Umelec International
Contemporary Art and Culture
Umelec International is a magazine with independent critical ART view on political, social and everyday life through the prism of art and visual culture all over the world.
Prague 8, Czech Republic
Krizikova 34, 180 00
Email: umelec@divus.cz
- Category: Art, Culture
- Periodicity: Quarterly
- Language: Czech / English / German / Spanish
- Format: 220 x 315 mm
- Circulation: 6,000
- Web: http://www.divus.cz
Founded in 1997
From the time of its establishment, Umelec magazine's goal has been to compare and present international culture and contemporary art. From 2000, when the magazine began to be published in two languages, it has become valued abroad as its readership community expands.
It can be said now that the magazine has managed not only to include Czech contemporary art in an international context, but also to contribute to the local cultural scene – for many, this is a living necessity. One thing Umelec asks of its contributors is that they follow international contexts and transgress the archaic boundaries of state, cultural center and orientation.
The Czech-French edition, that is presented as a model, demonstrates not only differences or congruencies in contemporary work but also interpretations, including critiques, of cultural institutions on both sides. This edition, published in 2002, continues to be sought out by casual readers and professionals.
At the end of 2004, a Czech-German edition will be issued. The Czech editors are working in cooperation with a newly established branch in Berlin, under the aegis of editor Henny Pagels, a journalist. The Czech German edition will bring to view the different perspectives of the neighboring countries and also the ways that communication works among German intellectuals and artists. The relation to institutions for creating cultural means, is aimed towards internationalization, its advantages and disadvantages, these are experiences that in contrast to direct communication, have a separate level.
The publishing of Umelec in three linguistic variants will be accompanied by a number of exhibitions, actions and presentations in many German towns. Um elec magazíne promises that the Czech-German edition will include significant cultural exchanges between both realms, bringing interest of contemporary German culture to the gravitational strength of the greater region. In the second plan, we will bring broad knowledge the Eastern Alliance project with Ume lec in association with Divus.
In 2005, Umelec will be published in another world-language- in Spanish. This comes from the fact that in Spanish speaking places there is little interest in European art from the non-western sector and is continuously set in confrontation with actual events. The publishing of the edition will accompany wider circulation both in Latin America and in Spain. New contact with Umelec wishes to pay interest in its publication projects.
Special Language Editions for 2005
The Czech-Spanish edition will be subdivided into three separate versions – Spanish, Czech and English. It will come out as a second or third publication for 2005. Each version will be its own magazine. Each version will be distributed throughout the world into 2006, or when it is completely sold out. Distribution will be accompanied by a number of cultural activities in Spanish-speaking countries and in the Czech Republic.
The print run of the Czech-German edition will be significantly higher, with three separate versions – in German, Czech and English -- as a sixth publication for 2004, or the first for 2005. Each version will be a separate publication. All versions will be distributed throughout the world into 2006 until they are sold out. Distribution will be accompanied with a number of cultural activities and events in Germany and the Czech Republic.
Umelec Magazine since 1997 is the only art magazine devoted to current visual culture in the Czech Republic. It is directed to the international scene, particularly the wider European circle. Its emphasis on art in Central and Eastern Europe stems from its unique position in that region.
Because Umelec is published in two separate languages (Czech/Slovak and English), it has distributors, readers and contributors from all over the world.
The magazine reaches out towards other regions that have hitherto only received peripheral or insufficient attention. The sections that were originally limited to local regions are being transformed to international. The new sections' writing penetrates cultural areas with creative courage.
Umelec rejects lingering dominant apolitical approach to art. The magazine demonstrates how life and culture work together, and stands critically against tendencies to limit art to some safe place to which the public has limited access. Visual culture is always rendered accessible to the non-specialist, as a type of mental activity in which the individual always participates without merely consuming. The magazine relies on intelligent journalistic analyses in search of ways this subject can thrive.
Umelec doesn't follow trends, but reveals their own limits, and lays the groundwork for new ones. It leaves correct judgment of the world of others and with cool calm opens to a period of chaos and conflict, because it is only through them that an image can emerge from the innumerable channels of the expanding delta of today's visual culture.
