META and regina: Two (Magazine) Sisters in Crime

META and regina: Two (Magazine) Sisters in Crime. META and regina are both magazines founded independently in the 1990’s by two female cultural producers. Using their first names as titles of the magazines they made a public statement as a tool of institutional critique on normative concepts within the art system at the time. Although distinguished by their unusual characters and strategies, the two magazines - META and regina - share a common feminist position and subversive approach that make them 'sisters in crime'.

Ute Meta Bauer founded META during her tenure as artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (1990–1994). With META, Bauer initiated a periodical which re-negotiated in print aspects of her programme at this particular space - an artists-run institution with a focus on artistic production and curatorial experimentation. Hence the magazine is an expansion in format, but as well in content of the curatorial programme. Through the distribution format inherent to a publication, the bi-lingual periodical META could reach a broader audience than the one who was able to visit the projects on site. Each issue had a thematic focus as did the annual programme of Kuenstlerhaus, ranging from “Art and its Site”, “A new spirit in curating?”, “Radical Chic” to "Atlases and Archives”, bringing together artists, writers, as well as curators to reflect upon and expand the programmatic line of this artist-run space.

regina was founded by Regina (Maria) Möller in 1994. The magazine is an artwork in printed matter format, that appears and is produced on invitation by international art institutions, it is an ongoing "periodical". Its look is an adaptation of women fashion magazines, while its content surprises with a character that navigates between documentation and fiction, and it deals with “identities” at large from various perspectives. So far eight issues have been published and each edition focuses on an umbrella topic ranging for example from "Reproduction", "Profession Woman", "Women & Production / Class & Distribution", "Her Stories", to "Still Life". regina as printed matter enables the artist to distribute art and overheard voices to a wider audience.

Both magazines and their specific approach, interest and aesthetical self-understanding are nowadays key examples of an artistic and curatorial production and discourse which reflects on its conditions of production as well as its fields of operation, that especially aims to address the diversity and trans-disciplinarily aspect of cultural production – at a time when this was still not common agreed on.

In collaboration with Goethe-Institut Schweden.