Avalanche magazine was founded by Willoughby Sharp and Liza Béar shortly after they met in 1968. At the time, Sharp was a New York-based art historian and independent curator and Béar an underground magazine editor who had recently moved to New York from London. They published the first issue in 1970 and collaborated on 13 issues from 1970 to 1976.
Avalanche focused on art from the perspective of artists rather than critics, and investigated new forms of art that were developing in the U.S. and Europe with a radical new media format—probing interviews and a visionary design that made extensive use of photography and dynamic layouts. For many artists, publication in Avalanche preceded a one-person gallery or museum show. Aside from an eight to twelve-page news section, the editorial content included only interviews by Sharp and/or Béar, artists` texts and documents of art and art making, also functioning as an exhibition space in print. Fresh, incisive and unpretentious, the Avalanche interviews—now landmarks—illuminate the creative process and give clear voice to the specific issues that permeated the era.
Among the featured artists were Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Philip Glass, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Gordon Matta-Clark, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Yvonne Rainer, Keith Sonnier, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner and Jackie Winsor.
The reprint of Avalanche by Primary Information makes the magazine available worldwide as a complete set for the first time in three decades. Originally published in magazine format for the first eight issues, Avalanche switched to newspaper format for the final five issues. This facsimile edition is a boxed set that houses the individual magazine issues and the newspapers bound in a single book form.
Primary Information is a non-profit organization devoted to printing artists books, artist writings, out of print publications and editions. Primary Information was founded by James Hoff and Miriam Katzeff, who met while working at Printed Matter, a non-profit artist bookstore in New York. United by their mutual interest in artist publications, they formed Primary Information to foster intergenerational dialogue as well as to aid in the creation of new publications and editions.
--
