Tina Rivers Ryan will depart as the editor in chief of Artforum, the influential magazine announced on Wednesday.
Rivers, a curator and essayist who joined the publication as its top editor in 2024, will be replaced by two staff members, Daniel Wenger and Rachel Wetzler. Wenger is currently an editor at Artforum, and Wetzler is the magazine’s executive editor. They will be promoted to a new joint role of co-editors.
In a news release announcing the editorial restructuring, Artforum’s publisher, Danielle McConnell, praised Ryan for having diversified the magazine’s print and digital offerings and its live events. “We are deeply grateful for her visionary leadership, which has positioned Artforum for continued growth and innovation,” McConnell said.
Ryan will leave her role at the end of February, according to the release.
Ryan had stepped into the leadership role at Artforum after a tumultuous year. It had just fired David Velasco, at the time its editor in chief, after he had signed and published an open letter calling for Palestinian liberation. (The letter, published amid the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, initially did not mention Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people.)
His termination led to the resignation of longtime editors and a boycott from artists. A skeleton crew was left to create a notably slimmer issue of the magazine.
In a post on social media after the announcement of her departure, Ryan, who came to the magazine from a curatorial role at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, said people had told her that she was being “shameless” when she took the position.
“In a way, they were right: I was and remain totally unashamed for having fought for such a large and authoritative platform to remain available to artists and writers,” she wrote.
Ryan did not immediately return a request for comment. Artforum declined to comment beyond its press release.
Wetzler was promoted to executive editor under Ryan last year, having earlier served as a senior editor. Wenger joined Artforum after holding editorial positions at The New Yorker, Medium and Harper’s.
“In their time with the magazine, Rachel and Daniel have been dynamic contributors to Artforum’s mission, and we look forward to their joint leadership,” Kate Koza, the associate publisher, said in the news release.
In her social media post, Ryan said Artforum’s April issue would be her last.
“I don’t have any plans for my future right now,” she wrote, adding, “If anyone has any ideas of what else needs to be built next, I’m all ears.”
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
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