ARTMargins publishes material related to the histories of 20th-century and contemporary art, art theory, art institutions, and curatorship. We welcome research articles focused on historical archives, but we also encourage submissions that take a more speculative political or theoretical perspective that bears on the history of contemporary art.
Articles and Essays
The editors invite submissions of articles of varying lengths, between 6000 and 10,000 words. All accepted articles are peer reviewed. ARTMargins uses a double-blind peer review process.
The journal places special emphasis on marginal histories and innovative, critical and methodological perspectives. The editors are particularly interested in submissions that consider art within sociocultural, political, and theoretical contexts. They also welcome attention to the work of artists and art thinkers who work outside of English-speaking and official circuits. Submissions may also consider, among other things, questions pertaining to art and politics, periodization and historicization—including the contemporary—sovereignty, post colonialism, decolonization, the notion of the global, and/or the transition from and towards socialism. We encourage submissions that combine the analysis of artworks with a careful consideration of broader historical, methodological, and/or theoretical issues.
Other Formats
The editors also invite the submission of alternative formats such as roundtables, interviews and other material that is relevant to the journal's mission.
Review Articles
The editors welcome the submission of review essays of between 3,500 and 5000 words in length, dedicated to one or more recent exhibitions or books that deal with artistic practice, history, criticism or theory in the 20th and 21st centuries. The editors are especially interested in review essays that privilege very recent works or contextualize books and exhibitions produced outside of the English-speaking world. Research *articles* are not the same as reviews. Rather than merely describing or endorsing a given work or exhibition, the editors invite authors to think of their submissions as critical interventions in a broader field of practice, history or critique, without at the same time neglecting the more traditional critical functions of a review. An exhibition reviews for example may choose to discuss the curatorial, historical or institutional context of one exhibition or art fair, or bring two or more such events into dialogue. Likewise, a book review may focus on one work, analyzing the nature of its intervention into a given field, or it may discuss two or more related works. In the latter case, authors should provide a descriptive and critical account of each of the works individually, and explain the relation they sustain with one another under a unifying thesis or perspective.
Artist Projects
ARTMargins invites proposals for the journal's Artist Project section. 10-16 pages in every issue of ARTMargins can be used by an artist to develop a new work especially for the journal. The editors are interested in receiving proposals that engage with the idea of the margins formally, aesthetically, conceptually, and/or historically, and from an innovative perspective and/or visual language. Initial proposals should be 400-words long. After evaluating the proposal the editors may extend an invitation to the artist submit a project draft. A modest stipend for expenses is available.
Documents
ARTMargins also invites submissions for its Documents section, which presents first English translations of artist texts, short essays, manifestos, interviews, and other published or unpublished materials that have transformed cultural histories in various regions and countries. The document should have the potential to serve as a primary source for a broad range of researchers internationally, introducing them to some of the most important writings in art and curatorial histories outside Anglophone contexts. In addition to translating the document into English, the editors invite authors to contribute an introductory essay that sets out the translated document’s core argument, addresses its significance within its original cultural context, and explains its ongoing resonance for global art histories today. Together, the translation and commentary should total 5,000-6,000 words in length.
Peer Review Taxonomy
All research articles are subject to double-blind peer review.
Submissions
Please use the ARTM submission portal to submit any articles. Queries may be sent directly to the managing editor at [email protected]. All submissions are evaluated by two commissioned peer-reviewers per article, using a blind review process. For full details on how to prepare a manuscript, please reference the ARTMargins Style Sheet.