Umelec magazine is supported by the Czech Ministry of Culture
Exclusive Interview
Advertisement doesn’t influence the content
What is your magazine about?
Um_lec is oriented towards contemporary visual culture and its changes. It is quite a wide conception and we are trying to find a link between the themes, tendencies and contexts of various kinds of art expression. We are interested in the connections which the “picture” enters into.
Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
The founder of the magazine was Ivan Me_l, publisher, and Lenka Lindaurová, an art critic. In 1997 there was no magazine in Czech Republic that would reflect upon visual culture in an international context.
How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
We depend on state grants and private sponsorship. The magazine has approximately 96 pages and relatively low circulation, which can never pay for itself. The sale of advertisements lowers the difference between the costs and the incomes. In Middle Europe, institutions don’t have as much money as to be able to pay for advertisement of culture.
The state subsidy is low, about 15% of our yearly costs. This makes it necessary to have a very small team in Prague: one publisher, one editor-in-chief, two editors, one translator. Our graphic editors work in Studio Divus, which is a part of our publishing house, Divus.
Because of the regular German version of our magazine we also have a redaction team in Berlin. The editor, Henny Pagels, and her colleagues unfortunately are not our employees. We can’t afford that. We try to pay them for the work they do for us. Part of the costs is paid for from the sale of advertisement and the sale of magazine in Germany.
In other states we are trying to get external editors. They help us with the content and distribution. Mostly they get paid with a percentage of sales and advertisement. We pay for their costs.
Out of financial reasons we are not able to publish six issues a year, we usually manage about four. We work on every issue for three months. We gather the contributions from external contributors, some of the texts we write ourselves. Mostly I have to write myself. I have taken the blame for this on many occasions, but it is the only way we can get a text about what we are interested in when we have no one to write this in time.
What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
It is a hard question to answer. Every issue is an important step for us. Let’s say, for us it was important when we started being regularly published in English in 2000, and in German in 2005.
An important moment was also the French issue (2002) and a translation of one issue into Spanish (2005). This helped us to find new cooperators and pushed the magazine into places where Middle European magazines in English are not read, or where they are underestimated. Thanks to the translation into Spanish we got a distributor in Spain, an editor in Argentina, and cooperators in Mexico. In Mexico and Argentina we are now negotiating with distributors and that is a success.
Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
Sensitivity, criticism, independence, scope of vision, incessant effort on behalf of the editors to find new themes, personal experiences that they write about...
What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
In the international art praxis there are many such things. Except for our financial limitations, it is an insincere approach of the institutions towards our independency. Sometimes they invite us to an action, when we don’t react to it we are criticized for it. To make a magazine doesn’t mean just to gather texts, but we have to keep probing if the themes mentioned offer new views and if they can get some response. And if we have something to say to this... and if it fits into the current issue...
We want to intervene into the cultural environment. It has its risks, but we are of the opinion that everyone tries this in cultural happenings. And then we are puzzled when the institutions don’t count the risks of their own activities. We want to protect the respect of our field of interest, because we can see the crisis that cultural journalism has got into.
Sometimes we notice that all bigger European magazines write about the same thing. And we have to ask: are we able to say anything new?
The organizers of the action end up angry, and we are trying to explain that we are not doing this on purpose, that we have our reasons. At the same time I can understand these institutions: they put some effort into integrating the media. The success of the action is still measured by the quality of it, reflection, and according to this the sponsors make their decisions. But, we are very dependent on each other, and at the same time we have to respect our rights.
It isn’t necessary that we write about something because we are interested in it. For example the relationship between politics, power and art is interesting for us, but we still didn’t write about the two Prague biennales in 2005. The political arguments of the two disunited organizers eliminated all the other “messages,” that these two actions were supposed to send to live culture.
It wasn’t important which biennale had a better quality and quantity of art. We tried to deal with many people regarding the texts of these actions, but there were always personal disputes. The only finding was that actually no one wants to write about the biennale in Prague. People felt the scary strength of this cluster of personal quarrels. They either wanted to write about it but didn’t understand it, or they didn’t want to have anything to do with it and therefore they didn’t write about it.
