vol2:issue1. Good to see its rtn despite its focus on mainly the southern city…

un-magazine editorial excerpt: Two years on from its previous life as a quarterly review journal, every issue of un Magazine could be considered something of a special edition. Independent magazines have traditionally published in spurts and starts throughout Australia’s art history, struggling with sporadic funding, volunteer staff and limited distribution. un Magazine has had its share of these difficulties, but what’s great about un is that it hasn’t disappeared. It started as an experiment and here, four years later, we offer you a new experiment of sorts— a collection of some familiar and some fresh voices, making variously critical, personal, academic, political, and lyrical responses to contemporary art.
When un began in 2004 it was in reaction to an unhealthy gap between the quantity and quality of art being made and exhibited in Melbourne’s contemporary art community versus its critical reception—or lack thereof. …Tension editor Ashley Crawford has observed that, ‘it takes a certain amount of lunacy to start an independent art magazine in Australia’. If by ‘lunacy’ Crawford was trying to describe the inspired motivation and evangelical dedication to the cause of strengthening critical discourse in our art community, then I’m very grateful for the lunacy of founding editor Lily Hibberd and the committee members of un Magazine.