October is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 specializing in contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

, criticism

Art criticism

Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty...

, and theory

Critical theory

Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...

, published by the MIT Press

MIT Press

The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...

.

History

October was established in 1976 in New York by Rosalind Krauss

Rosalind E. Krauss

Rosalind Epstein Krauss is an American art critic and theorist; she is a professor at Columbia University in New York City. In 1985 a monograph of essays by Krauss, titled The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths was published by The MIT Press.-Early life :Rosalind Krauss grew...

 and Annette Michelson, who left Artforum

Artforum

Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...

to do so. Its name is a reference to the Eisenstein film that set the tone of intellectual, politically engaged writing that has been the hallmark of the journal. The journal was an important participant in introducing French post-structural theory

Post-structuralism

Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...

 on the English-speaking academic scene, and the journal became a major voice interpreting postmodern art

Postmodern art

Postmodern art is a term used to describe an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath...

. Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe is a British-born, Los Angeles-based New Abstractionist painter, art critic, theorist, and educator. His work has been exhibited at the Albright-Knox Gallery of Art, Buffalo, NY; The Getty, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary...

, one of the co-founders of the journal, withdrew after only a few issues, and by the spring of 1977, Douglas Crimp

Douglas Crimp

Douglas Crimp is an American professor in art history based at the University of Rochester.- Biography :Born in Idaho, Crimp went to Tulane University in New Orleans on a scholarship to study art history. His career started after moving to New York in 1967, where he worked as an art critic,...

 joined the editorial team. In 1990, after Crimp left the journal, Krauss and Michelson were joined by Yve-Alain Bois

Yve-Alain Bois

Yve-Alain Bois is an historian and critic of modern art. Yve-Alain Bois was born on April 16, 1952 in Constantine, Algeria.-Education:...

, Hal Foster

Hal Foster (art critic)

Harold Foss "Hal" Foster is an American art critic and historian. He was educated at Princeton University, Columbia University, and the City University of New York. He taught at Cornell University from 1991 to 1997 and has been on the faculty at Princeton since 1997...

, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University. His 2000 book, Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry, is a collection of eighteen essays on major figures of postwar art written since the late 1970s...

, Denis Hollier, and John Rajchman.

Contents

As well as in-depth articles and reviews of 20th century and contemporary art, the journal features critical interpretations of cinema and popular culture from a progressive viewpoint.

Collections

The success of the journal has led the publisher, MIT Press, to release two anthologies of articles and a book series. It has also led the editors to academic positions at some of the most prestigious universities in the U.S., including Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia.

External links

, including volumes 99-present, paid subscription archive

• October at JSTOR, Volumes 1-98, 1976-2001