Dan Tranberg is Co-Founder and Visual Arts Editor of Angle, an arts journal that is cultivating Cleveland's exposure to art in all visual forms. Dan also handles the website and functions as photo editor for the print issue, while Amy Sparks, Co-Founder, functions as editor and director of the organization, and co-founder Douglas Max Utter, also contributes to Angle's content. The three worked together at the previous incarnation of the Free Times and currently write for the Plain Dealer. Tisha Nemeth spoke with Dan about translating art to the community via art criticism, reaching Cleveland's arts audiences, and why museums putting digital interactive displays in their galleries is not a good idea.

Angle has cultivated its trademark style of a polished and informed literary and arts magazine for those of us aesthetically obsessed in Cleveland. Did you or Amy have any indicators early on that Angle would become an esteemed, alternative source of art coverage in Cleveland?
Amy [Sparks] and Doug [Max Utter] and I started talking about the idea days after the Free Times shut down. At that time, lots of people in the art scene were freaking out, saying things like 'What are we going to do? We need coverage.' So, that was certainly an indicator that the need was out there. From that point, it became a matter of designing a publication that was everything we wanted it to be -- not a replacement for the Free Times, but something that capitalized on our own skills and raised the bar on arts coverage in Cleveland.

Your imaginative and enlightened critiques guide readers through the sometimes uncharted territory of contemporary art and installation pieces which are not only challenging to appreciate, but also to enjoy. How did you develop your writing style and practices to accommodate your audience?
My writing has always been about communicating clearly; that's my main objective. I’d like to think that it’s also informed to some degree by writers I admire. In general, I suppose that the way I discuss or critique art first developed in art school, where I was constantly writing papers and participating in group critiques, and I was usually the one who talked the most. But in art school you can assume that the people you're communicating with have a certain level of knowledge. That's the challenge of writing for a larger audience. You can't assume that the reader went to art school, but you don't want to talk down to people either.

At Angle, do you hope to have a residual effect on those who don't care about arts or literature? Is it a priority to branch out and reach that demographic?
This is an ongoing debate with arts organizations in general. I like the idea of drawing people into the arts, but in some ways I think it conflicts with our primary mission, which is to raise the bar on arts coverage in this region. I'm not sure you can do both. People who don’t care about art and literature probably aren’t going to pick up Angle. But if they do, I would hope that the general quality of the magazine would draw them in.

Personally, I think it’s appalling that art museums are doing things like putting digital interactive displays in their galleries. It’s all about pandering to people’s short attention spans, which is antithetical to what most art is trying to accomplish. I would hate to see Angle go in that direction. We’ve always refused to do “lifestyle” stories for instance, which are generally designed to appeal to the widest possible audience.

Angle maintains an unflinching focus on the arts and literature in a city where these two topics are not critically examined. How does this affect your selection process of material to review and critique?
I wouldn't say they're not critically examined. They're undervalued, in part, because they are not generally evaluated nationally and internationally. This is one of the situations Angle is trying to address. We have subscribers in 20 states and with each issue we strive for a mixture of local, national and international coverage. The reason that the arts in cities like Boston, Chicago, and Miami are more relevant to the art world is that those cities don't cut themselves off from the rest of the world. They're part of the global scene, which is what Cleveland needs to become. So, we make our decisions with this in mind.

What was the genesis of Angle, and how did you and Amy find yourselves taking on the intellectual slant for the magazine? Was it intentional, or was it more about nurturing your own erudite passions?
The three of us [Amy Sparks and Doug Utter] worked together at the Free Times and co-founded a magazine, that I think reflects our own personal styles. I also think the nature of the subject matter calls for a certain level of intellectual analysis. At the same time, we've never aimed at being an academic journal. We want the magazine to be readable, well-designed and generally enjoyable.

What is the impetus for your art writing, and how has it affected your relationship with art: privately how you view it, in terms of knowing the resultant public critique?
Writing about art is a way to participate in a larger dialogue about ideas, many of which I can't get to with my own artwork. It's also true that being a critic has, in a sense, trained me to think very carefully about my responses to art even when I'm not writing about it.

At Angle, you put yourself on a platform to communicate a sometimes untranslatable concept (art) to the community. How did art become so important to you that you'd venture to do this?
As a young person, my initial attraction to art was intuitive. I was just one of those kids who made art all the time and there was never really any question that I would go into any other field. As an adult, I've come to value art as something that drives culture, so my appreciation and understanding of it is much broader. Considering the way this county is becoming more and more conservative, I think the arts are more important than ever because as a society, we need to get much better at addressing difficult questions. Art forces personal engagement on all kinds of levels. It discourages passivity.

How are the art-appreciating audiences in Cleveland? Do you receive feedback that Cleveland is as culturally connected as other metropolitan areas?
I think Cleveland has a lot of very sophisticated people in it who are hungry for culture. I don't think a week has gone by since we started Angle that someone hasn’t said how much he or she appreciates it.

What are the differences in preparing and completing a piece for Angle compared to the Plain Dealer? Any specific challenges or great stories you'd like to share about working with these two polar opposite publications?
Every publication has its own style and audience, so of course it's different. Newspapers in general like shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs. You also have to get to the point very quickly because it's assumed that the reader doesn't have all the time in the world. With Angle, I think we encourage a different kind of reading experience that's more contemplative and less hurried. But I think a lot of people assume that the Plain Dealer intervenes with writers' ideas far more than they actually do. I had a guy ask me once at an art opening how often the Plain Dealer specifically asks me to write a positive review, and I said 'never.' And he didn't believe me. But they never have, nor have they ever asked me to change my view in any way. They definitely edit stories, and I'm not always happy with how they do it. The main difference is that Angle is not geared to the general public. It’s a niche publication devoted to arts and culture. It’s also a non-profit organization, so it’s not all about attracting advertisers and appealing to the broadest possible market. It’s about looking at art with a level of intelligence consistent with its creation, nothing more and nothing less. http://www.AngleMagazine.org

Interview by Tisha Nemeth

Photo courtesy of MOCA and Dan Tranberg

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