©KATHERINE MCMAHON
Art in America magazine announced today that William S. Smith has been appointed editor, effective immediately. “For more than 100 years, Art in America has been the historic journal of record of our nation’s arts and culture,” said Peter M. Brant, owner of Art Media Holdings. “Under Will’s leadership and editorial vision and as a pioneer in the field of digital publishing, I’m confident Art in America will continue to connect with current readers, and appeal to a new generation of art lovers.”
(Art Media Holdings, LLC is also the parent company of ARTnews, as well as the publications Modern and The Magazine Antiques.)
Smith has been interim editor of the magazine since the departure of Lindsay Pollock, who stepped down in May after six years at the helm. He joined Art in America in 2013 as associate editor, and shortly thereafter became senior editor. In 2007, he became a founding editor of the online magazine Triple Canopy.
“I was intrigued to come from Triple Canopy, an innovative digital publishing platform, to the more traditional stalwart, Art in America,” Smith told ARTnews. He said that as editor he will be “connecting with the tradition of the magazine, as well as pointing the way forward.”
Art in America was founded in 1912; Smith is the magazine’s seventh editor. “The archive is one of its strongest components,” he said. He is particularly interested in the contributions it made to art history in the 1970s and ’80s, by writers like Brian O’Doherty, Craig Owens, and Linda Nochlin. “I want Art in America to continue to represent the kind of intellectual depth Nochlin brought to art criticism,” he said. “Going forward, we have to keep in touch with that. I want our audience to be able to engage with this intellectual tradition in new and innovative ways, whether online, in print, or through live events. I want the consistency and quality to be inherent in every interaction.”
Smith added that “it is imperative today to bring in as many perspectives as possible. Even more so than it has been in the past, Art in America will be a platform for a diverse range of voices.”