The Brief — Print Edition

The Brief is a printed newsletter that believes art is inseparable from the social and political conditions in which it circulates. We treat art and arts writing as collective sites of political struggle and imagination.

We center artists, critics, arts workers, and cultural commentators as workers and as political thinkers whose practices generate knowledge and social change alike. Each issue contains essays, reviews, illustrations, position pieces, and announcements and calls, that bring aesthetic and political analyses into close conversation.

We are formally and intellectually inspired by queer and feminist publishing traditions, newspapers emerging from New Left social movements, labor-organizing pamphlets and bulletins, and experimental art periodicals.

Our low-cost issues are sent through the mail for wide circulation and shared readership: The Brief is meant to be passed hand-to-hand, read collectively, and used to spark dialogue about art, politics, and the (art) worlds we are trying to build.

What to Write About

We invite seasoned and emerging writers to pitch local, national, and international coverage of the visual and performing arts. (We have limited capacity for literature, film, and music coverage.)

    • Open Call. Timely considerations of art, ranging from strict formalist analyses to explorations of the histories, cultures, politics, and contexts the work extends and reflects.

    • Worker’s Corner. Writing from people who work in or around government buildings, reflecting on the aesthetics and functions of public art in these spaces; the intersections of art, architecture, politics, and social life; and more.

    • Artists on Artists. Artists looking carefully at and thinking critically about another artist's practice.

    • Beyond the Discipline. An invitation to break out of familiar language and ideas, writing about artists, regions, forms, genres, keywords, concepts, and mediums outside the writer's typical purview.

    • The Local Report. Roving portraits of hyper-local art scenes that ask questions about the relationships between aesthetic and civic life.

    • Reviews - 250 words. Sharply written reviews of exhibitions held to exactly 250 words—a constraint that doubles as a creative challenge, a prompt for rethinking the forms and genres of arts critical thinking.

  • Practical, concrete guides that reflect the range of skills artists, writers, and arts and culture workers possess—and that help readers activate new ideas and practices in their own lives and communities.

    Guides can be as general or niche as you’d like demonstrates ways of the aesthetic, the political, and the myriad practices that bring the aesthetic and political into close conversation: how to mix oil paint, how to organize a sign-making workshop before a protest, how to navigate a tricky dynamic as an arts administrator, how to think critically about the history of the color blue, how to open a low-budget DIY film festival in your local public library, how to have fun at an exhibition opening, how to run a reading group in a community center with no budget, how to decide whether to pursue gallery representation, how to distribute a zine throughout a neighborhood.

    The guides should be genuinely usable, written for someone who wants to actually do the thing, not just be inspired by the idea of it.

    Format is flexible and can include bullet points, numbered steps, and lists as well as prose and illustrations.

  • Response to a story or trend in the art world, with has the somewhat tongue-in-cheek goal of putting an end to prevailing discourse by (re)situating it in historical, aesthetic, and/or political context: to ask where the conversation came from, what it's actually about, and what would have to be true for us to think about it differently. We are looking for writers who can move between the granular and the structural, and who are not afraid to take a clear but generative and generous position. While the piece may not be the last word ever, it strives to be definitive.

  • The Brief reserves space in each issue for announcements, listings, and calls from people across the country. Public Square is modeled on the classified ad, the want ad, and the community bulletin. These are formats designed for direct communication between people who share a world—even if they are on opposite sides of it—and need to know about each other, if not find one another.

    Listings might announce an upcoming event, a teach-in, a study group, a resource swap, or a call to support a person or cause; they might simply notify readers that an organization or project exists. We hope Public Square functions not only as information but as imagination: a way of showing readers the range of collective activity underway, and sparking local versions of what they find there.

    Text Listings

    For a $5 donation, we'll run a ~30-word text listing.

    The Black Embodiments Studio is an arts organization, public programming initiative, and publishing platform based in Seattle but alive worldwide. Follow us on IG. We’re having a public conversation @ Henry art Gallery 4/16 6-730pm

    Jane Doe is seeking letterpress support in Newburgh. Email jane@janesemail.com

    Want to see the Jane Doe art show but don’t have anyone to go with? GROUP HANG! Meet in lobby of Jane’s Gallery at 1 PM PST. Text 555-0100 if you get lost.

    Join a temporary group chat for people who want to gab about the Whitney Biennial. We’ll be on Telegram from June 1 to July 15. Join us at 555-0100.

    Want to know more about black conceptual artists? Virtual talk by Jane Doe, hosted by Best Art Gallery Ever on June 8 at 8 pm EST. bit.ly/supersmart for details.

    Graphic Listings

    For a $20 donation to BES, we'll run a 250x250 px graphic announcement of your listing.

Pitch Guide

Send your pitches to editor [at] blackembodiments [dot] org with the subject line “[Pitch] The Brief Print Edition”.

We like short and sweet pitches where you:

  1. Briefly introduce yourself (1-2 sentences)

  2. A 1-2 sentence summary of your idea (e.g., “I'm writing to see if you would be interested in a review/interview/essay about show/topic/person.”) Include exhibition dates when relevant and links when possible.

  3. 4-6 sentences summarizing why you think the topic is interesting and worthwhile.

  4. Include 2-3 clips or links to previously published writing, if you have it. It’s okay if you don’t, we welcome unpublished writers!

Please do not send a complete draft with your pitch, and don’t forget to review your pitch for spelling and grammar.