New York Magazine, Art-World Cover Stories, 1975-1985
It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then an art-world story makes the cover of a popular magazine. This tendency probably accelerated after the advent of Pop Art, an art movement that made the art world more accessible and attractive to the general public. Although such stories do not usually provide a deep analysis of the art, they often make for a lively read, and occasionally can even amount to a first-rate example of investigative journalism.
New York Magazine, founded in 1968 by Clay Felker and the graphic artist Milton Glaser (who designed the magazine’s distinctive logo), provided an influential new model with its emphasis on news, culture and lifestyle all focused on a single city. It is no surprise that the glamorous and moneyed art world, so prominent in New York, on occasion provided the magazine’s cover story. Featuring top photographers like Harry Benson and provocative writers like Gallery 98 favorite Anthony Haden-Guest, these issues live on as valued art ephemera.
Andy Warhol, Secrets of My Life, 1975
“Secrets of My Life” by Andy Warhol, New York Magazine, March 31, 1975. Cover photograph: “Ah there you are, Andy Warhol” by Carl Fischer.
Few artists managed to exude as much mystery and inspire as much interest as Andy Warhol. Here New York Magazine provides its readers with the first public glimpse of the Pop artist’s upcoming book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B & Back Again).
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Mary Boone: The New Queen of the Art Scene, 1982
Anthony Haden-Guest, “The New Queen of the Art Scene,” New York Magazine, April 19, 1982. Cover photograph by Larry Williams.
The sudden emergence of Julian Schnabel and David Salle provided the art world with “its first spasms of life since pop art galvanized the market in the 60s.” People were intrigued both by the artists and by their stylish young dealer Mary Boone. Visit our online exhibition “Mary Boone Galley: A Fabled History in Art Ephemera.”
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“Andrew Crispo: The Macabre Case of the Man in the Mask,” 1985
Anthony Haden-Guest, “The Man in the Mask…and the Shadowy World of Andrew Crispo,” New York Magazine, June 24, 1985. Cover photograph by Harry Benson.
A high-end art dealer, S & M, and the discovery of a burned corpse wearing a black leather mask make up Haden-Guest’s well-sourced cover story. Crispo’s companion Bernard LeGeros was convicted for the murder; Crispo was charged with kidnapping and torture, but acquitted, and later served five years for tax evasion.
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Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta, “A Death in Art,” 1985
Joyce Wadler, “Did Carl Andre, the Renowned Minimalist Sculptor, Hurl His Wife, a Fellow Artist, to Her Death?,” New York Magazine, December 16, 1985. Cover photograph of Andre by Gianfranco Gorgoni; photograph of Mendieta by Wendy Evans.
A detailed account of the relationship of two high-strung, argumentative people — a male artist famous for his extreme minimalist works, and his younger wife just beginning to be recognized for feminist inflected body and performance art rooted in her Cuban heritage. The article lays out the circumstantial evidence that Andre pushed Mendieta out the window. He was later acquitted in a 1988 trial.
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