Parkett Ceases Print Magazine After 33 Years

The magazine offered editions by renowned artists.

The cover of Parkett's current issue.

Parkett, a publication known for insightful essays on contemporary art and editions by legendary artists, has announced that it will end the print run of its renowned magazine. In a letter to readers posted on the magazine’s website, the co-founders and publishers—Bice Curiger, Jacqueline Burkhardt, and Dieter von Graffenreid—attribute the decision largely to “the radical change in reading behavior brought about by our digital age.”

Among the fans listed on the magazine’s website are former Museum of Modern Art curator Rob Storr, who called it “the most stylish, serious art publication of recent decades”; Ullens Center director Philip Tinari, who said that “the diversity of works on view offer a sense of what artists can do with the challenge of how to distill their practices into a single, compact object or image”; and Gong Yan, editor of Shanghai’s Art World magazine, who offered, “How much we envy a medium that needs no attitude!”

One sign of Parkett’s rare pedigree within the art community: Curiger, its longtime editor, was selected to curate the 2011 Venice Biennale, which she titled “ILLUMInazioni.”

The magazine’s final issue, its 100th, will appear this summer and will “retrace the energies, aims, and ideas” that informed the publication, write the publishers.

The current issue, number 99, which is now selling for $45, features texts on artists Omer Fast, Cao Fei, Adrian Ghenie, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, as well as an insert by Rokni Haerizadeh.

Each issue of the magazine is accompanied by an editioned project by the artists who are its focus, including paintings, photography, prints, videos, and sound pieces. Among the other artists who have recently created editions are Ed Atkins, Theaster Gates, Camille Henrot, Wael Shawky, Dayanita Singh, and Hito Steyerl.

On the bright side, every issue of the bilingual German and English magazine, which has offices in Zurich and New York, will be archived online, including some 1,500 articles.


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