''Bomb'' (stylized in all caps as ''BOMB'') is an American arts magazine edited by artists and writers, published quarterly in print and daily online. It is composed primarily of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplines—visual art, literature, film, music, theater, architecture, and dance. In addition to interviews, ''Bomb'' publishes reviews of literature, film, and music, as well as new poetry and fiction. ''Bomb'' is published by New Art Publications, Inc., a 501(c)(3)

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

organization.

History

''Bomb'' was launched in 1981 by a group of New York City-based artists, including Betsy Sussler,

Sarah Charlesworth Sarah Edwards Charlesworth (March 29, 1947 – June 25, 2013) was an American conceptual artist and photographer. She is considered part of The Pictures Generation, a loose-knit group of artists working in New York in the late 1970s and early ...

Glenn O'Brien Glenn O'Brien (March 2, 1947 – April 7, 2017) was an American writer who focused largely on the subjects of art, music, and fashion. He was featured for many years as "The Style Guy" in ''GQ'' magazine and published a book with that title. He ...

, Michael McClard, and Liza Béar, who sought to record and promote public conversations between artists without mediation by critics or journalists.McClister, Nell
"Bomb Magazine: Celebrating 25 Years"
''Bomb'', Retrieved October 13, 2014. Jeffrey Eugenides spread

The name ''Bomb'' is a reference to both

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...

' ''

Blast Blast or The Blast may refer to: *Explosion, a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner *Detonation, an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front Film * ''Blast'' (1997 film), ...

'' and the fact that the magazine's original editors expected the publication to "bomb" after one or two issues. Shortly after its founding, ''Bomb'' formed a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, New Art Publications, Inc., which publishes the journal. In 2005, the ''Bomb'' offices moved from the

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

neighborhood of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, New York, to Fort Greene, Brooklyn. By December 2019, ''Bomb'' had published one hundred fifty issues.

Notable contributors

* Chris Abani *

Kathy Acker Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...

Stan Allen Stan Allen (born 1956) is an American architect, theorist and former dean of Princeton University School of Architecture. Biography He received a B.A. from Brown University, a B.Arch. from Cooper Union and an M.Arch. from Princeton Universit ...

* Martin Amis * John Ashbery *

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' ('' The Savage Detectives ...

Giannina Braschi Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include ''Empire of Dreams'' (1988), ''Yo-Yo Boing!'' (1998) ''and United States of Banana'' (2011). Braschi writes cross-genr ...

Carlos Brillembourg Carlos Brillembourg is an architect based in New York City. He is the owner of Carlos Brillembourg Architects, a firm that he founded in 1984. Brillembourg was an author and the editor of ''Latin American Architecture 1929–1960: Contemporary ...

S. D. Chrostowska S. D. Chrostowska is an American-Canadian writer and intellectual historian of modern critical thought. She holds a professorship in 20th century continental thought at York University in Canada. Research Sylwia Dominika Chrostowska, born to Po ...

* Joshua Cohen *

Edwidge Danticat Edwidge Danticat (; born January 19, 1969) is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, ''Breath, Eyes, Memory'', was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or ...

* Arthur C. Danto *

Lydia Davis Lydia Davis (born July 15, 1947) is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of ...

Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, t ...

Junot Díaz Junot Díaz (; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at '' Boston Review''. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freed ...

Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer (born 5 June 1958) is an English author. He has written a number of novels and non-fiction books, some of which have won literary awards. Personal background Dyer was born and raised in Cheltenham, England, as the only child of a ...

Nicole Eisenman Nicole Eisenman (born 1965) is French-born American artist known for her oil paintings and sculptures. She has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), the Carnegie Prize (2013), and has thrice been included in the Whitney Biennial (1995, 20 ...

n *

Jeffrey Eugenides Jeffrey Kent Eugenides (born March 8, 1960) is an American novelist and short story writer. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: ''The Virgin Suicides'' (1993), ''Middlesex'' (2002), and'' The Marriage Plot'' ...

Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel '' The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...

Robert Gober Robert Gober (born September 12, 1954) is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs. Early life and education Gober was born in Wallingford, Connecticut and studied literatu ...

Francisco Goldman Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, ''Monkey Boy'' (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fi ...

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...

* Mary Heilmann *

Philip Seymour Hoffman Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor. Known for his distinctive supporting and character roles—typically lowlifes, eccentrics, underdogs, and misfits—he acted in many films and theatrical produ ...

* A. M. Homes * Gary Indiana * Jim Jarmusch *

Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

Rachel Kushner Rachel Kushner (born 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels '' Telex from Cuba'' (2008), ''The Flamethrowers'' (2013), and '' The Mars Room'' (2018). Early life Kushner was born in Eugene, Oregon, the daughter of two Communist scientist ...

Olivia Laing Olivia Laing (born 14 April 1977) is a British writer, novelist and cultural critic. She is the author of four works of non-fiction, ''To the River'', ''The Trip to Echo Spring,'' '' The Lonely City'', and ''Everybody'', as well as an essay colle ...

Ben Lerner Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the National Bo ...

* Roy Lichtenstein *

Sam Lipsyte Sam Lipsyte (born 1968) is an American novelist and short story writer. Life The son of the sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, Sam Lipsyte was born in New York City and raised in Closter, New Jersey, where he attended Northern Valley Regional Hi ...

