We love Colophon - International Magazine Symposium Luxembourg

Mister Motley

Mister Motley

Issue 17

8 cover(s) available
view all

Advertising

Anna van Leeuwen: anna@misterMotley.nl

Magazine over kunst

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Oude Looiersstraat 19 bg, 1016 VG

Email: info@mistermotley.nl

Category: Art
Periodicity: Quarterly
Language: Dutch
Format: 168 x 222 mm
Price: 5 €
Web: http://www.mistermotley.nl

Exclusive Interview

"... to bring young people in touch with contemporary visual arts ..."

What is your magazine about?
Contemporary art

Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
Mister Motley is made by ‘Art for You-th-‘, an organization which tries to bring young people in touch with contemporary visual arts. The magazine is subsidized, our main sponsor is the Mondriaan foundation. Chiefeditor is Hanne Hagenaars, an arthistorician and teacher at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Other editors are young enthusiasts who work in the art field or have a strong affinity with art. Our writers are from various backgrounds and we invite them to write informative but informal texts. The design of the magazine is done by various designers such as Donleo, 75B, Rollergirl and Syb.

How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
Every issue has a theme which we relate to contemporary art. We have made an issue about streetlife, family and food, but we also work with more abstract themes such as ‘the shadow’ or ‘ideals’. The first step is to choose the theme, hereby we use the advice of our young counsils, a group of six people from under twenty whose advice guides us through the process of making the magazine. Every issue also has a guesteditor, who cooperates with Hanne Hagenaars and has extra knowledge about the theme. Hanne Hagenaars and the guesteditor will select subjects for articles and works of art and then they contact writers, artists and galleries. We work three months on every issue. About 20 people are involved before an issue is printed: editors, writers and designers.

What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
The first important step of course was to initiate the magazine. Hanne Hagenaars had made a magazine before, which struggled to survive but unfortunately stopped. Luckily now we had the financial help of SKOR. In the first months we tried to get as much free publicity as we could get, and we were happy to see a positive response from the media. Even a Mexican magazine that did an issue on the Netherlands called us one of the best Dutch magazines. Those acknowledgements were important steps. We were alsof invited to design paper napkins for the Lowlandsfestival, a Dutch music festival (august 2006 and 2007). Half a million napkins have been printed with the magazine’s name on it, that surely has made it better known by young people, our main targetgroup. We also started a campaign with the renomated Dutch advertising agency Kesselskramer, who are willing to sponsor this campaign. This advertising campaign consisted of posters throughout the large cities of the Netherlands.

Which are the key incredients for the success of your magazine?
One main ingredient is our special position in the Netherlands. There was no artmagazine quite like mister Motley. Mister Motley has a funny, subversive but also strong informative voice and is recognized as such by a large audience interested in contemporary art. Also important is our educational contribution, which is highly valued by teachers, who work with the magazine and use it in their classes. We help those who work on an educational basis with mister Motley by providing extra information on our website (www.misterMotley.nl) as well as suggestions for assignments. We organize a ‘art-knowledge-day’ three times a year, where artteachers come to explore the theme of the magazine. Important for keeping the magazine and its appearance as refreshing as possible is the use of a different theme for every issue, which provides us a solid basis to work from.

What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
The most important difficulty we have been confronted with is the lack of substantial support from financiers other than SKOR. There are a lot of enthusiastic foundations who are unable to support the magazine because they have a regulation of not financing ungoing projects, such as the magazine. Another financial difficulty have been the high prices some representatives of artists ask for permission to print their work. We now ask artists for permission personally if possible.

Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
We want our magazine to grow to educate and entertain an even larger audience. In five years Mister Motley must be an important voice within contemporary art in the Netherlands, a magazine not to be ignored. A magazine that also organizes meetings of artteachers, party’s and debates on contemporary art.

Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
We have a broad audience, mainly young people. The readers include artists, students of art-academy’s, artteachers, critics but also a lot of people who are not working within the arts.

Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
We are lucky to be a non-commercial magazine. We are not financially independent, but we independently decide what the content of the magazine is. It is important to us to be able to give our own opinion on the artworks we show. We do not have a hidden agenda and I think our readers see that and trust us to give our own opinion.

What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
We keep the advertisements separate from the editorial content. We did have some cooperation in the past with museums that show exhibitions on the themes of the issue. But that is usually based on happy coincidences and there is no financial advantage involved.

Do you think that magazine readers still need to watch TV?
I don’t think anyone ‘needs’ to watch TV. I do think that the need for TV has become smaller due to the internet, I don’t think readers of mister Motley will watch less or more TV due to the magazine.

Which is your relationship with your printer? Does he play a main role in your development?
Our printer (Die Keure in Begium) is a very trustworthy partner and we are very lucky with them. We keep in contact during the printingprocess and they allow us to change little mistakes we have overlooked, etcetera.

Which magazines did influence you most? What are you looking for in other magazines?
We read and look through a large variety of magazines, but there is not one that had such an influence. We look for for beauty (in design and content), information, originality and humor in other magazines.

What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
We are still very proud of the first issue but we also see how much we have grown.

What question did you never ask in your magazine but would have liked to?
We can’t come up with such a question…

How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
About 10, but I rather would not qualify myself as a maniac though.
E-mail interview from “24.06.2006”. © Colophon2007.com – Mike Koedinger Editions SA (Luxembourg)