When the editor of Art + Auction leaves his job just before the bellwether spring auctions, something’s up. That’s what happened last week, when Anthony Freund departed. Ted Loos, the executive editor, also left. A few weeks ago, Miranda Dempster, the creative director, walked out the door for good.
The magazine had already had its budget slashed — by more than half, some sources said, not for attribution — forcing cuts in salaries, travel budgets and freelance payments. Since January, according to one insider, there probably hasn’t been a week that at least one person hasn’t been let go.
Last week, Louise Blouin Media, which owns A+A as well as Modern Painters, Gallery Guide
and artinfo.com, among other things, said it had hired Marisa Bartolucci, from Fulcrum, to be editorial director — the same title Tony Freund had.
I’ve written for Art + Auction, and know Tony and Ted; neither wanted to talk last week. They haven’t answered my recent emails about this either. But when I contacted Louise Blouin (she sometimes also uses MacBain, her married name, though she is divorced from him) via email yesterday, she called back from the Mideast, where she’s traveling. It was late there, way past midnight, but she told me that Tony had left because she was consolidating all editorial content — print and web — under Marisa. “She knows the web,” she said — and she has also written a lot about design. She said she has asked Ted to write for LBM on a freelance basis.
“There will be no change in focus,” Ms. Blouin said, explaining that the consolidation made sense because the business is global. The website is free, and is advertising-driven. When I asked about profits, she said she never talks money, but quickly added “It [the whole business] does make money.”
Ms. Blouin said there would be no personnel changes at Modern Painter, which “will be under Marisa, too.” And, she said, LBM was hiring, mainly people from Forbes.
After our talk, Media Bistro reported that LBM employees had suffered pay cuts of at least 12 percent and that Chris Hunter and David Grosz, editors at Modern Painters and ArtInfo.com, respectively, were also quitting. Media Bistro, which said LBM was “in chaos,” also reported that Mitchell Martin, formerly with Forbes.com, was taking over at ArtInfo.com, and the LBM had hired Forbes staffers Ruthie Ackerman, Bruce Janicke and Ali Privitera.
Those hires make little sense to A+A people. “Why are all the new hires people who don’t know anything about fine art and the art market, when Art + Auction is the bible of the art market,” asked one, who wouldn’t go on the record.
Ms. Blouin had told me that she was “developing other products,” but they’re not about the art world. They’ll be revealed later this year — and that’s what the folks from Forbes are working on.
Photo Credit: Louise T. Blouin Foundation