What comes first—a thriving local art scene or the outlets that deem it such? We consulted the luminaries behind regional arts publications across the country to try and answer this chicken-or-the-egg question. Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (CARLA) Lindsay Preston Zappas (Los Angeles, CA), Executive Director of Burnaway Brandon Sheats (Atlanta, GA); Publisher of Glasstire Brandon Zech (TX), Founder of runner magazine Ashley Cook (Detroit, MI), and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Boston Art Review (BAR) Jameson Johnson (Boston, MA) joined us for a roundtable discussion over Zoom on June 5, 2023.

This resulted in a bigger conversation about “regionality,” which establishes our interlocutors’ initiatives squarely in their geographic locations and in service of their local communities. But these publications are also interested in bringing regional news to a more global audience. Their efforts come at a critical time. The gutting of local news has profoundly impacted the state of art criticism. According to a recent report, the U.S. lost more than 360 local newspapers between late 2019 and the end of May 2022. More than a fifth of Americans now live in news deserts, with limited access to local news and, concordantly, lack of access to arts coverage. The past decade, however, has seen a rapid growth of regional arts publications, populating these deserts like oases of hope for a healthier and hardier media landscape in the future.

Discovery: What does ‘regionality’ mean to you? Is it defined by geography? Cultural ecosystems? Lindsay, why don’t we start with you, seeing as some may argue that Los Angeles, with its recent growth as an international art hub, does not qualify as a ‘regional’ setting?

Lindsay Preston Zappas: I think the regionality is definitely a geographic thing, but it also has to do with a particular ethos—here, it’s an ethos of experimentation. Also, thinking back to the history of art and artists here in LA, while we do write about contemporary art, we still always have an eye towards what came before and the histories before us. And I think the regionality has to do also with just sort of a pride of place, of being in LA and having a really specific voice. I mean, all the cities represented here are very diverse, and I think that makes it an interesting challenge, as an art publication, to really collapse all of that diversity into one place and to celebrate it.

Ashley Cook: Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, there was not a lot of pride in the city. I was influenced by that; it caused me to have a lack of appreciation for Detroit at a young age. Before going to the College for Creative Studies, the art school in Detroit, I looked at every other college you could possibly imagine to get out of the city. I was thinking, “I can’t be here; there’s no way that it’s going to be a good thing for me to stay in the city for my career as an artist.” But then I ended up staying at CCS, and I just fell completely in love with the city. I realized that it has such a rich history and such a rich contribution to the local communities as well as so many other places around the world. It has been so easy for that stuff to be forgotten, even by the people who are here, because of a lack of coverage or discussion about it.

Brandon Sheats: It’s being in the epicenter of something vastly overlooked. It’s about maintaining that tension between the audience and the art market as a commercial entity. And, of all things, it’s the spaces and institutions that exist more for the people and having to make that difference. This creates a need to remind people that the only people who can truly tell a narrative are those who inhabit it.

Brandon Zech: I’ve been asked this question before: the idea of “regionality” is one of the barriers Glasstire butts up against. It’s not anything to do with the support of the local community, our ability to find good writers, or our ability to write about good art happening—or anything to do with our work and coverage. Instead, I feel like we are fighting against the national perception of Texas as a place. When you look at the news coming out of our state, it’s about conservative politics, or it’s about a hurricane completely decimating a city’s infrastructure with entirely inequitable consequences based on the inherent problems that are inherent to the city’s history. It’s these tragedies that make for really good national news because they’re sensational; you can look at Texas and think, “Wow, look how messed up that state is.”

But those of us who live in Texas know that it’s so vibrant and that there’s so much community. Cities like Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are extremely diverse in every sense of the word. I mean, Houston has one of the best food scenes in the country. You could divide our state into five different states, and they would each have drastically different policies. But when you think about something as a homogenized group, as so much of the national press does when looking at Texas, it’s hard to see any complexity and even harder to prompt any conversation about the arts in Texas. That’s not what anyone elsewhere cares about. Even if our myriad art scenes can stand up against art that is happening anywhere else.

