by Darya Foroohar
photo credit: the Journal of Art Criticism
Barnard College might be in the middle of New York City, but in the mid 2010s, its arts scene tended to remain on campus. There was an art gallery in the basement of one of the school buildings, several literary and arts magazines, and, of course, the school newspaper. Student writers and artists ran Ratrock, a magazine aimed to showcase student art and create a community for creatives on campus rather than publish reviews of external artists. While many individual students had off-campus art internships, there wasn’t a student art criticism publication that was primarily public-facing. For Mira Dayal, a Barnard student majoring in visual arts and economics, this was something that needed to change. Dayal, who graduated in 2017, wanted to “figure out how to be an artist in the world” instead of just at Barnard, as well as engage with other artists and think critically about modern and contemporary art. Seeing a gap that neither her arts classes nor other schools’ academic journals could fill, she founded the Journal of Art Criticism (JAC) in her junior year of college.
Self-described as “the first undergraduate journal in print devoted to art criticism,” JAC puts out an annual print publication, supplemented with online work that periodically appears on their website. While the content of JAC is entirely produced by undergraduates, the writer base is not limited to Barnard and Columbia; Dayal did a lot of outreach to schools so other students could submit their work to the publication. (I myself first found out about JAC through a call for submissions passed along to UChicago’s arts department.) Having a space for undergrads to get their writing in print was one of Dayal’s main goals when establishing the journal, as a lot of professional art criticism publications wouldn’t work with students, but still expected emerging writers to have previously published work in order to pitch writing or apply for a position. Through JAC, students could critique contemporary works of art in a publication that took them seriously. JAC’s audience is also not limited to college students; the magazine can be found in several independent bookstores across New York City, and its current Editor-in-Chief, Caterina Newman, is trying to expand its reach across the east coast.
Newman, a member of Barnard’s class of 2024, was a staff editor at JAC for two years before being elected to the EIC position for the 2023-24 school year. Like Dayal, she emphasized the Journal’s commitment to undergraduate writing and thought, but made sure to note that JAC still holds its writers to the same high standards as non-student publications. At JAC, Newman told me, people want to be taken seriously for their work but aren’t there out of pure careerism: “It’s this dualism of being emerging and quasi-professional but still coming out of a place of love.” Enthusiasm for art criticism didn’t only get Newman into JAC, but into Barnard itself. JAC was one of the reasons she applied to Barnard as a transfer student. “I really wanted a school that holds space for people interested in contemporary art,” she told me. “I think I even referenced it in my transfer application to Barnard.” As EIC, she’s continuing the same outreach that brought her into the fold, expanding the journal’s social media presence and cultivating “a readership that is professionally involved in the art world.”
Much of this readership– and JAC itself– would not be possible without the help of departmental funding and individual Columbia professors, highlighting the importance of networking in the art and publishing worlds. Funding can be one of the biggest challenges for a literary magazine, especially a student-run one. Dayal had an existing relationship with the Art History and Visual Arts Chair, Joan Snitzer, who helped her get department funding for the project. While JAC still has this funding, its members are working on gathering additional resources, often through fundraisers or grants. Having the publication be purely online would have been cheaper, but Dayal was steadfast in her goal to get the Journal in print because she wanted it to circulate in public. The commitment of its members has allowed JAC to remain a primarily print publication. Newman hand-delivers finished copies to the NYC bookstores that stock the journal. “We are really passionate about the printing and distribution process as well,” she said.
As JAC has grown, so has its editorial board, with positions solely dedicated to outreach and distribution. Dayal, who comes back every year to talk to current students about her experience founding JAC, says that it’s “fun to follow from a distance.” During her time as EIC, however, managing lots of different voices was one of the difficulties she had to contend with when putting together each issue. In particular, the editing process was very hard, as “everyone was coming to it with different levels of experience and interest.” Dayal wanted JAC to be a place where people could gain experience editing as well as writing, so her hands-on approach took a considerable amount of time. Collaboration remains something that JAC is committed to, even if the process of selecting works for publication takes longer than expected. Newman, in particular, tries to be more of a moderator than a dictator, making sure not to dominate the conversation and allow students of all experience levels to participate. Members are able to argue for or against a specific piece’s inclusion so that “disagreements resolve themselves through conversation.” When Newman does need to step in, it’s for questions of purpose, not the nitty-gritty: “What are we really trying to accomplish as a journal?”
What is JAC trying to accomplish, beyond providing a space for undergraduate students to write about the contemporary art world for a publication of near-professional caliber? Dayal admitted to the allure of being published in print, and Newman to their audience of distinguished art critics such as Helen Molesworth, but through our conversations I got the impression that the journal meant much more to them than its external accolades. “Every time I’ve gone back, everyone is really enthusiastic about the journal,” Dayal told me. She herself has applied what she’s learned at JAC to her current work, such as co-editing a handbook for art editors. She credited JAC for helping her “[think] about the kinds of questions that young writers and editors have” that would be useful for the book, and continues to write and edit alongside her studio art practice.
Newman, as well, had thoughts not just on the importance of JAC, but of art criticism in general. Undergraduate art criticism might be a way to get young people’s voices out into the world, but also serves as “a vehicle for cultural commentary.” “For me, my engagement with the arts is never disentangled from politics,” Newman says. Politics might be inherent in all works of art, but art criticism, especially contemporary art criticism, can help draw that out. Perhaps this is why JAC has maintained a strong presence in not just the undergraduate literary world, but the contemporary art world as a whole. If art helps people connect with the world around them, Newman says, then JAC can be a place for people to practice that. “I think people outside the arts underestimate how powerful and socially relevant art criticism can be.”