Imagine yourself in New York City in 1981. A couple of artists, writers and actors are sitting around a kitchen table and I say, “Let’s start a magazine, one where artists are able to speak about their work the way in which we speak about it among ourselves.” And everyone says, “Great idea, let’s do it.”

— BETSY SUSSLER, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief

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Betsy Sussler, BOMB Co-Founder, Editor in Chief. Photo: Lynne Tillman

 

Revelations happen in conversations. They make art and literature more accessible, not only to the reader, but to the artists themselves.

BOMB Magazine, a 501c(3) nonprofit, is committed to representing the artist’s voice through in-depth interviews between visual artists, writers, composers, directors, architects, and actors….

BOMB first launched in 1981 as an artists’ and writers’ quarterly because its founders saw a disparity between the way artists talked about their work among themselves and the way in which it was described by critics. As a result, BOMB reinvented the question-and-answer format, publishing conversations that delve deep into theory and practice, allowing for complex discussions on art and life to emerge.

Twenty-seven years later, BOMB’s mission remains intact: to accurately portray artists’ ideas, their thoughts and creative processes, as well as their progress, through carefully developed dialogues, now and for posterity.

Our interviews have become legendary.

Because in the pages of BOMB, artists get to be the authors of their own tales. Our Archive contains over 850 interviews from the last quarter century—that’s 1700 voices comprising an ongoing conversation that has changed the nature of cultural discourse.

Considered primary documents of American cultural history, BOMB’s Archive has twice been awarded NEA Heritage and Preservation Grants, and was acquired by the Columbia University’s Rare Manuscript Library in 2004. Our Archive is now available online to students and scholars worldwide thanks to grants from the Andy Warhol Arts Writing Initiative, NYSCA, and Eric Fischl.

Intimate. Intellectual. Interviews that change the way we think about the arts, by the people who make the arts—that’s what you will find in the pages of BOMB.

 

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