A Fond Farewell

Dear Readers,

For the past 9 months, I’ve had an amazing time with you all at Hyperallergic. As staff writer, I’ve posted day in and day out, attempting to provide a guide to what’s actually interesting in the art world — everything from the latest street art bombs to the state of Chinese contemporary art and the best of art YouTube videos. It’s been an incredible experience, to say the least. I want to thank everyone who has come to this site for following along, and thank Hyperallergic editor Hrag Vartanian and publisher Veken Gueyikian for giving me this opportunity.

I’ll be leaving Hyperallergic today, and taking a position as assistant editor at Artinfo.

I really hope you’ve had as much fun reading as I have had writing, because blogging about contemporary art has been the best job, passion and responsibility I could possibly have asked for. It’s been great to get feedback on posts in the form of tweets, comments or even in person, and it’s been fantastic to be able to talk to people about some of the things I care about.

What have I bombarded you with in these past 9 months? Well, let’s take a look. Here are a few of my proudest moments on the blog, in convenient listicle form:

We played a role in breaking the news that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested by the Chinese government, and just recently told you about his release.

So none of you ever have to ask (or tell) ever again, we attempted to answer the art world’s biggest question: WTF is Relational Aesthetics? The answer is, whatever you want it to be!

Since I’m pretty young myself, I take offense when people (or art critics) pass off an entire generation of as empty and vapid. My post The Art Kids Are Not Alright stirred things up.

Hyperallergic is a voice that the art world desperately needs, and I think that’s why you come here, for a new critical angle and a willingness to shoot through the BS. Hrag and Veken have been nothing but supportive of my work to develop that voice. In fact, they have made it all possible, and I know they will keep expanding and pushing forward in the future. I hope you will all support this blogazine as much as you can, because it’s worth doing, and, of course, it’s worth reading.

You can continue to follow my writing on Twitter and on my Tumblr or contact me through either. To end with, here’s something that I think perfectly expresses the universal joy of art and shows why we all love it so much. It’s the joy of experiencing something new, something we can’t quite grasp, that challenges us and delights us anyway:

That’s all from me for now! Don’t stop looking around.

— Kyle Chayka