Jameson Johnson: It feels like Boston sabotages its own art scene. The city has a really rich history of punk and DIY music, but it’s been totally dormant because the cops shut down basement shows, and then people got bummed about it and didn’t want to do it again. When I was in college, everyone called Boston “Bummer City.” There’s even a jokey website that’s called Bummer City Historical Society. People in Boston love to hate on Boston. That’s been something that we at the magazine have been trying to combat and rally people around and be like, “No, you guys, there’s so much happening here.” And yeah, the housing sucks, the healthcare sucks; but that happens in so many cities, and artists are getting priced out of cities everywhere.

To try to switch the narrative to show people what is actually happening here has been difficult. We also are a city where nearly a quarter of our population are students that come here and leave in the summers, and then leave permanently after four years, and so there’s this transience about. Lack of institutional memory is really, really an issue here. I’m loving hearing from all of you because I think we all share a desire to hold an archive for and give space to voices that define these little pockets and neighborhoods, and moments, creating a snapshot of the places that we love and care about. It’s our own love letters to our cities and regions. But getting other people to understand your love letters can be really difficult.

AC: There is a concern that people here don’t really recognize Detroit as a relevant place to be. I have heard the term “brain drain” being thrown around a lot in the city because we have seen intellectuals and great artists leaving the city as soon as they get their degrees to find a place that’s maybe a little bit more stimulating for them, or that has a clearer track for career growth. A lot of really amazing thinkers have stayed, but we’ve also lost a lot.

Discovery: Who are your audiences?

BS: Anybody. Our interim editor, Courtney, teaches at Georgia State. I got to sit in on her class months ago, and she said something really interesting, which was that for a lot of these students, university is the first time they’re going to understand that there’s such a thing as contemporary art. She told me if it were not for her reading Art in America in her senior year of high school, she would not have even thought that she could go to school for it. On a regional level, especially in the South, it just informs the narratives we employ to connect people with art in ways that they would not imagine. So that’s why I say almost anyone. If you’re interested in it or open to it, we’re here for you.

BZ: We follow much of that same mindset. You have to have a vague, passing interest in art. I am not necessarily a believer in the magical thinking that an art review could spark an interest in someone who hates art and make them start loving it. Whenever I talk with new writers, I tell them that whenever I write, I try to write for my mother. I didn’t grow up in an art family. We didn’t go to art museums. I discovered art through art history in high school, which brought me to where I am today. But I still try to write for my mother, with the intent that she’d be able to fully comprehend what’s going on. I’m not referencing Foucault in every other sentence. Instead, I explain what’s going on in the art, how I’m experiencing it, and why it is doing whatever it’s doing. But at the same time, I want to write so that all of the industry people reading Glasstire get something out of it, too.

LPZ: I love that. I’ve literally written an entire letter from the editor about writing for my mom. Writing with an accessible tone is paramount as an accessibility measure. Avoiding the art speak. Hierarchical language that is very limiting to its audience and has a self-importance around it. It also makes the writing better. As I’m editing, highlighting a sentence and saying, “Okay, let’s take out the theory here, and what are you actually saying? How can you delete these art-y words and use normal words here?”

The audience can be the array of the art world, from students who might just be learning about art to artists, collectors, art workers, curators. And because we’re free and we distribute around the city at, I think, now over 100 art spaces, people that might be going to a gallery for the first time can pick up a copy. And it becomes almost like a discovery of the art world. There’s a potential for it to be sort of an access point for people, which is really exciting to me.

We’re also translating our issues into Spanish now, taking into consideration the specific needs of Los Angeles. I mean, so much of America is Spanish-speaking, and Los Angeles is about 40% Spanish-speaking.

BZ: We’ve been translating select articles into Spanish for the past four years. It’s been a great exercise to just try and find new audiences and to work with translators, and it’s long overdue.

BS: Do you all think about things diasporically? People are reading Burnaway in New York, LA, Chicago, and Portland, but also in Berlin, Lagos, São Paulo. It becomes really apparent that we also need to talk about people from these regions, make those connections, and show how our cultures mix together. Down here, it’s a lot about Hip-Hop. If it weren’t for Atlanta and Miami and New Orleans and Houston, if it weren’t for those sounds, the country would have nothing to listen to.

