Magazine of the international boondocks: In 1978, Bordeaux-based artists Michel Aphesboro and Danielle Colomine embarked on their on-going itinerant project 4 Taxis. Establishing temporary studios in different cities— from Berlin to Los Angeles—they’ve produced a nomadic publication that focuses on distinct places and a wide-ranging world of cultural activities.

DIY culture, artist-run initiatives, pop-up galleries, and ‘zines have long been essential but often unhistoricized aspects of the art world. What happens when that independent fringe drifts steadily into the mainstream and informal networked culture influences the establishment?

When Leonard Koren, a graduate of UCLA’s School of Architecture, founded WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing in 1976, he vowed never to take it seriously. Published over a period of 5 years, the 84 issues of WET regularly featured art, music, fashion, nudity, and hot water-related phenomena.

In 1976, Paul McCarthy produced 1500 copies of Criss Cross Double Cross, a tabloid-size newsprint publication that regarded the printed page as a performance space. "It was crazy to do it," said McCarthy. Among the contributors to the one-off issue were Bruce Nauman, Nancy Buchanan, and Martha Rosler.

The emergence of Los Angeles as the “second city” of American art, as art historian Barbara Rose once called it, was witnessed by Artforum’s tenure here. Founded in San Francisco in 1962, the magazine focused almost exclusively on West Coast art during its first few years and sought to be an alternative to the mainstream New York–based art press. Yet Artforum’s short stint in Los Angeles, from 1965 to 1967, proved merely a stepping-stone on the way to New York, where it was soon lured by East Coast prestige and advertising revenue.

Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women’s Culture (1977-1980) was a short-lived but influential feminist publication that was collectively produced by artists and writers active in the Los Angeles feminist movement. Chrysalis’ complete integration of art, literature, and cultural studies was distinct from other journals of the era, in particular, Heresies, which began the same year in New York.

Artist Tom Marioni is best known for early Conceptual works such as "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art" (1970), and as the founder of the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA), one of the first alternative art spaces in the United States, which he opened in 1970 and directed until its closure in 1984. He published the first issue of Vision , an extraordinary publication which lasted for only six issues, in 1975. Both MOCA and Vision helped to define new forms of art making and connect artists experimenting in a site-specific or performative vein. Here, Marioni recounts the story of Vision 36 years later.