Elevation

Elevation Magazine

Format: Elevation will be a 150 page quarterly magazine based in New York City, but covering material from all areas of the United States.

Distribution: Elevation will be sold at all popular newsstands. There will also be a homepage containing previews of the issue and special offers on subscriptions.

Departments:
Advertising – Advertisements for the magazine will range anywhere from high-fashion clothing to up and coming music venues to sports tournaments.

Interviews – Elevation will interview various icons of popular culture, including young artists, celebrities, musicians, writers, and more.

Critical Essays: Each issue will include essays done by well-established art critics that focus on various aspects of culture. Contributors will be asked to focus on dissecting and analyzing pop culture in an artistic context and relate it to various fields.

Fan-fare: Readers will have until the 15th of every third month to mail in works of their own. Works can be anything from critical essays to works of art to a website containing music samples.

Art: Only exhibits and galleries through which some level of connection to pop-culture can be drawn will be highlighted in Elevation, but the magazine will contain advertisements of a wide range of other exhibits.

Contributors
Takashi Murakami, a contemporary Japanese artist known for blurring high and low art in a style he has dubbed “superflat”.

Clement Greenberg, an American critic closely associated with modern art in the United States.

Grace Mirabella, former Vogue editor for 17 years. Currently on staff as artistic director.

Ryan Schreiber, founder and owner of Pitchfork Media, a popular online music review website.

Annie Liebovitz, a highly-reverred American portrait photographer closely associated with Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.





Editors Note

To present you with Elevation, I will begin my first editors note by admitting something that is probably considered shameful in the art community: upon my first confrontation with Edouard Manet’s “Olympia”, an undeniable staple of any art enthusiasts education and background, I tilted my head in confusion and inquired as to what the “big deal” was about the painting. “Everything is so flat,” I thought, “and he didn’t even bother trying to hide the outlines around the figures.” What I lacked was the historical context surrounding the work; I had no idea that Manet painted the piece in such a way intentionally in order to comment on traditional ideas and processes of painting that had been upheld for hundreds of years. Although I can now look back fondly at my naiveté, I cringe when I remember that my mistaken thinking was in no way unique; most people who are not familiar with the art community, but are still curious about it, harbor the same misconceptions. I have watched far too many infatuations with art wane and eventually extinguish at the realization that there are legions of well-versed art historians who will always have a “greater”, seemingly unapproachable knowledge, and thus appreciation, of art. I can’t blame them for letting their interest fade. Most of their attempts at art appreciation is focused on institutionalized, century-old pieces that require an extensive understanding of art history and context; they are, as most thing in what is considered “high art”, inaccessible. By recontextualizing “low culture” in this magazine, I hope to revive a generation’s infatuation with artistic culture and nurture it into a passionate, lifelong commitment.

Elevation will provide an in-depth analysis of what traditionally goes overlooked in modern life; that is, in the tradition of artists such as Andy Warhol and David Hockey, it will spotlight aspects of what is considered “frivolous” pop culture, employing the same critical thought used in the observance of highly revered objects of art history. Far too many times I have found myself in a post-lecture conversation with someone who deems close analytical reading of a historically significant text pointless, reasoning that what critics had interpreted from the text could not have possibly been what the author intended; many great minds have been lost to that sort of thinking. In its publishing interpretations and critical opinions of exclusively popular culture, a topic that lacks a definite source or “intentions”, Elevation will raise topics that many feel deserve closer and more deliberate thought to a status previously reserved only for institutionally praised works of art.

Within each issues, well-known authors, critics, and icons will contribute writings that pertain to topics of popular culture. Cultural posts such as fashion, music, style trends, customs, language, and landmarks will be closely analyzed both visually and objectively. Also included in each issue will be interviews with people that the staff of Elevation feel best represent the ideals and hopes of the culture of the current young generation (ages 18-24). In addition to this, user-generated content will be accepted and integrated into the magazines, the contribution of which will be made possible by tri-monthly deadlines for the readers themselves. Through the combination of these vital components of the magazine, I hope to create a forum in which young adults who believe that there is merit in studying what is normally written off as entertainment can express and share their theories.