Odic Force Magazine
A couple of weeks ago I found a new local arts magazine sitting on the freebie shelf at Flightpath, featuring the William Hundley photo taken in front of the Daniel Johnston “Hi How Are You” frog seen above — surely a cover designed to catch my eye! The newly launched magazine is called Odic Force Magazine, evidently named after the founder poked through his thesaurus and came across the Victorian-era term. At first I was worried that it was going to be another slickly-produced-but-light-on-actual-content local “arts and culture” magazine (I’m looking at you, Tribeza and Rare), but there are some good writers involved (Steve Wilson, Rachel Koper of Gallery Lombardi, et al.) and artists profiled (fun to see the workspaces of folks like ceramacist Ryan McKerley and painter Jennifer Chenoweth). It touches on the local art, music, architecture, writing, and fashion scenes without being too unbalanced or terse. It’s not yet ART LIES but it’s an impressive first issue, and it is attempting to cover far more than just the visual arts.
Odic Force’s first issue is generously available online using one of those crazy sorta-works Flash viewers (I couldn’t get it to spit out the PDF so I could read it offline, your mileage may vary).
PS: On a related note, I’m very glad to report that Cantanker’s website is back from the dead. Their domain lapsed, and I worried that they had succumbed to the fate of most good art magazines. Looking forward to their issue #5!
Leave a comment
Please feel free to leave a response, I’d love to know what you think!
There’s also an RSS 2.0 feed for comments left
on this entry, if you’re into that sort of thing.
March 18th, 2008
8:48 am
permalink
i picked up one of these at central market the other day…cool rag!
May 11th, 2008
12:37 pm
permalink
Hi Adam,
I like what you had to say about Odic Force magazine, in comparison to the slick, light on content local mags.
When you say it’s no Art Lies, what did you mean?
Why do you think it so difficult for cities, states…. to support quality art publications versus slick, light on content pubs?
Blog on,
Rick
May 11th, 2008
10:12 pm
permalink
Hi Rick, thanks for commenting!
On hindsight it was unfair for me to say that Odic Force is “no ART LIES”, so I’ve revised that to say “not yet” :) ART LIES has some incredibly good articles and academic essays, and it has an established history of quality writing and reporting. That’s certainly not to say that there isn’t room for more than one quality arts mag in Texas, and I look forward to OF issue #2 to see how they hold up. More writing, please!
I don’t know if there’s a single answer to your second question, but my presumption is that it boils down to money. Check out this quote from Tribeza’s company info page:
“In each city that we have established a presence, we have become an integral part of its cultural scene. As a result, we have developed a following that is made up of the most desirable demographic for local businesses: sophisticated and educated with disposable income spent on clothing, their home, events, arts, travel, dining, and much more.”
These “local” magazines make their revenue largely off of high-end boutique and luxury condo ads, and their content, often focusing on gourmet food, interior design, and real estate, perhaps more easily finds an audience with money to spend. That may be a callous assessment and unfair to the writers, but that does seem to be their primary function, rather than critical writing. (Who considers Tribeza an integral part of Austin’s art scene?)
The most promising upcoming arts magazines are getting grant money from the city, the state, and other local and regional institutions (for example the Blanton and AMOA are listed as supporters of Cantanker) to add to their subscription revenue, at least. There’s also been discussion lately in the national news media about the need for good art writing (see this Wall Street Journal article for one take), and in Austin there’s talk of getting the city into gear to support “art and culture” more substantially, which makes me optimistic for the future of arts writing around here.
May 12th, 2008
6:38 pm
permalink
very well said.
I read everything you linked. I especially enjoyed the wsj article about the annoying drivel ;-)
I agree with your assessment regarding the “local” mags deriving their income from particular types of advertisers, and thus directing their slim editorial content in that direction………..
but don’t arts patrons have money? sophistication? taste?
why are arts patrons not supporting well written, well designed, art publications? they must have businesses that would be well served by advertising in a magazine like ODIC FORCE?
I imagine a seasoned art gallery owner, a hip music store owner, a journalistically driven independent book store owner, an art savvy realtor/architect, a creative design company coming across the first copy of ODIC FORCE and wanting to support it, and promote their creative endeavor at the same time.
creatives supporting creatives!
arts supporting arts!
but it doesn’t work that way. it’s almost as if the creatives think to themselves - good luck with that, I have been trying to be unique and different for years and am still struggling.
the performing arts now has the long center and will soon have a renovated bass concert hall. their publication (playbills) are provided 100% by advertiser support. there again, you would think more creatives would be supporting this publication? not so.
I am hopeful that austin will see the value in supporting art driven publications as time goes on and “get in gear” as they are now discussing.