Sometimes I hear: ”How is it possible, that you didn’t react to the biennale? Aren’t you Czech?” And I answer that it is our competence to find strong material, create a strong unusual context. The country borders have nothing to do with it.
And what would help the magazine? If people knew that the magazine is a collective work and came with their own incentives. If they wouldn’t be angry if we refuse something, because it is nothing against them. We think of the image of the magazine, and each of us had to push his own preferences aside a bit. For example, our English editor William Hollister has been in contact with a Czech surrealist group for years, but he had no problems to switch into completely different contexts. He found his contact area with our collective somewhere else. I am glad about that, because his view is different from the rest of the redaction team and at the same time it’s related. It opens new views.
I shouldn’t forget that the everyday problem is the quality of the translations, working with language, lack of time. Just like in any magazine.
Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
We want to be the best possible magazine. This means that people will be glad to muse over what we are telling them. That they will be confronted, they will disagree, attack us with arguments and help us with the magazine. We want to get in the state when the word will not be a “weapon,” but a source of knowledge and self-reflection. If this happens within five years, that will be great. If not, we will work hard so it happens. We are utopians.
Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
According to research studies undertaken in Czech Republic, our readers are usually young people with higher education. Most of them have professional experiences with visual art. We haven’t researched abroad yet, it’s dificult. I suppose that the basic character of our foreign readers will be the same as “at home.”
Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Yes, I think I have already answered that. In my opinion it is one of the values that Europe shouldn’t lose in a time when corporate mechanisms get stronger in the cultural praxis. I think that the “European kind of intellectual” should be calling more and more for sustaining its independence, its right for blasphemic approaches and to remind everybody that this is a platform opened to everybody and that it is a high value result of European history which we shouldn’t lose.
What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven editorials?
Advertisement doesn’t influence the content. If we become a media partner of an action and offer an advertisement space in our magazine, we keep the right to decide whether we have something to say about the action. If we find out that it is an important action we’ll highlight it, and we’ll criticize the action as well if need be, although we support it. We work on the presumption that our colleagues care more for the quality of their work than for a pre-paid reflection. We know that this hasn’t got much to do with reality, but that doesn’t matter. We are not a trade publication for hire.
Do you think that magazine readers still need to watch TV?
I don’t know. We watch TV, and we never wanted our readers to stop reading other periodicals, to surf on the internet and watch TV. But I can turn that question of yours round: Do you watch TV and the programs it broadcasts? If you watch the images from your SONY at home, then you either obsessively love design, or suffer from a unique, unnamed deviation. Tell me more about it!
What is your relationship with your printer? Does he play a main role in your development?
The printing office helps us by lowering their prices. Their approach helps us to lower our costs and that is why today the most expensive thing is the preparation of the magazine, the redaction and store lease, energy, telephones.
Which magazines did influence you most? What are you looking for in other magazines?
There are many of them. A major magazines we like is Parkett, but we read others: the Polish Obieg or Czas Kultury, Serbian Remont, Romanian Idea, Slovak magazines 3/4 and Vlna, Czech Korpus, German AnArchitekt... there are many of them. Also we like magazines with small circulations and fanzines. But we are looking for our own way, we don’t want to do what the others do.
What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
I didn’t work on it. I was a student at that time and I bought it. I enjoyed it very much.
I enjoy it to this day. At that time every issue widened my view and you can see that from its style.
What question have you never ask in your magazine but would have liked to?
All those that we will ask in the next issues. I would love to direct a part of the magazine about architecture and urbanism, and I am looking for partners who don’t suffer from conventions. I won’t say more, it’s under development.
How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
We exchange a lot of cultural magazines. If I buy them, they are usually from other fields – science, technology, ecology. But I buy the above mentioned magazines Parkett of AnArchitect.
Under ideal conditions my pay moves slightly under 400 EUR. There haven’t been any ideal conditions for a long time, so I don’t have much money for magazines from abroad.