Dimitris Lyacos Dimitris Lyacos ( el, Δημήτρης Λυάκος; born 19 October 1966) is a contemporary Greek poet and playwright. He is the author of the ''Poena Damni'' trilogy. Lyacos's work is characterised by its genre-defying form and the avant-garde ...

* Robert Mapplethorpe *

Ben Marcus Ben Marcus (born October 11, 1967) is an American author and professor at Columbia University. He has written four books of fiction. His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in publications including ''Harper's'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The ...

Kerry James Marshall Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall ...

Allan McCollum Allan McCollum (born 1944) is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in New York City. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City the same year. In the late 1970s he became especially well kn ...

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. No ...

* Al Pacino * Adam Phillips *

Richard Prince Richard Prince (born 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image, ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a rephotographing of a photograph by Sam Abell and ...

Francine Prose Francine Prose (born April 1, 1947) is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic. She is a visiting professor of literature at Bard College, and was formerly president of PEN American Center. Life and career Born in Brookl ...

Claudia Rankine Claudia Rankine (; born September 4, 1963) is an American poet, essayist, playwright and the editor of several anthologies. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays. Her book of poetry, '' Citizen: An American L ...

* Mika Rottenburg *

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

David Salle David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is a Pictures Generation American painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He ear ...

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

Anna Deavere Smith Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in '' The West Wing'' (2000–06), hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series ''N ...

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''. Called the "punk poet ...

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensembl ...

Mickalene Thomas Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel.

Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín (, approximately ; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. His first novel, '' The South'', was published in 1990. '' The Blackwater Lightship'' was shortlis ...

Ryan Trecartin Ryan Trecartin (born 1981) is an American artist and filmmaker currently based in Athens, Ohio. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a BFA in 2004. Trecartin has since lived and worked in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Ph ...

Luc Tuymans Luc Tuymans (born 14 June 1958) is a Belgian visual artist best known for his paintings which explore people's relationship with history and confront their ability to ignore it. World War II is a recurring theme in his work. He is a key figure ...

Edmund White Edmund Valentine White III (born 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him (and later ) de l'Ordr ...

Caterina Verde Caterina Verde (born Kathryn Greene) is a conceptual and visual artist of both American and French nationality, who currently lives and works in New York City. Verde's work is a cross platform of media that incorporates video and installation-sty ...

Archive at Columbia University

In 2004,

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

's Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired ''Bomb'''s archives, including twenty-four years' worth of audio recordings, raw and edited interview transcripts, manuscripts, galleys, and assorted ephemera.

Oral History Project

Since 2014, ''Bomb'''s Oral History Project has staged one-on-one interviews with New York City-based visual artists of the African descent, conducted by curators, scholars, and cultural producers. Sana Musasama and Janet Olivia Henry for OHP

Sana Musasama and Janet Olivia Henry for OHP

The Oral History Project is dedicated to collecting, developing, and preserving the stories of distinguished visual artists of the African Diaspora. The Oral History Project has organized interviews including:

Wangechi Mutu Wangechi Mutu (born 1972) is a Kenyan-born American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work.Deborah Willis,

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best ...

& Larry Walker, Edward Clark by

Jack Whitten Jack Whitten (December 5, 1939 – January 20, 2018) was an American painter and sculptor. In 2016, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts. Life Whitten was born in 1939 in Bessemer, Alabama. Planning a career as an army doctor, Whitten ent ...

, Adger Cowans by

Carrie Mae Weems Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project ''Th ...

, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe by Kalia Brooks,

Melvin Edwards Melvin "Mel" Edwards (born May 4, 1937) Samella S. Lewis, ''African American Art and Artists'', University of California Press, 2003, p. 210. Lisa S. Weitzman"Edwards, Melvin 1937–" encyclopedia.com. is an American contemporary artist, teacher, ...

by Michael Brenson,

Terry Adkins Terry Roger Adkins (May 9, 1953 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist. He was Professor of Fine Arts in the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Early life Adkins was born in ...

by Calvin Reid,

Stanley Whitney Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...

by Alteronce Gumby, Gerald Jackson by Stanley Whitney, Eldzier Cortor by Terry Carbone, Peter Bradley by Steve Cannon, Quincy Troupe & Cannon Hersey, James Little by LeRonn P. Brooks, William T. Williams by Mona Hadler,

Maren Hassinger Maren Hassinger (born Maren Louise Jenkins in 1947) is an African-American artist and educator whose career spans four decades. Hassinger uses sculpture, film, dance, performance art, and public art to explore the relationship between the natural ...

Lowery Stokes Sims Lowery Stokes Sims (born 1949) is an American art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art known for her expertise in the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native and Asian American artists such as Wifredo Lam, Fritz Scholder, ...

, Linda Goode Bryant by

Rujeko Hockley Rujeko Hockley (born in Zimbabwe) is a New York-based US curator. Hockley is currently an Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Life and education Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, Hockley relocated to Washington, D.C. with her famil ...

, Janet Olivia Henry and Sana Musasama by Stephanie E. Goodalle. Oral History Project
"The Oral History Project"
''Bomb'', Retrieved 30 October 2019.

References

External links

*
JSTOR archive.''Bomb: The Author Interviews'' published by Soho PressFinding aid to Bomb magazine records at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bomb (Magazine) American contemporary art Literary magazines published in the United States Quarterly magazines published in the United States Contemporary art magazines Magazines established in 1981 Magazines published in New York City