The &-Files: Art & Text 1981-2002

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Whale and Star Press

Modeled after the famed TV sci-fi series The X-Files, The &-Files gathers together a covert body of documents following the long and often controversial career of Art & Text, one of the landmark contemporary art magazines of the 1980s and 1990s. Founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 1981 by Paul Taylor (1957–92), who soon moved to New York City to make his mark as an art critic, the magazine went on to become one of a handful of international art magazines that succeeded in capturing the turmoil and passing brilliance of that period of postmodernism.

Perceived through the eyes and ears of its longtime publisher and editor Paul Foss, The &-Files is comprised of an open letter, a lengthy interview, two questionnaires, and other commentaries and bibliographies, offering a unique insider account of the extraordinary advantages and pitfalls of publishing an art magazine.

Paul Foss is the publishing editor of the art magazines Art & Text (Melbourne, Sydney, Los Angeles, 1981–2002) and artUS (Los Angeles, 2003-ongoing). He is a renowned translator, anthologist, and author, whose publications include Island in the Stream: Myths of Place in Australian Culture.

Robert McKenzie is an Australian artist currently based in New York.

Rex Butler teaches art history at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. His published work includes Jean Baudrillard: The Defense of the Real.

Ross Chambers is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. His many books include Facing It: AIDS Diaries and the Death of the Author.

Simon Rees is a former curator at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, and is currently curator at the Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius, Lithuania.