ROADTEST: Art Magazines

This week at Artrumour, we mark the passing of an era. frieze - the magazine forever linked with the rise of young British art has finally shed the final member of the youthful trio who founded the mag back at the start of the 1990s. With Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp already booted upstairs, this month it was the turn of designer Tom Gidley (sometimes known as Harry Crumb) to disappear. The dark, almost black cover of the current Issue 55 is surely a lament for the passing of youth. So now that an era is over, Artrumour asks: what art magazine should you leave on your coffee table to impress your friends and family:

Artforum: some would say the original and the best contemporary art magazine. Others would say it was an unhandily sized, pseudo-academic American magazine with an unreadable reviews section (aside from the wonderful London correspondent Rachel Withers of course) and the annoying habit of sticking the second half of articles somewhere in the back pages. We say: it's had its time.

frieze: with a new editorial and design team, you've got to give it time to settle down. In the meantime, we say: buy it but hide it well away from your coffee table.

Art Monthly: as if to mock the changing of the frieze design team, Art Monthly advertised in frieze 55, boasting about how one of its design principles has stayed the same since 1976. And they're right - it still looks crap. We say: strictly for the anoraks.

Arts Review: used to run by a lunatic called David Lee. He went when everyone realised he didn't actually like any art. Now run by someone else, but the damage is probably irreparable. We say: no.

Contemporary Visual Arts: famous for being seemingly entirely written by writers turned down by frieze. We say: looks okay, but you'd be wiser keeping your cash.

Modern Painters: used to be for old fogeys who could not understand art made after 1960. Desperately tried to re-invent itself when it realised young British art was quite cool. Failed. Its David Bowie articles (he part owns it) are possibly the most vacuous things ever written on contemporary art. We say: not even worth stealing.

Make: dedicated to women artists. Title is supposed to be ironic ('on the make' - geddit?). We say: flick through it in the bookshop.

The Burlington Magazine: entirely dedicated to old art, and written in a funky pre-war prose style that is largely incoherent. Bizarrely always starts on p.845. Total retro-cool. We say: buy, buy, buy and get some rare stylish back copies if possible.

NEWS THIS WEEK: Colluding Students

Young artists have always colonised run-down areas. SoHo in New York, our very own Shoreditch and Berlin's Mitte have all become art havens, before being gentrified by developers and bars. Now it seems the situation has reversed, with developers spotting places and then roping in artists to provide that pre-gentrification boho feel. This, at least, would seem to be the lesson from last month's ill-fated Art Assembly in Stepney. Assembly looked like an alternative art exhibition held in a disused school by enterprising students from the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths' but turned out in the end to be a developer-lead initiative, with the students providing the arty fodder before the school is turned into 80 flats.

It would be easy to lay into the unscrupulousness of the said property dealer here, but to be fair, that's their job. What's perhaps more interesting is the role of the students. They complained loudly to anyone who would listen about being treated badly by the developer. Complaints included having to leave the premises within one day of the show closing; a dispute about whether the catalogues should be free, and being forced by the developer to have a hot-dog van at the closing party. Few seemed to realise that they didn't have to take the space. After all if rumours are to be believed, a couple of West End art dealers had already turned down the invitation to exhibit there. Moreover it would seem that not too many exhibitors seemed to think it was a bad idea being involved in the redevelopment of ex-local amenity into trendy flats in one of London's poorest boroughs. While it's hard to find exhibiting space as a student, there's a nasty after-taste about Assembly. Whilst Hirst and his peers went out and found disused spaces there's more than a sneaking suspicion that the gentrification-colluding, whinging Assembly lot would sell their grannies to exhibit with Jay Jopling.

INSIDER TRADING - our regular look of what's going on in the shady world of the art market. This week: Georg Baselitz

Anthony D'Offay's Gallery continues to lose artists left, right and centre. Last week it was the turn of that famous German painter of upside down men Georg Baselitz to jump the good ship D'Offay, following the recent departures of Gilbert and George and Grayson Perry. We still maintain it's Anthony's line in blue v-neck jumpers that are driving his artists away. Get a nice polo neck my son, is our advice. Useless fact: if you hang a Baselitz painting upside down they still do not look the right way up.

BOOKS: Art History is back

Art History is back. But unfortunately it usually comes packaged in big books. However, with Artrumour's totally new and original idea - it's book column - you can forget all about the horrible reading malarkey as we write a summary of the book. (Okay, okay, we nicked this idea from the Guardian. Sorry). This week: David Sylvester's 'Looking Back at Francis Bacon.' 'Francis was a magnificent chap and a bloody good painter as well. Look at that bit there! Solemn isn't it? Look at the grisaille! It strikes me roughly - yes, indeed. I've always loved my art ever since I was the precociously young critic of the New Statesman. Extraordinarily young, come to think of it. Of course I knew Sartre, and that Merleau Ponty tickled my twig I can tell you, by Jove. Francis loved his wine, and his food, and we often ate together, but strangely we never had bacon. Oh, the futility of this life.'

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY - The launch of the Ruskin Prize

This week we have no what the critics say. Instead we are proud to announce our reply to the Turner….The Ruskin Prize. The Ruskin is to be awarded to the critic deemed to write the most ineffectual and irritating prose. Points will be gained for getting the basics comically wrong in the manner of Ruskin himself. In the spirit of democracy, we ask you, the public, to nominate critics citing a couple of reasons why you think they should carry off this new and prestigious prize. Please email us: ruskin@artrumour.com

HOT TIPS

With the lack of radicalism in the young - we say get into the old. No, not Anthony D'Offay, but old art and that newly funky subject Art History. Go down a museum. Buy the Burlington. Read Michael Frayn's 'Headlong.'. Slag off Apocalypse and say how much more you're looking forward to Caravaggio, the Royal Academy's next show. Marry art history's newest student - Prince William. Remember - brand new, you're retro.