We're kind of reeling today: we now have to reevaluate everything we think about Conde Nast — and perhaps everything we think about the big Nastie daddy, editorial director James Truman.

Conde Nast's recent principle has been to celebrate the attainable — give the people magalogues! Buy some shoes! You'll look and feel like you have a bigger dick if you wear these pants! But now, with the announcement of the new Conde Nast (and Truman-edited) art magazine, Conde Nast intends to sell people things that, for the most part, they actually can't buy.

Truman knows how vulnerable the art mag market is — Artforum, a great mag, is unreadable without a Yale MFA, and Art in America, while decidedly more readable, features reassessments of obscure bits of Monet history. Not exactly mass market. (And never a celebrity on the cover!)

But what Truman really smells, beyond the cred of a "serious" publication and some personal satisfaction? How sexy those high-end, Fendi-glasses-wearing eyeballs are to his advertisers.
Art Magazine Aims to Turn Consumers Into Connoisseurs [NYT]

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