BZ: We think about this a lot. There are a ton of artists that have come out of Texas—that either went to graduate school here or were born here and had formative years here—that aren’t recognized as being “Texas artists.” Or, artists who are based here and show internationally but aren’t recognized as being Texas artists when they’re shown elsewhere. You’ll always see that someone is a Brooklyn-based artist, an LA-based artist, or a Berlin-born artist. But if someone is from Texas, they’re never a Houston-born artist; instead, they’re a Brooklyn-based artist.

Discovery: How do local demographics factor into how your publications function?

JJ: Our audience is primarily artists, which I love. Boston does not have a huge market or collector base. Most of the people here are affiliated with a university or an institution in some way. Despite that, we really try to bridge the gap between coverage and criticism and find the sweet spot where we are not using artspeak and jargon. We want the publication to be something that both a professor can pick up and engage with and also a student for whom this might be the first time engaging with contemporary art.

When we were making the first couple of issues of BAR, I was going around and talking to everyone that I could, saying, “I have this idea. We’re working on this. What do you think?” I mean, truly, all the time. And there was one person who I spoke with, and I talked to her about how we were doing an interview with Nick Cave, and we also had some super emerging artists who had their first project out in the world.” And she was like, “You’re going to put those people in the same issue?” And I was like, “Yeah, we’re all in the same system.”

BZ: I would say in any given year, we, of course, have a significant readership from all across Texas. But we also have a not-insignificant readership from the rest of the US. I think part of it is that we’ve been around for 22 years. We have a backlog of content that people can find just by Googling artists’ names.

What you were saying, Jameson, about merging types of coverage resonated with me. We’ll publish something about a Yayoi Kusama installation that was just purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the next day, we’ll publish an article about a small gallery show in Laredo. Because of this mix of content—of known and lesser-known artists and art spaces— we have this backlog of content that readers can access, and a lot of readers end up seeing that content in addition to reading articles that came out in the last week. Our audience also includes a portion of international readers.

Discovery: Let’s talk about sustainability. How do you ensure the longevity of a publication?

LPZ: It’s been really top of mind since we’re in the midst of this transition to a nonprofit. Until now, we’ve been pretty much exclusively funded via advertising. That speaks to us being in LA, where there is an art market here that is large enough to support that. Our vision now, as we’re becoming a nonprofit, leans on our membership program called Club Carla, where we’re really inviting the public to join as a member, which includes things like a CARLA subscription. We’re doing member events like studio visits with artists. But until recently, we really didn’t ask the public for support in any meaningful way. And so this is a huge light bulb moment for me, is you need to signal that you need support from the community and communicate in an effective way.

Generally, we’re looking at the future, in terms of funding and sustainability, through the lens of advertising, membership, and grants. Until now, we’ve been operating as an LLC, which means that most grants were not available to us, and that has largely fueled the decision to become a nonprofit.

AC: I’ve always just done whatever I wanted to and funded it myself. Starting in the second year, I introduced advertising into the printed copies of the book, and that went quite well. I probably sold about eight ads for that issue, which funded about half of the cost of the printed books. That was really great and exciting. But now I’m into the third year, I’m trying to solicit those advertisers again, and some are less responsive. You’ve got to remind these people: “Hey, I’ve been writing about your gallery shows all year. I’m not going to be able to do this if I don’t get this support from you.” I’m asking for between 150 and 250 bucks for an ad.

LPZ: Oh my God, that’s so cheap.

AC: I know, but even that, it’s just Detroit is so... There’s just not any money for art here. It’s very, very sad. I feel bad even asking for it, but it’s just what I need to do. There’s no other way.

LPZ: We are vital pieces of the art ecosystems in each of our cities; they need you, and they rely on your work. Our writing fuels the scene and, to be frank, often fuels sales for these galleries too. We are a vital piece of this community, and they need you. Communicating that as diplomatically as possible is really important.

AC: You know, I’m almost considering making a poster that says something like, “We need you, you need us. Come on, let’s go.” Because it really is an ecosystem. But hey, if we’re gone one day because we can’t afford to keep doing it, then voila—now you don’t have really great art reviews written about your gallery shows.

