ArtNet Magazine – First and Oldest Online Art Magazine – Closes

Yesterday came news that ArtNet magazine, 16 years old and the “first and longest running online art magazine on the internet,” closed. This link from ArtInfo reports on the financial losses ArtNet was suffering (an astounding 471,000 euros on 50,000 revenue). Editor Walter Robinson was widely quoted yesterday including in New York Observer, which today reports reaction from art-world voices including critic Jerry Saltz about the loss of ArtNet. The move at the publicly owned German company (and the magazine had offices in Berlin, New York and Paris) appeared to have been prompted by the news that CEO Hans Neuendorf (left), 74, will resign July 1. His son, Jacob Pabst, takes over. Bloomberg today reported that Redline,  a Russian company (no relation to the Redline arts space in Denver), is contemplating acquiring the magazine, the shuttering of which has led Artnet to estimate an additional $2.5 million of profit in 2013.

The graph shown at the top of this post about decimation in newsroom jobs will be part of a related post that I am going to publish soon, based on my participation last Tuesday at a webinar run by Grantmakers in the Arts about arts journalism and the digital present. Speakers included Douglas McLennan of ArtsJournal.com, the first and largest arts aggregator on the web, and the director of the new University of Southern California Center for Arts, Media and Audience; and Bill O’Brien of the Knight Foundation Arts Challenge, which recently awarded three arts journalism projects in cities of Detroit, Philadelphia and Charlotte, $80,000 each, to work on redefining how arts journalism functions. Keep posted for that post. In the meantime, we’ll watch as ArtNet developments continue.