Albert Riera Galceran, from Spain, and Reuben Beren James, from Brighton, were in their final year of graphic communication design at Central Saint Martins when they realised they shared something stronger than a curriculum: a first love for fine art, and specifically for painting. They had ended up as flatmates at the end of first year, fed off each other’s energy, and by the time graduation loomed, the idea of making something together felt inevitable. The result was émergent — a biannual print magazine devoted to contemporary painting that treats its pages like the walls of a gallery.
From the beginning, the publication refused to create hierarchies between its artists. The cover features every contributor’s name in the same typeface at the same size, and each issue ships with postcard-sized prints and heat-sealed packaging that gives readers multiple covers rather than one. The visual design, by studio Adeo, is deliberate in its democracy: no artist gets more prominence than another, whether they show at Gagosian or a graduate exhibition. Fourteen issues in, the roster has grown to include Faye Wei Wei, Wolfgang Tillmans, Glenn Ligon, Christopher Wool, Urs Fischer, Sylvie Fleury, and Adam Pendleton — alongside dozens of painters the magazine introduced to the world for the first time.
Today émergent can be found at MoMA PS1 in New York, Tate Modern and the Serpentine in London, and leading commercial galleries including Gagosian and White Cube. The editorial team now includes Robert Frost and press contact Lore Alender, and the online platform has expanded into exhibition coverage, artist studio visits, and critical essays. With 28,000 Instagram followers and distribution across institutions worldwide, what began as two CSM students’ passion project has become one of the most respected artist-run art publications in Europe — proof that painting, the oldest medium, still needs new platforms to be seen properly.
<a href="https://www.emergentmag.com/">Visit émergent magazine