Our publisher Ivan Me_l regularly buys a humorist magazine Sorry and two weeklies. I read them for him. It is different with books. We don’t exchange them. Each of us buys his own. That is where I am more active. I am just moving into a smaller flat, I have a big library and I am trying to figure out how to fit it in there. It has something to do with physical properties of materials and technologies of its compression. Have you heard of particle accelerators?
Ji_í Ptá_ek
Editor-in-chief of the Um_lec magazine
E-mail interview from “10.11.2005”. © Colophon2007.com – Mike Koedinger Editions SA (Luxembourg)
Umelec
What is your magazine about?
Official short answer would be: Umelec (translated as Artist from Czech) is international magazine about contemporary art and culture; since 1997 is the only art magazine devoted to current visual culture in the Czech Republic. It is directed to the international scene, particularly the wider European circle. Its emphasis on art in Central and Eastern Europe stems from its unique position in that region.
But what seems really important to me, that magazine is not limited by just art and culture, but covers current vital topics of social, political, philosophical and other sides of a human life consists of, looking at them through the prism of contemporary art and culture, not making division between so called "real life" and art, but analyzing connections and mirror reflections. We still believe that a language of visuality could be understood and used as a universal communication medium over physical borders and restrictions.
When I firstly (2004) met Ivan Mecl, publisher and founder of Divus Studio and Umelec Magazine, and asked him the same question he answered: I always liked to read books and look at pictures. Idea was to make a magazine that would draw attention of anyone passing by in everyday rush; to make it readable visually and literally. Other key ingredient is to represent topics that other magazines don't, to be out of mainstream, to keep eyes opened to recognize it and criticize it, noting at the same time all fresh, rebelling, protesting, provocative, contradictious, crazy and dirty how only real art and artist could be.
Who's behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
From the very beginning in 1992 magazine (at that time under the same name Divus) was planned and established by founder Ivan Mecl as a part of Studio Divus. The idea was to divide activity between commercial and creative parts of enterprise; even of course they are connected by the same people working on one project. So, Studio Divus supports the magazine printing art books, catalogues, cards, and always looking for the best combination of quality and fresh creative approach to any kind of production it does. Trying to be international in a wide sense Divus has branches around the world and offices in Berlin and London, besides main one in Prague.
Should be noted that all these seriously looking words appeared much later than commune at Ivan Mecl family's house at late 80-s. The commune was naturally growing and developing; people were making studies and revolutions, and finally started new independent publishing activity that was called by nice Latin word Divus. New time requested new media; and young writers, artists and intellectuals being exited by after-revolution 89 changes and opportunities impetuously went into action.
The founder by its own was laconic: Hell, Mafia and Martians.
How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
We produce 4 issues per year, so it takes around three month to prepare one issue in 4 languages (Czech, English, German and Spanish, separate editions). We are 5 people based in Prague, and international editors working in Germany, Austria, Mexico and other countries. Mainly the work is based on well-organized non-stop communication among our editors around the world. Being non-commercial magazine we appreciate a lot help and contributions from volunteers that are significant part of our editorial process.
What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
I started to work for the magazine in 2004 as editor for Russian speaking regions; in September 2008 I was appointed as editor-of-chief. Within period of existence of magazine we tried different forms of ruling, starting from a commune in early 1990-s, experiencing anarchy, autocracy, democracy and dictatorship we are finally coming back to social human model of slightly organized chaotic democracy that pretty close to the first one, but its communist spirit is enriched now by experience grown on collisions with blooming market, consumerism and lost ideals.
Shortly in dates and numbers:
1992 Studio Divus was established, and among other production published 3 issues of the magazine under the same name, prototype for subsequent Umělec
1997 Umelec international magazine started to be
2000 The magazine changed format, from then every issue was published in two separate versions in Czech and English (before only brief summary in ENG)
2002 Additional French edition was issued (CZ, ENG + FR)
2005 German edition (from then magazine was published in CZ, ENG, DE), new branch in Berlin started
2005 Spanish edition was started (from then CZ, ENG, DE, ES)
2006 Editorial moved to a new very much post-industrial space that was mostly reconstructed by Ivan Mecl with help of friends and volunteers
2007 Chinese edition was prepared
2007 London branch - Divus Unit 30 was opened, and used as editorial and exhibition space
Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
Humanity and community, trust in ideals, absence of fear to break rules and even laws, love to life and people, curiosity, eager desire of non-stop revolution, strict intention to change the world, forever young feeling of flying, flexibility to circumstances combined with stable principles, readiness to be open and to accept everything, to lose, to fail, to recover, to be happy.
