Revisiting Index Magazine – the iconic indie mag of the 1990s that redefined New York’s publishing scene

Index Magazine ran from 1996 to 2005 and made a name for itself as New York’s cultural hub, intermingling the voices of directors, photographers, actors, artists and more. The magazine was discontinued after 51 issues, though remains venerated for its extensive catalogue. Most notably; avant-guard musician Björk in conversation with Juergen Teller; anti-war activist Bianca Jagger photographed by Wolfgang Tillmans; and actor Willem Dafoe interviewed by screenwriter Justin Haythe.

Fast forward two decades, and the magazine returned to the spotlight for a special retrospective at last week’s Paris Design Week. The exhibition traced Index Magazine’s blend of art, fashion, music, and cinematic media and the cult community it formed from its melting pot of creative minds. Featuring the early works of photographers Juergen Teller, and Hedi Slimane, the exhibition also had a reading room. In a time when digital media is fleeting and difficult to grab, print has seen a resurgence as of late, proving people’s thirst for tactility. In line with the exhibition, It’s Nice That spoke to Index’s co-founder, artist turned publisher Peter Halley, and exhibition curator Freddie Wahter of Wahter Studio.

“In the mid 90s, the New York art scene was pretty depressing, so I wanted to get out and connect with people in different creative fields,” Peter says. In the early days of Index Magazine, its founders knew what they came to do; platform the people who shape culture, regardless of where in culture they sit. Index put then 17-year-old Scarlett Johansson on her first cover off the back of her role in Daniel Clowes’ cult classic film Ghost World and spoke to her about the mundanity of teenagehood. Index Magazine is filled to the brim with snapshots of stars in their come-up, reading almost like the hero’s journey of adventures, lessons learned, and transformations. We’ve heard the phrase ‘__ walked so __ can run’, but Index Magazine took things further. Its knowingness, the unconventional rawness of its imagery, and its steadfast dedication to the interdisciplinary core of people’s stories set the stage for today’s editorial world – one that arguably now faces a cultural flattening. From the advent of the personal computer, to the social media age, the world has changed vastly. Is it time we did a little more to embrace our analog tradition?

In Peter’s eyes, yes. “When you put out a magazine, online or print, you’re taking a stand and making a commitment to what you’re passionate about. I think that’s important.” You only need to look at examples today: Vogue’s 73 questions’ is austere and tight, with its rehearsed yet unnatural visual narrative constantly recycled. This is in addition to recent news of Vogue’s print calendar winding down monthly issues under its new head of editorial content Chloe Malle. Despite this, print is here to stay, and with this retrospective, Index Magazine is cemented not as a moment in history to feel nostalgic about, but a reactivation of a “living experience” and “cultural experiment that still speaks directly to how we work today”, says Freddie.

Index Magazine is known for its colour play, heightened in comparison to its fellow print-mates who restricted their colour palettes to quiet minimalism. “We could do whatever we wanted because we didn’t have a corporate overlord monitoring us,” says Peter. But the magazine wasn’t always so vibrant – its first issues were in black-and-white because they couldn’t afford colour printing. As the magazine evolved, colour was introduced – oftentimes, each interview would have its own unique colour palette with typefaces unique to each headline. The magazine’s early era was considered by Freddie when creating the exhibition’s design system. He says: “That decision isn’t accidental: we wanted to evoke the black-and-white, bleeding newspaper-style format of the magazine’s earliest prints. It’s a reminder that Index carried both restraint and exuberance within its DNA.”

One of the most captivating issues in the exhibition is Hedi Slimane’s – a cover star most known for his stark black-and-white style of fashion photography. It’s an interesting demonstration of what happens when a photographer is photographed – a soft glow onto his profile, his shirt freely unbuttoned as he stands on a sandy beach. From Tom Ford’s all-American smoulder to Sonic Youth’s indie glare, Index’s cover stars stare right into the camera; except for Hedi Slimane, who has his eyes fixed toward the camera’s periphery. Daniel Day-Lewis’ cover carries the visual language of a script, pairing his wry smile with the fullness of the page. All this is to say, Index got to the core of these figures not only in its interviews, but also in the way it carried their essence into the magazine’s visual world too.

Freddie explains the decision to include a reading room at the exhibition’s centre: “Spreads and layouts are displayed in ways that highlight the magazine’s graphic decisions, letting people see how type, image, and pacing worked together to create its distinctive rhythm.” Placing image and its discovery at the forefront, Freddie’s retrospective becomes an extension of the magazine’s ongoing visual legacy – in preservation of print. For the exhibition, alongside its best known collaborators in Wolfgang Tillmans and Helmut Newton, Index spoke to the set designers behind Blade Runner Catherine Martin and Sid Mead, prolific composer Howard Shore, magazine designer Ruth Ansell, and many more. “We were interested in how things are put together. These are the people who are so important in shaping movies, fashion, and magazines, and most people would have never heard of them,” Peter shares.

For Wahter, Index is a cultural landmark. “It shaped how we understood aesthetics growing up – what it meant to be indie, what it meant to blur disciplines, how culture could be designed as much as photographed.” And so, revisiting the magazine for Paris Design Week re-contexualises the magazine for renewed appreciation. “The late 90s were the great era of independent, indie culture in film, fashion, music, magazines, etc,” says Peter. In bridging now to then, this exhibition highlights how Index Magazine did, and continues to do in reshaping editorial language and aesthetics.