BS: I remember my first couple of weeks at Burnaway. A couple of our advertisers emailed me and said that we should meet. I’m going, “Why should we meet?” And one of them was a little more transparent about it, no longer wanting to pay for advertising. So, I went back and pulled every review that we’ve done for the gallery in the past three years. I told them, “Look, this is an ecosystem we’re in. Everything that we do plays into it. If we are not covering what you’re doing, no one’s going to show up at your space. With the criticism that we provide, we are trying to drive this ecosystem in our regions and in our cities towards a healthy place, and with that comes change. Bottom line, if you don’t want to give us money, then there’ll be no one covering you again.”

JJ: I don’t know if this is the same with you, Brandon, and in your region, but the galleries in our area have a really hard time making it, too. And so I’ve been in a position—Ashley, I’m sure you’ve been there—where the galleries who have supported and taken out advertising in BAR are other women entrepreneurs who are running spaces. I’ll ask, “Abigail, what can you do?” And she’s like, “This year, I can do a $400 ad, and maybe next year I can do more.” And it’s always this give and take. And my response is always, “Anything. Anything is so helpful.” Going back to the original question of the funding, I looked to peers like Burnaway and decided really early on that we needed to be able to accept tax-deductible donations.

We were sponsored through Fractured Atlas for the first three and a half to four years of our work. And then we actually took over the nonprofit status of a defunct blog called Big, Red and Shiny, which came about in the early 2000s blog era and covered the Boston art scene. When I started looking into the nonprofit process, the volunteer lawyer that we had said, “There’s an organization you can take over; that’s the cheaper way to do it.” So that was the route that we took. To this day, we have not received a gift from an individual larger than $15,000. That is a fraction of what we need to even produce an issue.

And so we’re working now on adjusting our publishing cycle so that our team can take some time to actually focus on trying to make this sustainable. This will be the first summer in five years that I’m not making a print magazine, and I’m so excited.

Discovery: Since a lot of what your publications inadvertently do is create a record of your art communities, could each of you speak about the general observations you have made? What has the arc of its development and change been?

LPZ: As I mentioned earlier, LA is in such a moment right now. I started the magazine in 2015. It was around the time that Hauser & Wirth moved here. And in the eight years that I’ve run the magazine, now we have Frieze Los Angeles, and we have galleries from New York and all across the globe moving here. The market has grown a lot, but Los Angeles is still very much defined by its schools like UCLA, CalArts, and Otis College of Art and Design.

Other galleries are arriving with a fresh perspective. But then there are the roots of Los Angeles: the history of LA, the artists who have studied here that are grounded in that. And I do think it’s more and more important to connect to the history of LA because there’s so much newness in the city.

BZ: But there’s always an article, once a year, about how LA’s art scene is really on the come-up.

LPZ: We’ve been here! But now there’s maybe more attention. And Detroit, same thing. I remember when I moved to Detroit, it was the new city to watch. Artists are moving from New York. Those things make national news. And it’s like… we’ve been here. But I also think the upside to all of this newness is that we are voices for these communities. People look to us to really represent what’s actually happening here. That, to me, is very exciting.

BS: Same. Every couple of years by a mix of civic boosterism and the film industry (we have this ridiculous tax credit, so a quarter of LA has moved to Atlanta), and, with Atlanta being cheaper than Miami now, folks are moving up here from Miami, so Miami is worrying about their scene because people are leaving. This new group coming in—they don’t know how much work went into making Atlanta Art Week happen. And so you get across the region, this constant of trying to manage and navigate and negotiate with the Southern-curious who come because it’s cheap and they bring what they bring. It was a little weird to see the UTA [United Talent Agency] target this market. So now, part of our work is just defending those artists that have promise while existing outside of these systems.

JJ: In Boston, there’s been a huge change in support from the city. My background is in politics and policy. When I was an undergrad, I was obsessed with arts funding policy. And it’s been really interesting just in the past six years, where there have been huge shifts in how the city is involved with arts and culture. With that, I wish that BAR could do more reporting because there is so much that’s changing right now. But because of our bandwidth and lack of staff, it’s hard for us to be immediately responsive. Another really fabulous regional publisher, Jenna Crowder, who ran The Chart in Portland, Maine, had a tagline for her publication, which was “Reveling in the Art of Slow Publishing.” And I think we revel in the art of publishing when we can.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.