What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be the thing to help the magazine to improve?
Bureaucracy, hierarchy and globalization; cold hearts and absence of heating; lie, laziness and passivity, vanity of empty competition and intrigues; and, well, lack of human and monetary resources sometimes. We hope global warming and financial crisis will make to think and to act faster anyone around.
Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
Revolution, destruction and entropy are growing quickly and could be only everywhere, all over the world. Our empire is growing, but still there are a lot of black holes and white spots on the map to expand. Otherwise we are discussing Albania as an ideal place for creative, slightly-organized anarchy with long-term aims by saving civilization.
Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
The magazine tries to address the widest possible range of readers with its conception and content. A certain level of overstatement and humor opens an easier approach to art for readers. Specialists and readers who operate in cultural spheres will find good quality critical and analytical articles of authors from all around the world. The most numerous group of readers present are mostly students of middle and high art schools, curators, directors of state institutions, exhibition rooms, as well as owners of private galleries, critics, pedagogists and, of course, artists.
Since Umìlec is published in numerous languages, we have addressed the foreign public with the same structure. As many themes of the magazine are timeless, the magazine can be used as an international cultural log -artistic archive readers keep editions for months and years. That is why most copies of the magazine have a minimum of three readers. A typical reader A typical reader of the Umelec magazine is a young man or woman younger or older 35. He or she studied or studies at high school with cultural, art, visual art or designer orientation, and his/ her monthly income reaches around 2000 EUR or is not stable at all.
Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
This is really key point. But to be smart and flexible is the other side of the same strategy.
What's your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
If you look at any issue of Umelec you will see that we have very few of advertisement. Mostly we use two first pages for announcements of small independent galleries, festivals and events. We are glad to to propose space in our magazine for advertisement, but we never want to depend on this. Every special case is discussed.
As a medium orientated to contemporary art, Umelec offers possibilities of specific presentations. The whole campaign or advertisement is processed and tailored by the advertisement department of the Umelec magazine, in cooperation with studio Divus. These services are offered to all interested parties who want to address readers with a particular form.
What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
I asked to answer this question Ivan Mecl, publisher and founder of the whole project. The answer was short: very good. And then some more statements arrived:
- one should be very naive to achieve great things in the modern world.
- if you're versant - you better go to pension.
- English people say: "You're an old hand" if they appreciate your experience. But what you wanna do with old hand. Write memoirs maybe.
- So i'll better grow potatoes now than bring anything new into the editorial. But maybe i'm still enough stupid to kick it. We'll see.
Magazine favorite(s) that inspired you in your career.
Warm Red U (AB)
And from Ivan: Harakiri, Pardon, Plamen, Revue svetovej literatury (until 1969), Vokno, National Geographic, 100+1 (until 1980), Zingmagazine, Divus 1, 2 an 3.
Do you keep old copies of magazines? If so, what is your favorite in your collection?
It happened that mostly I keep copies of all art magazines that got into my hands. I like look through old magazines not looking for anything specific, but often they are sources for inspiration. Well, first favorite one was printed in Russia in 1898 under the name Mir Iskusstva (Art World), I wrote my diploma on, then precious examples of Soviet and post-Soviet samizdat.
How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
Mmm, around 7 and 10.
Definitely not maniac, still slightly obsessed.
We are compiling answers from some of the most innovative magazine makers around the world today. Who else should we ask?
Warm Red U (UK), Naked Punch (UK), Collapse (UK) and Czas Kultury (PL).
Answered by Alena Boika (Editor-in-chief)
Magazine: Umelec International Magazine
Email: alena@divus.cz
Date: 23-10-2008
- 2044
- 5180
- 2482
- 662
