The Brooklyn Rail

Originally distributed as reading material for commuters on the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Rail began as a small broadsheet in 1998, with several founders.[1] By 2000, the journal had quickly grown into a full-format publication, with Phong Bui and then-editor Theodore Hamm sharing oversight duties. Bui comments that it's largely due to support from the arts community, and funding from art foundations, that has made it possible for the journal to maintain its creative autonomy. Hamm notes that the Rail's non-profit funding, largely provided by private donors, has preserved the magazine's original aspiration to publish "a crucible of slanted opinions, artfully delivered."[2]

The Brooklyn Rail is committed to supporting artists in their journey and elevating the important role that the arts and humanities play in shaping our society."[3]

Robert Storr has called it "the murmur of the city in print."[4]

Former Nation publisher Victor Navasky considered it "a non-establishment paper that questioned the establishment's assumptions without falling victim to the counterculture's pieties."

For the late Nancy Spero, the paper was "an eminently readable, informative, and intellectually wide-ranging publication, alert to current trends, controversies, and ideas, and filled with necessary information."[4]

Poet John Ashbery has written: "how wonderful to have a new newspaper that cares about literature and the arts and isn't afraid to say so. The Brooklyn Rail is a welcome addition to the New York scene."[4]

American painter Alex Katz has said that the Rail "has the young energy that goes with the young people who come to New York to grow in the arts. It would be a bad city without it. If it wasn't for the Brooklyn Rail, the city would be a desert.”[5]

In 2013 the Rail was awarded the Best Art Reporting by the International Association of Art Critics, United States Section (AICA-USA).[6][7]

In March, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City forced arts organizations and museums around the world to close their doors, the team at the Brooklyn Rail has shifted their operations online and started hosting daily conversations with artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, dancers, and musicians around the world, called "The New Social Environment".

In 2013, the Brooklyn Rail established Rail Curatorial Projects, an initiative to manifest the journal's goals within an exhibition context. That same year, the Brooklyn Rail was invited by the Dedalus Foundation to curate an exhibition which resulted in Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year One,[8] a momentous exhibition of hundreds of New York and Brooklyn artists. Come Together was named the #1 exhibition in New York City by Jerry Saltz in New York Magazine[9] and in the New York Times, Roberta Smith wrote, “This egalitarian show makes palpable the greatness of New York’s real art world.”[10] In 2014, the exhibition was commemorated in a hardcover catalogue.

Since then, the Rail Curatorial Projects has curated a number of shows including Ad Reinhardt at 100 [11][12] at TEMP Art Space; Spaced Out: Migration to the Interior [13][14][15] at Red Bull Studios, Bloodflames Revisited [16][17][18] at Paul Kasmin Gallery, and 24/7 [19][20] at the Miami Beach Monte Carlo in 2014; Intimacy in Discourse: Reasonable and Unreasonable Sized Paintings [21][22][23] at SVA Chelsea Gallery and Mana Contemporary as well as Social Ecologies [24][25] at Industry City, Patricia Cronin's Shrine for Girls [26][27][28] at the Venice Biennale in 2015; and Hallway Hijack [29][30] at 66 Rockwell Place in 2016. In 2017, Rail Curatorial Projects curated Occupy Mana: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy.[31][32][33] In May 2019, the Rail was invited to curate an exhibition for the 2019 Venice Biennale. The show was a continuation of 2017's Occupy Mana, curated by the Rail's Phong Bui and Italian historian, Francesca Pietropaolo, the show consisted of 73 different artists; with works discussing the social and ecological climate of our reality titled Social Environment: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy.[34][35][36] The Rail Curatorial Projects opened Occupy Colby: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 2,[37] in July 2019. The show was on the same lengths of Occupy Mana[31] as well as Social Environment.[34]

Previous titles include: On Ron Gorchov, (2008) edited by Phong Bui; Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Nonfiction 2000–2010, (2010) edited by Theodore Hamm and Williams Cole; Texts on (Texts on) Art, (2012) a collection of essays by the art historian Joseph Masheck; The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology 2, (2013) edited by Donald Breckenridge; Oh Sandy! A Remembrance, (2015), a collection of poems commissioned in the wake of superstorm Hurricane Sandy; Cephalonia, (2016) a narrative poem by Luigi Ballerini; Swept Up By Art, (2016) the second memoir of the art historian and critic Irving Sandler; and Our Book: Florbela Espanca Selected Poems, (2018) the first translation into English of Portuguese poet Florbela Espanca's poetry.[38] Most recently two books have been published, Words Apart and Others[39](2018) by Jonas Mekas as well as a companion of responses, Message Ahead (2018).[40]

• Ad Reinhardt (January 2014)[41]
• On the State of Art Criticism in Europe (May 2014)[42]
• I Love John Giorno (June 2017) [43]
• River Rail (January 2018)[44]

• List of New York City newspapers and magazines
• List of art magazines
• List of literary magazines

[1]

[2]

• Official website