The St.Claire: Art, Fiction, Chaos and Cultural Criticism
A selection of writing, fiction, art and cultural commentary from The St.Claire, bringing together contemporary artists, writers and contributors in a deliberately eclectic collection of ideas.
The St.Claire has always approached culture from more than one direction. Rather than separating art, literature and criticism into rigid categories, the publication brings different voices together and allows their subjects to overlap. The result is a collection that moves freely between contemporary art, fiction, cultural criticism and broader questions about society.
Becket Flannery
One of the featured pieces focuses on Becket Flannery and opens with a provocative observation about parenting, influence and indoctrination. The statement immediately establishes the kind of tone associated with The St.Claire: personal, direct and willing to approach familiar subjects from an unexpected angle.
“Parenting is a kind of indoctrination and one day your indoctrination will compel you to thank me.”
The piece invites the reader to consider how ideas, values and expectations are passed from one generation to another. It is an appropriately provocative entry point into an issue concerned with the ways people influence one another.
Four Odes to Cataclysm, Campaigns, and Chaos
The issue then expands into a collaborative feature, Four Odes to Cataclysm, Campaigns, and Chaos. The title itself suggests a deliberately fragmented approach: four contributors examining disorder, conflict and the forces that shape contemporary cultural life from different perspectives.
The feature brings together Ryan Foley, Nicole Wilson, Ratkicker and Matt Kalasky. Rather than presenting a single authoritative interpretation, the four voices create a conversation between different forms of criticism and observation.
This multiplicity is central to the character of The St.Claire. The publication does not require every contributor to approach a subject in the same way. Contrasting perspectives become part of the material itself, allowing uncertainty, disagreement and experimentation to remain visible.
Emily Squires and the Centerfold
The issue also features Emily Squires in a Centerfold presentation. Positioned alongside the publication's written material, the Centerfold introduces another visual dimension to the issue and reinforces The St.Claire's interest in combining contemporary imagery with independent writing and criticism.
The Centerfold occupies a distinctive place within the structure of the publication. It is not simply another article, but part of the visual identity of an issue built around the relationship between images, artists and written culture.
When You Couldn't Forgive Me
Fiction enters the collection through Rebecca Kumar's When You Couldn't Forgive Me. The piece shifts the publication away from criticism and into literary storytelling, demonstrating the breadth of material that appeared under The St.Claire name.
“You were on your back with your legs up, tabletop, ankles crossed. You were already high.”
The excerpt establishes an intimate and immediate voice. As with the publication's critical writing, the fiction is presented without excessive distance between the reader and the material. It forms another part of the issue's broader conversation about relationships, experience and contemporary life.
Art, Writing and the Culture Around Them
Other material associated with the issue includes Lead From Somewhere: Part Two, a collaboration involving The St.Claire, ICA and its audience, as well as Baby I Got My Facts/learned Real Good Right Now by Emily Davidson and Mike Treffehn.
Together, these pieces demonstrate the deliberately broad scope of The St.Claire. Contemporary art appears alongside fiction, essays, cultural commentary and collaborative projects. Instead of treating these forms as separate disciplines, the publication places them next to one another and lets the connections emerge.
That approach is perhaps the most useful way to understand this collection today. The individual pieces belong to different categories, but they share an interest in the relationship between art, language, culture and the people who produce them.
The St.Claire Archive
Preserved as part of The St.Claire's archive, these materials offer a snapshot of the publication's editorial approach and of the artists and writers it brought together. The combination of criticism, fiction, visual work and experimental cultural writing gives the issue a distinctly independent-magazine character.
More than a conventional collection of reviews, The St.Claire's pages document a particular way of thinking about contemporary culture: curious, collaborative and comfortable with crossing the boundaries between art, literature and criticism.