Elephant Magazine
Issue 1 of Elephant - The Art & Visual Culture Magazine.
Writer, retailer and design observer Marc Valli, also director of notable design store Magma, returns to magazine publishing after a brief hiatus following his excellent previous magazine, Graphic. While Graphic mainly served as a showcase for of-the-moment graphic design, Valli's new project mines a much greater and richer seam; all of the visual arts.
Valli's awareness of new and emerging creative talents is extensive, but much of the great work he sees is all too often overlooked not only by 'art-world' institutions but also by the increasingly commercial 'creative industries'. Indeed, the most interesting and progressive artistic endeavours often seem to fall under the radar entirely. This observation, and frustration perhaps, is the inspiration for Elephant, as in 'elephant in the room' - the work that is right there but not spoken about, is right here, in Elephant Magazine.
With over 200 pages of visual content, with impressive layout and presentation by Studio 8, Elephant aims to have more depth and breadth than any other visual art magazine by enquiring into creative trends, art movements and innovative techniques. Elephant looks at how creative individuals have started to react against the corporate nature of things, taking initiative into their hands and starting new independent ventures.
Issue 1 highlights include: Peter Saville on Design Vs Art, Universal Everything's Matt Pyke & Rafael Rozendaal, Scandinavian fashion designers, Boris Hoppek’s naughty notebooks, Robert Nicol’s paranoid vignettes, the work of Minako Abe, Mike Perry and Giles Revell, a Creative City Guide to Sao Paulo and a feature on Unit Editions: Spin's Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy on how to start a publishing company.
A worthy and intelligent addition to the magazine world, full of inspirational full colour images and interrogative text, Elephant is a logical progression above and beyond the altogether more formulaic design/art magazines around. Readers of content-rich art and culture magazines such as 032c, Eye and Apartamento should grab a copy now.
Highly recommended.
Elephant is published quarterly.
208 pages.
Format
280 x 200 mm
Materials
Paperback
