Vanity Fair and existential questions at the Royal Ontario Museum
Posted on 06. Jan, 2010 by Simon in media, Uncategorized
As I strolled the halls of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Vanity Fair exhibit, all I could wonder was; is this a tomb to magazines? Conde Nast was once the gatekeeper of high culture. Now the storied publishing house is struggling simply to stay relevant (and financially stable) closing previously untouchable halo titles such as Gourmet. Under glass at the ROM were editions of Vanity Fair spanning its near century long run, from 1920′s illustrated covers to this January’s latest celebrity ubergloss. To see crumbling manuscripts side by side with todays newsstand product, all under a dust protector, seemed more prescient than perhaps even the exhibit curators intended.
Are magazines obsolete?
Frankly, I’m not qualified to answer that question. But I’m going to anyways, and I believe the answer is yes. Sure, there will always be art publications and high-brow photographic endeavours that continue on, lush and worthy of wasting an afternoon flipping through. The days of titles like Time or Life literally being paper manifestations of the Zeitgeist will likely not ever happen again though, those publications relegated to the exhibits and journals of the anthropological set. The ROM is way ahead of its time in this regard — intentional or not.
What struck me most starkly about the Vanity Fair exhibit though was that although it was a photographic installation, the pictures actually contextualized a greater celebration of the medium itself. Lining the walls were seminal portraits taken from Edward Steichen to Annie Leibovitz, mirroring each other perfectly; Greta Garbo facing Madonna, Babe Ruth meeting Lance Armstrong. It revealed how true the old adage is that the more things change, the more things stay the same. This is, irrevocably, an important lesson for the magazine industry.
Photos are timeless because they capture a moment that can never be experienced again. Regardless of whether this invokes nostalgia or altered perceptions of reality, a picture becomes classic when it reveals a truth we never consciously realized.
Words however are completely the opposite. Unlike photos that provide windows to other worlds, words become immortal when they remind us of what we already know to be true.
The same day I saw the Vanity Fair exhibit, fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls were also on display at the ROM. Included amongst them was an ancient parchment of Psalm 121 that, religious or not, evoked emotions eminently relatable in modern times. The biblical passage expresses fear, joy, hope, faith… prosaic and poetic at the same time, it is the written expression of human experience that transforms empathy into classic literature.
The Future
On January 27th, the floodgates to tablet computing are going to break wide open. Whether the Apple tablet revealed on that day represents a new vessel for the soul of magazines is irrelevant. What’s significant is that the computer firm cum industrial design boutique is acknowledging that handheld readers are the information medium of the future. Naturally, Apple might be wrong — but it rarely is.
Magazines are obsolete because paper cannot be updated in real time; thousands of pages cannot replace an infinite web of links; and although one photo may say a thousand words, one thousand photos can’t be printed in a single edition. There is no doubting the limitations of magazines as a medium. Yet even with new bells and whistles it is up to writers to pen words worth reading.
That is undoubtedly the greatest problem I can observe with the business of writing today. Simply put: it’s all business, no writing. So concerned with selling ads and paying rent, the product — the fucking words — have taken not just a back seat, but have been shoved in the trunk. Editors are outsourced, stories are machinated and covers are turned into advertorials as publishers lose sight of what exactly they are selling in the first place.
The medium may be the message, but that hardly means the message doesn’t matter. Indeed, if the message is good enough shouldn’t form actually follow function? Hopefully the industry doesn’t lose the forest for the trees as they try to evolve into the digital age, because computers? They’re going to be replaced one day, as will the building they’re sold in and the factories that produce them.
Good writing is going to be around forever.
Anupa
Jan 7th, 2010
Except it’ll be relegated to indie formats, until those indie formats are picked up and bought out and rendered big business. Repeat.
Simon
Jan 7th, 2010
I’m not so sure that’s even happening now. The business model dependent on that feedback loop has proven unsustainable… I expect the next economic exploits will feature more quality writing, pushing it as more of a premium good is what I’m basically speculating.
The new thing actually seems to be starting a blog in the hopes of it being turned into a movie though.
I’m on the cusp of starting a blog about my attempts to replicate every item on the Wendy’s super value menu with only organic ingredients.
jessekg
Jan 8th, 2010
It goes blog or newspaper column > to book > to movie. And it seems to all be based on stunt journalism: how i practiced the bible literally for a year; how I was green for a year; how I only used medieval sanitary procedures for a year (seriously); etc. I’m thinking, how I put up with mind-numbing trade work for a year?
Jef
Jan 9th, 2010
This: “To see crumbling manuscripts side by side with todays newsstand product, all under a dust protector, seemed more prescient than perhaps even the exhibit curators intended.”
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[...] posted about the archaic feel of a recent Vanity Fair exhibit at the ROM, but quotes like the above really hit home how far the magazine industry has changed. In [...]