first responders to the cultural crises of the day. 



As to how presenting organizations interlock to create a local scene, 

 as the Converge 45 Biennial kicks off, with works by over 50 artists on display in private and public museums, galleries, project spaces, not to mention a shopping mall and the city’s Japanese Gardens. But what happens after the show goes down? 

, we speak to the people behind arts publications across the country: Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of 

, and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the 

And to round off the issue, we present a special work by Sky Hopinka. 

 builds upon a lyrical fragment of Bob Dylan, allowing us to wander through this strange, beautiful country.

Welcome to the Regions

Sam Gill is the President and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation.

Sam Gill

Nicole Berry

Maureen Bray

Kelly Cornell

Benedetta Ghione

Jenny Gibbs

Robin Peckham

Ajay Kurian is an artist, writer, and founder of NewCrits.

Ajay Kurian

Julia Halperin is an independent arts and culture journalist and the cofounder of the Burns Halperin Report. She was executive editor of Artnet News.

Julia Halperin

Issue 1

Any speculation of the future first requires a bit of retrospection. And so:

 on the first of November, 2016, at a party held on the set of 

, relocated to a cavernous Chelsea art space funded by the Austrian energy drink giant Red Bull. The election was a few days off. In many ways the thinking that went into the publication was encapsulated in that night. Conceived on the edge of the largest sociopolitical precipice in our lifetimes—though everyone was sure he would lose—we opted for irreverence. We reached out to writers, curators, and artists, and asked them to throw darts at whatever they wanted. It was a form of culture jamming, to borrow a phrase from an earlier moment, critique from within.

It was also slightly subversive, not only because of the writing we published, which was unbeholden to advertisers or news cycles, but simply because a PR company was behind it. And yet, it served a real purpose. Legacy publications were contracting, or folding entirely. As a one-time contributing editor of 

, we could give writers freedom, and a dollar a word. So we did.

Over the coming four years we published more than 100 medium to long-form essays from across culture. Sheila Heti, Gary Indiana, Chris Kraus. Andrea Long Chu, Bob Nickas, Brontez Purnell. To name a few. We published one essay at a time, every other week. No two were alike. No two were even similar. What emerged was an archive of the leading voices of our time, individualized, with cohesion only formed in the aggregate, in the aftermath.

It could be viewed as a collection, an idea explored in 

, written by Sophie Haigney and published in December 2020. By then we had slowed down commissioning new work: forced, by the pandemic, to put as much as possible on pause.

 brings together perspectives from different fields to further meaningful discussions relevant to culture in general. 

—championing individual points of view—by putting those voices in conversation. The voices you’ll find in these issues include those we at Cultural Counsel conspire with, and those we are inspired by. Whereas Affidavit had a strict church-and-state policy when it came to our clients, here we’re bringing everyone to the table. We offer this as a primer for the curious reader, and a resource for cultural professionals.

, is intentionally misleading. It plays on the techno-utopianism of future-focused thinking, the urge to move fast and break stuff in a culture that already moves too fast, and in which most things are already broken.

More than that, it emphasizes a temporal truth. The future demands both a past, and a present. Much as I used the first few paragraphs of this letter to explore what led us to this point, the contributors of this issue pivot on the vantage point of Spring 2023 to look back on the recent history of their respective fields, and envision a more just, equitable, and culturally advantageous path forward.

Reporting on the media, Julia Halperin of the 

, breaks down the current state of the art press through a series of fictitious headlines, and the editorial thinking behind them. If you’re wondering why you don’t see more exhibition reviews on a daily basis, you’ll find out why 

From the dual perspective of artist and educator, Ajay Kurian looks at how the conditions of artistic development have changed over the pandemic, and how new technologies have affected one of the core exchanges of an artist’s life: 

Sam Gill, President and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation, lays out why philanthropies should support the entirety of an artist’s life, instead of just funding specific projects. 

Here’s the reasoning behind Doris Duke’s $80 million commitment to the performing arts.

Speaking of money, we round out this issue with a state of the union from one of the art world’s main economic drivers: the fair. We reached out to directors of fairs across the world to get 

their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities on the horizon.

Finally, we’re excited to premiere an artist commission program, done in collaboration with 

. On our homepage you’ll find a special work by Rachel Rossin. 

explores the Proteus Effect: a strange occurrence within virtual worlds, in which the chosen characteristics of an avatar begin to impact the behavior of the user. Obviously, something to be aware of as we continue to shift our lives toward online realities.

 on Tuesday, November 1, 2016, we had no idea what would happen seven days later. Let alone seven years. We hope that the writing in this first issue of 

 will help bring a little clarity, both to how we got here, and to where we’re headed together.

Contributors

Stacey Streshinsky

John Vincler

Alissa Bennett

Orit Gat

Kim Hew-Low

Ben Detrick and Andrew Kuo

Rachel Roberts

Eliza Barry Callahan

Theodora Allen

Sebastian Gladstone

Glenn Kaino

Patrick Martinez

BJ Panda Bear

Tif Sigfrids

Mike Pollard

Eric Farber

Ezra Marcus

Adam Abdalla

Eric Kohn

Nina Johnson

Adam Abdalla

Franklin Sirmans

Pete Scantland

Megan Hullander

Amelia Rina

Gabriella Angeleti

Susie Surkamer

Sam Gill

Ajay Kurian

Julia Halperin