Over the course of its five-year run (1973 to 1978), the New York-based magazine Art-Rite published hundreds of interviews, statements, and reviews, documenting the eclectic community of post-conceptual, post-minimalist, performance, and video artists. Produced on a shoestring and edited by Joshua Cohn, Edit Deak, and Walter Robinson, the magazine rejected the academic language that dominated contemporary art writing in favor of a more irreverent and punchy style. As Deak recalled in a conversation with David Frankel for Artforum:
“An important aspect of ‘Art-Rite’ was a whole new tone and attitude. It was unheard of to have a sense of humor at the time, or not to be talking about ‘the problem’ of art – the problem of this, the problem of that. A few years later the punk magazines came along, and I realized that’s what I’d wanted – I loved those fanzines. That’s not what we were, we were much more formalist, but we were a very different sound than what was around us.” (Artforum, January 2003)
Each thematic issue featured a cover designed by an artist, including Joseph Beuys, Ed Ruscha, Rosemary Mayer, Robert Ryman, and Dorothea Rockburne. For the third issue, Richard Tuttle proposes seven preparatory drawings of sculptures in-becoming.
The third issue features contributions by Stephanie Edens, Peter Grass, Barbara Thompson, Richard Brown Baker, John de Menil, Robert Scull, and George H. Waterman III, along with short exhibition reviews.