This autumn a full decade has passed since Kunstkritikk went online for the first time. The instigator behind Kunstkritikk was the critic and writer Jon-Ove Steihaug, who had the idea of creating a purely web-based journal for art criticism in the late 1990s. Even though the World Wide Web had existed since 1991 the thought of launching a journal that only had a web presence was still daring at that point. At the same time, however, the Internet made it considerably simpler and cheaper to publish texts and images than before. When the Norwegian Kulturrådet allocated money for a three-year trial project in 2003 the ball started rolling, and on 27 August of that year Kunstkritikk was launched.
In his opening article Steihaug pointed to the imbalance inherent in the cultural set-up in Norway, where huge sums of money were channelled into producing art and operating institutions, whereas the matter of critical reflection on such art production was ignored and forgotten. Kunstkritikk was intended to rectify this situation and to “contribute to vitalising Norwegian art criticism and discussions of art”.
Now, a decade later, this remains the journal’s chief ambition, but the framework around its operation has changed radically. Kunstkritikk has gone from being a project under the auspices of the Norwegian Critics’ Association to become a small, autonomous institution in its own right, funded via item 74 on the Norwegian national budget, by other public and private donors, and through the sales of advertising space. And in 2011 Kunstkritikk went from being a Norwegian publication to become an inter-Nordic forum with independent editorial offices in Copenhagen and Stockholm headed by Pernille Albrethsen and Kim West, respectively. In addition to this the journal now also publishes an international edition in English. Former editor Jonas Ekeberg, who was the main mastermind behind the Nordic expansion, believed that there was a need for a counter-offensive against the general dismantling and downscaling of the Nordic art scene in the 00s and the globalised art discourse. Today, the greatest increases in readership are found in Sweden and Denmark, which registered growth rates of 76% and 56% during the first half of 2013. During that same period the growth rate for readership in Norway was 18.3%. As yet, a total of 362,802 readers have visited the website in 2013.
The 10th anniversary of Kunstkritikk is celebrated in several ways. We recently launched a mobile version that makes the journal easier to read on tablets and mobile phones. A new search and archive function will contribute to making Kunstkritikk a platform that is easy to navigate for all, and at the same time all serious students and scholars of contemporary art are given access to an amazing archive comprising more than 3,000 reviews, comments, interviews, and news features. An anthology is also in the works, summing up the history of Kunstkritikk in the form of early reviews and all-new texts. The first of these retrospective articles will be published on our website in the very near future. Last, but by no means least, the anniversary is celebrated with a mini-seminar at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo on Friday, 22 November, at 4 p.m. Here, the British philosopher Peter Osborne will offer a new reading of the philosophy of contemporary art based on his bestselling Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art (recently reviewed for Kunstkritikk by Sven-Olov Wallenstein). Osborne’s talk will be followed by a discussion and sparkling wine.
