Welcome to the homepage of e-merge: journal of arts administration and policy, an innovative, peer-reviewed online journal produced by graduate students in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Master of Arts Administration and Policy program. It features original, pioneering theory and practice in the field of arts administration. We are dedicated to fostering creative discussions amongst leading professionals, academics and students, and giving them a vehicle through which to voice their opinions, share new ideas and challenge the status quo. We are interested both in the role(s) of an administrator as an individual and in a wide range of institutional aspects of the field. Given the rapid growth of arts administration as a discipline, we seek to engage with and problematize issues related to arts administration as a professional practice.

The journal will be published online bi-annually in May and December, starting in 2009.

We are pleased to announce the release of our inaugural issue, "The Interview Issue: Inside Art Chicago." Click here to download a copy

The Interview Issue: Inside Art Chicago
v.1, n.1, May 2009

This special issue of e-merge features a series of interviews with the diverse professionals engaged in Art Chicago 2009. It presents an insider's perspective from the trenches of one of the most hotly discussed events in the city's cultural landscape. Interviews with the fair's key administrators and curators (including Tony Karman, Mark Falanga, Jessica Cochran, Christian Viveros-Faune, Lynne Warren, Mary Jane Jacob, Susanne Ghez and Chris Kennedy) touch on a nexus of fundamental questions that have become more pressing than ever before. These questions concern the relationship of art to the market; the viability of traditional vehicles of distribution for art; art's political, social, and civic dimensions; and tensions between local and global, among others. Many of these questions will become through-lines in future issues of e-merge.

Click on the icon to the right to download this issue.