SoCCAS PUBLICATIONS
California from the 90s to Now (2005)
The annual symposia organized by SoCCAS form
the basis for a series of affordable and challenging publications. Looking
to precedents such the publishing partnership between of the DIA Art
Foundation and Seattle’s
Bay Press which gave rise to the Discussions in Contemporary Culture series
in the late 1980s, SoCCAS’s publishing initiative is especially
important in view of the historical absence on the West Coast of either
leading commercial (Artforum, Art in America, etc.) or academic (October,
etc.) journals devoted to the discussion of recent art and its contexts.
One quality of these initiatives that separates them somewhat from the “high-theory” orientation of New York postmodernism is their insistence on discussion, image/text, and other forms of creative contribution from visual artists as well as historians/critics. The inaugural symposium (2004) and book Recent Pasts (2005) exemplifies this commitment, as more than half of its papers and presentations were contributions from practicing artists or artist-groups. One of the missions of SoCCAS is to develop innovative crossovers and exchange, accessible to beginning students and the general public, between academic discourse and creative work.
Visit the publisher's website: JRP|Ringier