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BOMB Magazine (Spring, 1981
Chanel No.5
BETSY SUSSLER We talked about BOMB for a year before we made it. And when I say we, I mean everybody in downtown New York. We weren’t quite sure how to do it, but Glenn O’Brien was part of the conversation. So were Liza Béar and Michael McClard. And Sarah. We were talking about what kind of magazine and what we would cover. I had been thinking about a magazine centered around film and theater, with music and literature and visual arts.
GLENN O’BRIEN I think the first meetings for BOMB were in Terry Winters’ place, which was in 591 on a different floor. Betsy at some point forgot that I named the magazine. It had to do with BLAST. Wyndam Lewis was the editor of BLAST and published it.
BETSY SUSSLER Before BOMB, only critics talked about visual art. They weren’t that interested in what artists had to say about their own work. BOMB gave the visual artist a voice. Sarah was the champion of that. She was very adamant about including the visual arts. Not that anyone was against it— we all came from that milieu—but there were conversations about whether it would be part of the mix or not. Sarah was very adamant in Sarah’s way of being very adamant. After many conversations, over many nights, everyone realized she was right. BOMB just took over. I was doing it out of my house—out of my apartment, out of my loft. We didn’t know how to design a magazine. When we were figuring out BOMB’s dimensions, I wanted it to be classic, so I wanted it to be the same dimension as the Golden Ratio. We could not remember what the formula was. So we’re sitting at her desk, and there is nothing on the desk but a ruler and a bottle of Chanel No.5. And I said, “Sarah, Chanel used the Golden Ratio.” So the first BOMB was the same proportion as the Chanel bottle.
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BOMB, Volume 1, Issue 1; Spring, 1981. Cover by Sarah Charlesworth.
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