Art & Text: the rise and fall of theory

Abstract

Founded in Melbourne by Paul Taylor in 1981, the Australian art magazine Art & Text began the same year Stephanie Britton founded Artlink in Adelaide. During the 1980s and 1990s, Art & Text made global waves. From its earliest issues, it infused art criticism with critical theory at the moment when that very notion was radical and fresh in Australia. By his mid-twenties, Taylor had curated POPISM at the National Gallery of Victoria (1982), edited the landmark volume Anything Goes: Art in Australia 1970-1980 (1984) and had moved to New York to become a renowned critic for Vanity Fair, Flash Art and The New York Times. Paul Foss took over as Art & Text’s editor following Taylor’s departure. The two Pauls had met at a conference on semiotics in 1981 at the University of Sydney, at which Taylor saw Foss give a paper. Both saw in poststructuralist theory a creative liberatory potential that could transform Australian art into a more critical and intellectually credible field. For a brief few years bridging the final two decades of the twentieth century, Art & Text was one of Australia’s—if not the world’s—most influential art periodicals. Yet, few now recognise the name Art & Text. Foss moved the magazine to Los Angeles in the late 1990s where, away from its Australian roots and with Foss battling ill health, Art & Text eventually withered, Foss publishing its final issue (#78) in 2002. Twenty years later, this article briefly recalls the magnitude of its influence in its heyday, and considers its demise within the larger crisis of theory in art.