A Former Editor Writes on the ‘Decline’ of Artforum
In an article for Tablet magazine, a former editor pens a biting insider account of the magazine’s recent years
May 2019 cover of Artforum magazine by Cauleen Smith. CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikipedia commons.
American art critic Travis Jeppesen has published a first-person account of the decline of Artforum in the November issue of Tablet. Jeppesen wrote for the art magazine for 17 years and spent 17 months as its senior web editor, resigning in May 2025.
The art critic makes the case that the title is finished as a force in the artworld. He writes that ad sales and circulation have fallen, the magazine has vanished from newsstands in Europe and Asia, and the website he was hired to revive now only publishes intermittently, having also dropped its Critics’ Picks listings of shows worldwide. Above all, Jeppesen argues, Artforum no longer has editorial vision.
He traces the collapse to ownership and leadership rather than any single scandal. Penske Media bought Artforum in 2022. Editor-in-chief David Velasco was fired in 2023 after the website published an open letter on Gaza, prompting three resignations and a writers’ boycott. His successor, Tina Rivers Ryan, stepped down in February 2026, after five editors resigned during her tenure. Jeppesen describes an office run on fear and accuses the publishers of repeated censorship.
He ends on the disappearance of the critical self-reflection from what was once considered by many to be the world’s finest art magazine: 'I doubt any publication will come to take Artforum’s place'.
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