Reduced To Narrative
The latest issue of ArtUS contains my inspection of Landslide magazine, a "critical" journal put out anonymously by William Leavitt and Bas Jan Ader in 1969/70. Leavitt was kind enough to sit for a series of interviews and to make available original issues, ephemera, and two 16mm films that documented Landslide-related performances executed in and around Los Angeles. Some of you might have read the brief piece I did on this subject last year for Chicago's TenbyTen. This however is a much longer examination that attempts to place Landslide in the proper context among the concurrent self-published art criticism/literature. Interestingly, featured in this month's Artforum is a synchronous look into New York's own artist-affable publication, Avalanche.
While both publications challenged the authority of "established" critical publications like Artforum and American Artist, their motivations, methodology, and presentation were quite distinct. Slick-looking Avalanche allotted generous space and participatory freedom to artists (like Smithson and Acconci) who, though they still may have been considered outré by traditionalists, were no strangers to the pages of “reputable” periodicals. Doing away entirely with homages to the existent, Leavitt and Ader instead "invented" their own artists—interviewing them, criticizing them, and even constructing work to be displayed in the magazine's pages—investigating issues of celebrity, modish references, and stylistic trends. Whereas Avalanche mimicked Artforum with its square format and glossy spreads, Landslide was a cheaply-produced mimeograph, owing as much visually to Village poetry collections as to art-crowd journals.
The two magazines’ titular similarity was apparently coincidental. “[Avalanche co-founder] Willoughby Sharp visited my studio in late 1970,” recalls Leavitt. “[He’d] heard about Landslide which had preceded the publication of Avalanche by a few months. We didn't exactly hit it off; professional jealousy perhaps,” he jokes. Differences aside, both magazines played important roles in their respective cities. As for Leavitt’s venture partner, Bas Jan Ader, it seems two new books are being published next year on the exploits of the tragic Dutch artist. From Afterall Books/MIT Press comes Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous by Jan Verwoert, while the Artimo imprint promises Bas Jan Ader: Ocean Wave by Koos Dalstra and Marion Van Wijk.