Blackwell Reference Online

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Inspired by Russian constructivism and by the belief that economic and social concerns set the context for A rt and criticism, three art critics – Rosalind K rauss , Annette Michelson, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe – founded October in the spring of 1976. The quarterly journal, as they presented it in their opening editorial, was to stand apart from other “overspecialized reviews” such as Artforum and Film Culture, and to provide a forum for inter-textual critical dialogue. The founding editors identified the need for a journal which could support an intense examination of structural and social influences on art. “Art begins and ends with a recognition of its conventions,” they wrote. The aim of October is to publish theoretical and critical essays on visual arts, film, performance, and music; the editors, according to their manifesto, will publish pieces on literature which bear a significant relation to these first four categories. All of the articles published in October are grounded in M aterialism or idealism. Since its origin, October has placed a strong emphasis on contemporary art practices, and many of the articles contained in its pages explore the influence of past artists on current work. As the title suggests, the founding editors were inspired by the 1917 revolution in Russia and by the film October which Sergei E isenstein was commissioned to produce in ... log in or subscribe to read full text